More space transition news. This could be a horrific disaster:
Potential Secretary of Transportation: James Oberstar, member of the House of Representatives since 1975.
Oberstar overseeing the FAA would mean safety regulation on the commercial spaceflight industry that would strangle it in the cradle. If they have any influence, Lori, George and Alan need to work as hard as they can to get a different candidate.
A commenter suggests that Bill Richardson, who has spent a lot of effort as governor on getting a commercial spaceport in his state, won’t be happy about this (at least if he understands the implications). He could be a key leverage point with the incoming administration.
Normally, the selection of a NASA administrator is low priority in a presidential transition, because (as I point out often) space is not very important, politically. That may be different this year, though. The GAO has identified Shuttle retirement as an urgent transition issue.
Which brings up an interesting point. In addition to the snow princess, who are “Hefferen, Ladwig, Whitesides, and Monje“? I know that “Ladwig” is Alan and “Whitesides” is George, but I’ve never heard of the other two.
I will also say that I am somewhat reassured by the involvement of Lori, Alan and George in the transition, if they are, because they all understand the importance of commercial solutions. I would also add that if President-elect Obama wants to (at least for bipartisan appearance’ sake) appoint some token Republicans, NASA would be a good ostensibly non-political place to do it. I wonder what Alan Stern’s political affiliation is?
Jeff Foust has a post on some key races, though he talks about how they will affect “space.” I think we’ll do fine in space, regardless of election outcomes. It’s NASA, and NASA human spaceflight supporters who should be worried.
There’s a good article over at NASA Spaceflight on the lift-off drift problem of the Ares 1.
Safe, simple, soon. Scam.
[Update a couple minutes later]
More at the Orlando Sentinel, on the Congressional Budget Office finding that the vehicle can’t hit its IOC date without billions more. And there will still be a gap.
Billions of dollars to develop a new vehicle we don’t need, when we could have been flying something by 2010 or 2011 with Steidle’s original plan.
A commercial comsat is being retired after thirty-two years. The original design life was five. Space hardware tends to be overdesigned, but I wonder how they had enough propellant to go that long?
So an older, immature design of the Orion capsule is brought up for review and passes muster, when it fact it lacks many of the features a flight worthy capsule would have (e.g., a weight that would be liftable, a means of landing that won’t kill the occupants) along with several that a real vehicle wouldn’t have (e.g., extra amounts of hot water for BroomHilda’s cauldron).
That’s not the way the process is supposed to work.
Unfortunately, the IG’s office, not known for their brilliance or their ethics, took the ESMD Viceroy’s non-concurrence with their findings and said, “ok, so sorry to have bothered you,” and moved on.
Can’t anyone here play this game? How much longer before this misbegotten program augers in?
I’ve certainly always believed that NASA can get anything to fly with enough time and billions of dollars. The issue is cost-effectiveness. This vehicle, which is obsolete for the 20th century much less the 21st, is simply not going to pay off in terms of making space exploration cheaper or safer.
Ignoring its gigantic price tag for the moment, if Ares I were just one of several competing commercial rocket vehicle projects funded in a COTS type of program, I have no doubt that NASA would have been canceled it long ago just on technical grounds and missed milestones. Unfortunately, when a large project is developed internally, it becomes virtually impossible to stop, especially in a case like this where the top management is so deeply invested in it. The next administration might take another look at Ares but unfortunately the battle for Florida votes has left both candidates committed to it as a jobs program. Such is how a promising vision for space exploration finds itself hung by a boondoggle.
While I agree, I have to say that the last sentence sounds painful. And at least psychically, it is.