With the exception of ATK, the contractors seem to have reached acceptance:
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, which has a manufacturing plant in West Palm Beach, is not the only aerospace giant turning their back on Constellation. Boeing Co. also appears to be joining the ditch-the-Ares crowd.
During every shuttle launch, Boeing publishes a “Reporter’s Notebook” full of facts,figures and puffery about NASA’s latest orbiter mission. These are handed out with other freebies to journalists, VIPs and anybody else looking for launch SWAG. Every notebook always starts with a section on Constellation.
“The vision to inspire begins with a dream of hope and knowledge and ends with a mission of purpose and realization,” it began — that is until now.
The Constellation section vanished from the latest notebook prepared for the STS-131 flight of Discovery’s resupply mission to the space station. The cut was not unintentional or left for keen-eyed reporters to discover on their own like old Soviet-era readers looking for possible changes in Politburo by reading the Pravda newspaper to see whose name was left out of stories. No. In this case the change was pointed out, somewhat boastfully by Boeing spokesman Ed Memi.
“Hey Bobby, you’ll see that we finally took out the Constellation section of the notebook,” Memi said as I picked one up early on Monday morning ahead of the launch.
ATK remains in either denial or anger, though they may be starting to bargain. And of course, there are payoffs, such as the new engine development for P&W. But as for the Program of Record, it’s dead, Jim.
I never understood why Boeing even cared about the cancellation, considering how small their piece of Constellation was. Any change of course would only give them a chance to improve their position vis-a-vis Lockheed.
I’m also surprised Boeing still gives out those reporters’ notebooks. I’m told that very few reporters show up at the press center anymore — it’s easier for most of them to cover the story via the Internet, rather than fly to Florida and hang around for days waiting for a launch that may or may not happen. (Maybe for the next launch, they should give out iPads. 🙂
Here’s another workforce preservation option:
http://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com/2010/04/sidemount-reconsidered.html
I don’t know if the budget ‘closes’ on this one.
Yours,
Tom
Boeing’s “thanks for visiting” gifts have included iPods with Boeing logos before, so not a giant leap. But they may not be for the hoi polloi press guys and aimed at the “Hi, I’d like to buy an airplane” guys.
I for one am, if my postings at NSF haven’t been deleted yet you likely know already, incredibly pleased to see the ICBM-Industrial complex take a dirt nap with Obama’s budget for NASA. I’m even more amused to hear air farce generals claiming EELV launches will become more expensive now that Constellation is cancelled, as if ULA subcontractors are incapable of laying off or retiring redundant management staff. Then again, SpaceX is probably lolling at the idea that their main domestic competition intends to make itself even less competitive against Falcon 9.