Fred Kiesche asks if we can keep politics out of the CEV program.

Sorry, but politics intruded as soon as Dr. Griffin decided to build Shuttle-derived hardware as the launch vehicles, in order to assuage the politicians in Alabama, Utah and Florida who were worried about the loss of Shuttle jobs. Politics intruded with the decision to complete the useless (or at least, very poor value for the money) ISS, to maintain the international commitments.

It's completely unrealistic to expect a massive taxpayer-funded space bureaucracy to be unencumbered by politics.

Politics is central to the CEV program. It has such huge set asides for women/minority/puppy owned companies that there is no way that Boeing, Northrup, or Lockheed can put together a competent team to build that thing on time or within budget.

Giving your word to somebody has to mean something. Otherwise, I'd be for shutting down the ISS and Shuttle now. The money certainly could be put to better use. The saddest thing is it's always best to fold your hand earlier rather than later. The ISS is for sure no winning hand.

Does it actually have a use after it's completed? You know, something that couldn't have been done with skylab in the 70's?

When money comes from the government you get politics with it. For free, and whether you like it or not.

It was bad enough when the Shuttle program was stalled and the next generation was in flux. Now that the Shuttle program is still stalled and basically in a death rattle (4 flights, maybe, in 4 years, that's a really great way to show off the capabilities of the system ain't it?) and now that the next gen is looking like J. Average Cost-Plus government boondoggle (hey, let's see if we can use even more solid fuel rockets!) and now that NASA has decided to support this massive stinking pile of crap that is the continuation of the status quo at ever increasing prices and ever reducing returns even at the cost of cutting basic space science programs (what have they ever done for us other than expand our knowledge of the Earth / Solar System / Universe, inspire us in our daily lives, and trailblaze the way for future exploration? nothing!) Yeah, well, now that all that has come to pass I could really give a flying f*ck about NASA's manned spaceflight program. It's abundantly clear that they really don't care too much about actually advancing manned spaceflight and are only concerned with keeping the gravy train rolling to lockmart/boeing/et al. I'm getting to where I'd be happy if they zero'd out the manned spaceflight budget. They've mismanaged it so badly recently that I really don't see how it could be rescued. Realistically, I think Scaled/SpaceX/XCOR/etc. have as much of a chance of reviving manned spaceflight in the US in the next 10-20 years as does NASA.

Realistically, I think Scaled/SpaceX/XCOR/etc. have as much of a chance of reviving manned spaceflight in the US in the next 10-20 years as does NASA.

You think rather little of the alt.space companies, don't you?

But anyway, it's good to see more and more former NASA fans waking up and smelling the coffee.

Giving your word to somebody has to mean something. Otherwise, I'd be for shutting down the ISS and Shuttle now.

There are other ways to keep your word here. After all, I think the original promise was given in bad faith, that NASA currently isn't keep its word, and that perhaps nobody else really cares about the ISS either. Perhaps buying out the ISS partners and splashing or giving away the ISS to an interested party who can keep it out of trouble would be best.

Karl, I had some of those same thoughts. Any idea what the cost savings would be if we could buy out the partners? I would guess it would completely fund several methods rather than just the one they've chosen (especially if they get rid of the one they've chosen and just go with prizes.)