…has issued a press release on the wilfully wasteful spending by NASA, at Congressional insistence:

On October 11, 2010 President Obama signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, which provided $10 billion to fund existing contracts for Ares and Orion over the next three years. Nonetheless, NASA delivered a report to Congress this week that concluded that it still can’t build a rocket that “fits the projected budget profiles nor schedule goals outlined in the Authorization Act.”

The Orion space capsule has already cost the government $4.8 billion, requires another $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2011, and will not be operational until 2014. As WESH in Orlando has noted, commercial providers have already demonstrated the same capabilities at one tenth of the cost of the still in development Orion capsule.

“Taxpayers now recognize that President Obama and his congressional allies will say anything to sound fiscally rational, but their actions tell a different story. The spendthrifts in Washington, D.C. cannot continue to sink tax dollars into this black hole; the Constellation program should be a prime target for the new Congress as it seeks ways to cut wasteful spending and reduce the deficit,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.

But it won’t be — too many phony-baloney jobs at stake.

A nit — Dragon hasn’t really (yet) demonstrated the same capabilities as Orion. Or rather, what Orion’s capabilities will be if it is ever completed. They really have different requirements. But they’re not different enough to justify the difference in cost, and it’s actually much greater than stated — Dragon is much less than a tenth of the cost of Orion.

[Update early evening]

Just to clarify, Congress is insisting that NASA waste money, not that CAGW issue a press release. Though maybe that’s their subliminal desire. They can be kinky that way. I probably should have left out the comma, to decrease the ambiguity. A practical grammar lesson.

Kay Bailey Hutchison will not be running for reelection. Why?

Instead of putting my seat into a special election, I felt it was my duty to use my experience to fight the massive spending that has increased our national debt; the government takeover of our health care system; and the growth of the federal bureaucracy, which threatens our economy.

Hey, if she’s worried about spending, I know a line item at NASA that could be profitably cut. It starts and ends with an “S.”

NASA has told Congress that the Nelson rocket can’t be done within the schedule or budget. The GAO will back them up. This rocket is dead on arrival.

[Update a while later]

What’s happening here is that NASA is telling the truth because they think it will ultimately kill this legislated monstrosity, which they don’t want to build (at least at HQ). In the Shuttle days, they went along with an underfunded program because they feared that otherwise they’d have nothing (in terms of staying in the human spaceflight business). Today, they realize the the way forward is fixed-price contracts for services, not government rockets.

Maybe. I’d like to call in on the phone bridge to today’s press conference with Gerstenmaier and Shannon, but I don’t have a center press credential. I’m hoping that someone, perhaps Oberg, will ask what should be the obvious question today — what are the program consequences of shutting the system down now? It seems to me that the only reason that they wanted three more flights is to preserve the jobs as long as possible, and the only real lost capability will be AMS, which they could perhaps put up on something else (e.g., Falcon 9, if a Dragon were in place to tug it to ISS). Of course, as I noted over at Space Politics, Nelson et al don’t really care whether the Shuttle actually flies or not, as long as they keep spending the money. But it’s gong to look like a ripe place to cut.

Alan Boyle discusses the impact on the space program, and policy going forward. I don’t think if will have much effect on policy given that she is now in the minority, but I hadn’t considered the implications for whether or not Kelly will fly this spring. But in retrospect, it’s obviously a major issue.