I got up at O Dark Thirty this morning to catch a flight to DC for the Space Transportation conference tomorrow, and haven’t had a lot of time to catch up on news, But Bob Zimmerman has thoughts on the announcement.

One of the reasons I left Rockwell over a quarter of a century ago was that it had become clear to me that they were never going to do anything commercial in space. It annoyed management when I told them this, but they knew it was true; they weren’t in the space business, they were in the government-contracting business. We’ll see how this goes.

It was just released, and at first glance, it appears to be a disaster. More anon.

[Saturday-morning update]

No moon in 2024, must use SLS to get to the moon, not allowed to do anything on the moon that would help with Mars, not allowed to purchase commercial landing services, not allowed to do any exploration at the South Pole for ice.

So you want a permanent lunar base? Or mine ice from the south pole of the Moon. No, sorry, the bill says. pic.twitter.com/WEnlifh45n

— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) January 24, 2020

Basically, what the House seems to be demanding in the NASA authorization is a cost-plus redo of Apollo, with no firm date. Probably written by Boeing.

— Not-So-OK Boomer (@Rand_Simberg) January 25, 2020

Saturday-afternoon update]

Here‘s Jeff’s story.

[Monday-morning update]

It’s the greatest hits of terrible space policy.

[Bumped]

[Update a while later]

Eric Berger’s take.

[Late-morning update]

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation has weighed in.

Concluding paragraph from letter to members of the House SS&T cmte sent by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation this morning. CSF wants the bill withdrawn. pic.twitter.com/zjEk9Q33eG

— Marcia Smith (@SpcPlcyOnline) January 27, 2020

The Planetary Society isn’t happy, either.