– Donald

Yes, the tough reality is that — at a total development cost somewhere between $20 and 30 billion, even a billion might not be enough to accelerate Ares I/Orion by a single year, if it was all spent in Constellation.

That amount could do wonders in other parts of NASA’s budget — which I imagine is what Mikulski has in mind — but it’s not going to fundamentally fix the post-Shuttle gap or other human space flight problems.

FWIW…

Actually, in this case, what a unanimous consent agreement means is that no Senator objected — either because they didn’t care or because they just weren’t paying attention — to a procedural deviation that allowed the Senate to forgo a vote on the amendment. See:

http://www.senate.gov/reference/glossary_term/unanimous_consent.htm.

This is not the same thing — not by a long stretch — as a unanimous vote. It does not mean that the Senate held a vote and all 100 Senators voted for the amendment.

“That would seem to indicate a support for the exploration program that is both wide and deep and perhaps unstoppable.”

No vote was held, so it can’t be interpreted as a positive or definitive indication of support. At best, we can say no Senator cared enough to object. More likely, some, maybe even most, of the Senate just wasn’t paying attention. (Although those Senators that signed letters of support for the amendment — Mikulski, Hutchison, Clinton — obviously did support it.)

And again, the passage of this amendment has to be examined within the context of the President’s veto threats on all of these bills. None of these bills are really worth the paper they’re being printed on right now, which is probably the reason why no Senator cared enough to object or pay attention to the passage of the amendment.

FWIW…

I would like to see an analysis of what costs are covered and which ones would NOT be covered. One Billion Dollars sounds like a lot, but NASA is way behind on facilities maintenance, space science, etc.

Unfortunately, even a billion dollars will disappear into NASA’s accounts in a hurry. But can we fund all of the deficits that they have piled up?

It would be great if the billion dollars came along with a requirement to rationally examine their programs and only attempt those things that could be paid for, given the current fiscal climate.

I hope that none of this money will be used to purchase additional holes that would need to be filled with more money later.

Charles

One of two things will happen after the vetos: either fiscal reality will set in and more fiscally conservative bills will get passed, or FY08 will devolve into another set of continuing resolutions like FY07 did. Neither scenario bodes well for NASA spending, especially planned increases in exploration, or for plus-ups of this magnitude.

FWIW..

I did notice that Hillary signed on as a cosponser. Hard to reconcile that with her ambiguous “support” in her science agenda, but then she would not be the first pol to want to have it both ways,

– Donald