The WaPo has an editorial today on space policy, that points out some of the flaws in the Congressional rocket design, but misses the mark in many ways, as others have point out:
Last year, the Augustine commission found that without an additional $3 billion in funding over the next several years, the Bush administration’s Constellation program for manned spaceflight and a return to the moon would be impossible.
I’m not sure what they mean by this, but it would seem to imply that it’s only three billion over several years (perhaps half a billion per year) when in fact it is an additional three billion per year. That is how much bigger Mike Griffin’s rocket appetite was than his budget.
It goes on:
…the new plan added a manned mission to asteroids and even a visit to Mars by 2025 without allocating more funds for that. This makes little sense.
Yes, it would make little sense if that was actually the plan, but contra the editors, there is no date associated with a Mars mission. It is simply the “eventual goal.”
Referring to the White House, Senate and House plans, they note:
All three plans for space have in common an unwillingness either to abandon the dream of human spaceflight or to confront the budget reality. But with the funding for NASA set around $19 billion and not likely to change, bold plans for humans in space are simply not feasible. Something must give. If the administration and Congress truly want human spaceflight, they need to fund it adequately. Piecemeal funding that dooms programs to failure is a waste of money — especially when so many truly vital space functions, from the satellites that supply maps and communications to the telescopes that allow us to glimpse distant worlds, could benefit from such support.
That’s true of both congressional plans, but not the White House plan. It may not have been articulated very well to date, but the administration plan is the only one that is responsive to the grim choices laid out by the Augustine panel last fall. Congress seems to ignore them completely, continuing to prefer pork over progress, and potemkin human spaceflight programs over real ones. There is, of course, nothing magic about $19B — certainly the Congress could increase it if it wants, it light of the explosion of budget in all other areas (NASA used to be almost one percent of the federal budget — this year, it’s about half of that, not because its budget was cut, but because the federal budget essentially doubled in the past year). But there is no need for more money, and if it were forthcoming, reviving Constellation in anything resembling its previous form would be a ghastly waste of it. Unfortunately, actual accomplishments in space remain unimportant to those who decide the funding for it.