Three commentaries over at the New York Times, from John Derbyshire, John Logsdon, and Seth Shostak. Common theme: it’s about exploration and science, not development. So, as usual, it’s orthogonal to the issues actually facing us.

[Update late morning]

Derb writes:

From the beginnings of modern science in the late 17th century, all the major European nations offered state support to societies and academies of pure research. Such support must submit to public audit, however. In a time of cratering public finances, the stupendous costs of manned spaceflight — half a billion dollars per shuttle launch — cannot be justified.

Ah. So he doesn’t believe that it’s intrinsically a function in which the government shouldn’t be involved. He just thinks it costs too much. He’s like the woman in the bar, who has established what she is, and is merely haggling over the price.

So, if we could put people into space for half a million per flight, would that be acceptable? If not, what cost would be?

The nice thing about the new policy is that, for the first time in almost forty years, or at least the first time since we decided to do Apollo on Geritol and gave up on the goal, we are not only setting a goal of reducing launch costs, but actually proposing sensible policies with which to meet it. As I noted at Pop Mechanics, Ares was going to vastly increase launch costs over Shuttle. That always was, and remains, the biggest reason to oppose it.

…by Esther Dyson, over at Foreign Policy. The Space Frontier Foundation is cited.

Paul Spudis continues to mourn the Vision for Space Exploration. I don’t think it’s lost yet — what was really cancelled was ESAS and Apollo on Geritol. There is not currently a specific goal, but I think that it’s still possible to reform (in the literal sense of that word) the VSE over the coming months, refocused on the original intent of lunar utilization. With regard to the Chinese, I am completely unconcerned about whether or not they plant a flag. If they show signs of doing resource utilization, though, I’ll be more concerned, and I suspect that the political establishment will as well, kicking off a true new race. But we won’t know that for years, at their current snail’s pace.

[Update a few minutes later]

Speaking of going back to the moon, Jon Goff has more thoughts on one-way-to-stay trips, which are probably the only way we’ll get back in the next decade. I’m wondering if it’s possible to do a “stone soup” project, and get commercial entities (e.g., Caterpillar) to donate components for the mission for PR purposes.

I have a longish rebuttal to Tom Jones up at Popular Mechanics.

[Update a few minutes later]

In case you’re confused, there are a couple problems with the piece that I’m trying to get fixed. First of all, obviously, that was supposed to be two billion dollars per launch not two bucks per launch (if only…). And I’ve quoted Tom Jones in the first paragraph on the second page, and farther down the page, Charlie Bolden, but there are no quote marks right now, so it makes it look as though their words are mine.

[Late afternoon update]

Jeff Greason weighs in on fairing-size issues in comments, and Jon Goff has some thoughts on heavy-lift technologies.

[Update a few minutes later]

The quotes on page two have been fixed, but we still have dollar-store prices for Ares I flights.

[Early evening update]

Ken Murphy says it’s the dawn of a new space enterprise.

This is sort of interesting, if true:

NASA sees China’s strategy for a manned lunar landing as launch vehicle intensive. While America’s notional Constellation moon project centers on a single – and still unbuilt – Ares-V “superheavy” lift booster for a direct ascent to the moon and two “lunar orbit rendezvous” operations, China will likely opt for two complex “Earth orbit rendezvous” maneuvers.

This will require four “Long March V” rockets – in the same class as the Pentagon’s Delta IV heavy lift launch vehicles – to put their cosmonauts on the moon. Launched in pairs over a two-week period from China’s new Wenchang Space Center on the South China Sea island of Hainan, the four Long March Vs will each loft 26-ton payloads into low Earth orbits. The first mission will orbit the rocket for the translunar journey which will then join a second payload of an empty lunar module (LM) and its lunar-orbit rocket motor. Those first two unmanned payloads will rendezvous in Earth orbit and then fire off for the quarter-million-mile journey to the moon.

Once the unmanned LM is in a stable lunar orbit, the second pair of missions will be launched into Earth’s orbit; the first with another translunar rocket motor and the second with a combined payload comprising the lunar orbiting module, a modified service module, an Earth re-entry module and the manned Shenzhou capsule with three Chinese cosmonauts.

Unlike many at NASA, they’re smart enough to avoid the huge development costs of a heavy-lifter. Of course, it will still be a very expensive mission, but based on existing vehicles. We looked at these kinds of architectures at Boeing during CE&R, before Mike Griffin took over and they became anathema. Of course, we were trying to actually satisfy the requirements of the VSE and the Aldridge recommendations, something that Mike apparently never considered important.

I should add that the article is clearly wrong on this point:

October’s launch of the experimental Ares 1-X heavy lift rocket, while flawless, may well mark the end rather than the beginning of America’s next-generation Constellation manned-space program.

It was hardly “flawless,” unless you don’t consider a failure to deploy all the chutes a flaw.

Dick Shelby is being as despicable as any Democrat. If the Republicans were smart, they’d have him stand down. But there’s a reason they’re called the Stupid Party.

[Friday evening update]

For those unfamiliar with his (Democrat) past, it’s useful to know that he was once dinged as “Porker Of The Month.”

Again, if the Republicans are incapable of disciplining this kind of thing, what is the point in even having a party, or principles thereof? Did they learn nothing from Ted Stevens?