“And amend to that the fact that not one of them has offered to increase Constellation’s budget one penny to help finish the project.”

Which should have been a major clue to those on Constellation management hoping for a Congress bailout do to speak! Anyway…

The painful reality that nobody, especially several Members of Congress from MY affiliated party (GOP), want to acknowledge, is that the money simply does not exist to make Constellation successful… This is what Augustine said. Constellation is not executable inside the current budget. You don’t have to like it or even agree, but you cannot prove that it is executable…

And amend to that the fact that not one of them has offered to increase Constellation’s budget one penny to help finish the project.

Brother Muncy has a reasonable amount of legislative experience. I have talked to a person who has been the Chief of Staff to a TExas Senator, who you met, and he more or less says Muncy is right on track.

He made another point as well.

This move by the Administration will likely flesh out what support or lack of it there is for continuing Constellation. If, as I suspect there is no serious reaction from any of the “non space” represenatives, if the only people who howl are those whose pork is being gored…

well the show is mostly over for Constellation.

His guess (and he lobbies now) is that there is little support for the program if for no other reason then it cost (to use his words) “so much fracken money”.

He also reflects my surprise that the Constellation folks have not moved very quickly to come up with or embrace some alternate form of a program, one that is affordable. The sticking point here is ATK…what the Save Constellation folks have come down to is not “save the Moon” it is save the Ares booster…and that program is so “fracked up” that it is just not doable. AS Gunner noted “if it was about the Moon, they would be hugging Atlas and Delta as hard as they can go”.

The sad thing is that ISS has almost become like WW1…it has just about bleed the government space agencies white.

Robert G. Oler

“And as someone who has worked in the Executive Office of the President AND on the Hill, I would like to point out a few painful realities to those who honestly believe NASA is bound by law to continue Constellation as if nothing were going to change.

First of all, Congress did not forbid any changes in the Program of Record. The actual appropriations LAW, as opposed to the report language, forbade total cancellation of any projects during FY2010, unless Congress spoke again. The Executive Branch, as a matter of precdent, has never accepted that they are bound by ‘report language’ as opposed to explicit provisions of law.

Now, note that this doesn’t mean that programs can’t be ‘slowed down’.

Furthermore, federal contractors are usually entitled to some amount of funds for cancellation penalties if a program is terminated. Those usually pass thru to subcontractors also. But prime contractors have the choice as to whether to believe the government will eventually pay them from a future appropriation, or to keep enough money in escrow to pay these costs.

This Administration has decided that Lockheed and ATK are responsible for those costs, and must not spend remaining FY2010 funds on actual work, but hold on to them for termination costs.

Therefore, in effect, work on Constellation is stopping…

There is a difference between cancellation of the program, and slowing down spending on the program in preparation for shut down on October 1st, the beginning of FY2011. The former, if carried out in FY2010, would violate the letter of the law. The latter does not.

More importantly, if there is not enough money left in FY2010 to carry out the original plan to continue spending on the Constellation projects AND keep a reserve for paying cancellation costs, then spending can stop. I realize this is a terrible way to run the program, but it’s also a requirement of existing laws.

It would have been much better if Congress hadn’t posited in the FY2010 appropriation that the Augustine report didn’t exist and there was no reason to change direction until FY2011. If Congress had wanted to explicitly say in law don’t make any changes, don’t slow down, ignore termination and antideficiency requirements… then they could have. They didn’t.

Instead, they said ‘don’t cancel’. So the Administration isn’t canceling the programs. They are simply honoring ALL of the laws they must, while trying to move to a sustainable and affordable program in FY2011 that can survive future budget problems, which we already see coming up with the new proposed 5% reduction in discretionary spending.

… Cx management at JSC has been trying to get around this direction, and continue spending money on actual Constellation progress. This may indeed be in keeping with the intent of Senator Shelby and others in Congress, but it is not what the explicit letter of the law says.

The Antideficiency Act, and various procurement laws, also bind NASA to do certain things, including retaining funds for contract cancellation.

The Constellation contractors hate this, since they want their projects to continue. So do the folks who have been loyally trying to make Constellation work, like the new Cx lead guy.

The painful reality that nobody, especially several Members of Congress from MY affiliated party (GOP), want to acknowledge, is that the money simply does not exist to make Constellation successful… This is what Augustine said. Constellation is not executable inside the current budget. You don’t have to like it or even agree, but you cannot prove that it is executable…

… If folks want to say that this direction is unlawful, then they should say so publicly and possibly resign. But ultimately the question of legality is between the White House and Congress… it is not a question for GS-14s or even SESes at JSC to decide.”

FWIW…