Citing my Reason piece, the Washington Times comes out against the rocket to nowhere.

[Update a while later]

Dick Shelby is a uniter, not a divider:

It’s rare to get the Obama Administration and the conservative editorial page of the Washington Times in agreement on something. Yet, both have spoken out in opposition to report language in the Senate’s Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill—due to be considered by the full Senate this week—regarding cost and pricing data for commercial crew and cargo providers.

Well, it’s not like he has any political principles other than what will get him reelected.

Dale Skran has a review, that mirrors a lot of my own concerns with it:

There is no discussion at all that the prospect for increased traffic to LEO for all purposes, including tourism, might lead to significantly lower costs; or that it may lead to reusable spacecraft with superior operational characteristics relative to existing vehicles or the SLS. This glaring absence seems remarkable given the stated goal of SpaceX to develop just such lower-cost, reusable craft, as well as their considerable progress in this direction. Of course, the efforts of SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, XCOR Aerospace, and others to greatly reduce launch costs may all fail. However, the NRC report is based on the unstated assumption that over the entire period considered, all the way out to 2054, there will be essentially no progress in rocketry other than that funded by NASA exploration programs, and that for the entire period the SLS as currently envisioned will remain the preferred method for Americans to reach space. It is difficult to imagine a more unlikely foundation for the planning of future space efforts than this.

It is extremely myopic, and therefore of little value, but it was probably doomed to be so by its charter.

I have a description of the current policy mess over at Reason.