Folks, there is no more money. NASA isn’t getting a massive budget increase of $6B/year to do Constellation and extend the ISS. Reality welcomes you when you feel like accepting it.

Flying Apollo was dangerous, just as flying Shuttle is dangerous.

Nixon pulled the plug on Apollos 18-20 before Apollo 13, but certainly there was a sense that each flight was a huge risk, not to mention very expensive.

Bush cancelled Shuttle in January 2004 after the CAIB report, which concluded that Shuttle was an inherently dangerous design with a fatal flaw — the crew vehicle mounted on the side, which could expose it to flame and falling debris.

The only reason JFK proposed the Moon program was to show the world our technology was better than the Soviets. We did that. There was no point to continue with the program.

I don’t know what you mean by impossible. Certainly, with enough money, the program could have been resurrected. What were the political chances that Richard Nixon could have done that with a Democrat Congress, even if he’d wanted to? And as far as cost, it would have been far easier to resurrect Shuttle now, than Apollo/Saturn then.

Yes, Nixon could have flown out the hardware, but it was Johnson who ordered the end of the production, before Nixon became president. And for better or worse, Nixon started the Shuttle (and approved Skylab).

As I said, space is one of the most nonpartisan areas of policy, and it doesn’t help the debate for people to try to make it partisan (as we can see from so much of the knee-jerk reaction to the Obama plans).

What do you know about LAS or LAV? Do you know if it “always” makes the launch safer? If you answer no at either question then go post your stuff elsewhere.

Oh well…

“So far its been 6 years and a whole lot of nothin’ for that cash”. Au contraire! On the COTS program (awarded by Griffin/Bush), NASA is getting exactly what they want, and they only pay for it when they get it – it’s called a milestone schedule, and it’s a wonderful way to keep costs from ballooning (like on Constellation). For the ISS COTS deliveries, Orbital and SpaceX only get paid when they deliver – what a concept.

I would imagine that you are advocating more Cost-plus contracts? Enjoy spiraling costs?

If we’re going to be able to afford doing stuff in space, then we need to reduce the costs. Constellation was not going to do that. Just divide the development costs of Ares I or Ares V by the number of launches they could do in their first 20 years, and you would see that they are hugely expensive – and that’s without accounting for the materials, production, overhead and launch costs. They were going to bankrupt the space program!

No Constellation supporter has ever been able to justify their support of the program by showing the economics of the program – can you?

Nixon didn’t cancel Apollo. Johnson did, in 1967, under pressure from Congress and the war.

Let’s be factual here. LBJ may have put an end on the number of missions, but Nixon cancelled Apollos 18, 19 and 20 within a few months after Apollo 11 landed on the Moon.