Back in the old days, the head of NASA had most of the power. Congressmen hated that, because they had to kiss up to him to get the pork they wanted allocated to their states.

The way it is now, they have the program directors who kiss up to them directly for their operating budget. Once a congressman gets that pork program started in their district or state, they can count on their program guy to try to milk that sucker for as long as possible. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense for the space program or for the US, as long as it is good for the the congressman’s district, that’s all that matters. Effectively this is congress’ way of usurping the powers of the Executive branch. It really sucks for us as taxpayers.

I know cost plus has a role. Any X program needs to be cost plus as they develop wholy new technolgies. As is most Big Military programs.

The CEV, CXV and a Shuttle Dereived HLV are all incremental technologies. (CXV is the more complex of these with more incremental steps then the other two. And with the drop tests succeded all new tech as been reasearched the rest is incremental and issues of scale, IIRC )

Though it is disheartening that the CXV is not designed for 5 crew members. If it were it could contend for Bigalow’s American Space Prize, if it got private funding. Though, if no one else meets the deadline, t/space may get the servicing contract from Bigalow. That may force Lockheed and Boeing to take internal incentives to reduce cost so they can compete in the private market. With Cost plus there is no incentive to reduce costs.

I dunno, maybe i need to look at a timeline that meats the deadline that doesn’t require the government. (I hope there is one)

We did that for years on space station. That was the impetus behind all of the baseline changes too. They needed their big, annual contract change so they could get well from the cost overruns. The schedule would always slide years to the right, the final cost would go through the roof, and the capability would decrease.

Cecile: “And I think Griffin is the one man who can pull it off in an economical manner.”

I guess we’re on a roll here, I think I agree with you on this one, too. Which doesn’t mean I think it can be done — I don’t — but if it can, Griffin is probably the man.

— Donald

(I can dream can’t I?)

That is a concern, but I believe Mr. Griffin plans on getting the ball rolling on HLV development to a “critical mass” point so that by January 2009 it will be very difficult to kill. There again is where the srb/et etc. constituencies come into play.

I don’t believe developing a shuttle derived HLV has to be as expensive as you believe it will be. And I think Griffin is the one man who can pull it off in an economical manner.

There’s not a word here I disagree with.

Cecil: The most dangerous period, from the standpoint of cancellation on political grounds, is passed through much more quickly using HLV to get the lunar base in place.

Here is where I disagree. _I_ think the most dangerous period of cancelation is somewhere in the middle of HLV development, say, when Mr. Bush leaves office or when funding for the HLV and lunar base development peak at the same time, before either project has anything to show for the money spent. The second most dangerous period is the inevitable (we are talking real world here) period when HLV is running late and over budget, we’ve got large budgets involved in developing the lunar base, and there is nothing on the moon to show for it.

However, if somebody can convince me that we can do both projects at once without increasing NASA’s budget or delaying that first payload on the moon, I’m sold.

I don’t think that’s possible. That’s why my compromise suggestion: get some sort of experimental oxygen generation plant on the moon before you ramp up too much funding in either the HLV or the base — so you’ve got a success to point to during these periods. If you’re producing LOX on the moon and using it to fuel, say, a polar sample return mission, you’re demonstrating that all of this can really work and that the money being invested in the HLV and the lunar base lead somewhere. . . .

Results soon. That’s all I want!

— Donald

I’m only a proponant of HLVs as its the best way to beat what I see is an inverse point of no return. Which is where we will not have the reasources avaible to exsist must less get into space. If my desires come true, sometime late this century or early next the only thing we will be lifting to Space is people. And all construction of space hardware is done elsewhere in the solarsystem.

But my goal is to make sure we can import reasources from space so that we can thrive on earth without needs of removing personal liberties. But thats getting off topic