You best review the origins of the programs which began your civilian space agency and do a little homework on the early days. Army, Navy and AF projects chiefly, with the budgets that go along with them and the DoD wasn’t too happy losing it all to NASA. Even Von Braun was an Army guy and balked at first at having to go to NASA and lose the resources available from DoD. MOL was an AF program. NRO pressed the satellites due to costs. Much is public record now- even PBS did a programme on it. Context matters- Vietnam was costing a fortune at the time as was MOL. It had to go– and did. Apollo budgets were slashed as well after 11.

1. The DOD would not take it. They would let it languish and die.
2. MOL was canceled because the NRO found that it was not viable and unmanned systems were cheaper. To help you better understand this, MOL was an NRO program.

I also worked on the Constellation Program before I took my current job. Constellation was a “program,” not a “project.” Ending ISS was planned precisely because of the costs of the follow-on program, whether it was called “Constellation” at the time or not. Remember the now-infamous “sand chart?” Beyond that, analysts at HQS estimated years ago that CxP costs would exceed those of Shuttle and Station and were ignored.

The ISS is not a sacred cow. The fact remains, though, that it is the only viable destination for human spaceflight for the visible future and the only existing platform for long-duration microgravity research. I think it is penny-wise, pound-foolish to sacrifice that capability until we have a sustained exploration initiative underway and commercial platforms that can fill the niche.

I used to think like you about ending ISS when I worked Constellation, but that was because I didn’t know how much we’re actually learning on the Station and the capabilities that are really only coming into their own just now. As soon as Constellation went off the rails, the assumption that ending the ISS was for NASA’s own good went out the window. You’re not looking at the bigger picture.

For years now the Bigelow station has outpaced development of the private manned spacecraft that would serve it. Outpacing the very same spacecraft which supposedly will serve the ISS and which so many are now counting on.

“2016 was an arbitrary date driven by the Constellation budget, not any analysis of needs and capabilities.”

Nope.

The 2016 date was driven by the limited future budget of NASA and international commitments NASA was obligated to follow. Project Constellation didn’t even exist when the decision was made that the ISS should end. Ending ISS was to help NASA prosper and not done for the sake of Constellation costliness.

The fact is ISS absorbs a major fraction of the NASA manned space budget and it’s foolish to make ISS some kind of sacred cow. But sadly that seems the course both Obama and Congress are pushing for. Moo!

Tragic.

You don’t get it. Your ‘civilian’ space program is dying before your eyes
The point is, it’s probably the only chance to save any possibility of initiating the kind of space projects you covet.

I don’t “covet” any space projects. I haven’t said anything about what I support in space.

I am only addressing your point about NASA being folded into DOD, since you keep bringing it up, topic after topic after topic after topic after topic.

NASA will become something like ESA or JAXA long before it becomes part of DOD.

Any such projects like JWST or Hubble would be viewed as a waste of DOD resources that should go towards warfighting, and so they wouldn’t survive under DOD any better than now. All such projects would be cancelled to divert funding towards actual national security issues. There is absolutely no way to add a “national security” sticker to Cassini.

So, even in this crazy alternate universe you speak of, folding NASA into DOD offers no hope to anyone of keeping robotic exploration or HSF alive.

Military space ops at least have a chance of survival with the added shield of ‘national security’ and the DoD does what it is told to do by civilian authority.

“Military space ops” have nothing to do with Cassini and friends.

Also, there are some Constitutional limits on what the military is allowed to do. So, the civilian authority can’t just give the military any random task. It has to be related to national security somehow, and Cassini and friends in no way can be classified as national security assets.

Recall the military believed it was going assume a large part of missile and space research in the late 50′s before NASA was created and those projects were taken from them.

What’s your point? These were all defense-related items, which is why the military was doing it at all. But it is not going to go the other way, from NASA to DOD, unless it is defense-related somehow. Cassini, JWST, etc are not defense-related, so will not survive under DOD any better than at “luxury NASA”.

As to MOL, – it was a manned spy satellite project and the USAF didn’t ‘give up’ on it– it was cancelled due to its cost and the simple fact that automated spy satellites being built by ‘a competitive agency’ could deliver the same data cheaper and without risking crews.

Cancelling the one manned project the military had and then not starting another one for 40 years and counting sure qualifies as “giving up” to me. They gave it up because there was no point to it for them.

And if by ‘competitive agency’ you mean NASA, NASA doesn’t build or operate any spy satellites. That is the job of the NRO, which is part of DOD.

From http://www.nro.gov/index.html: “The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), located in Chantilly, Virginia, is one of the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. It designs, builds, and operates the spy satellites of the United States government…A DoD agency, the NRO is staffed by DoD and CIA personnel.”

When the above happens, then NASA is essentially out of the LEO HSF business. They can do whatever they and they’re international partners like with the ISS ’cause nobody will care. If they’re smart, they’ll put all they’re efforts into BEO and leave the LEO business to commercial.
As Bigelow once said when asked about his competition, ‘no-one’. The Bigelow modules will be available for lease, have better performance and pricing than the ISS and essentially countries that have been locked out of the existing ISS setup due to the huge funds required, will be able to go to space and have a space program of their own. Bigelow doesn’t want one or two up there, he reckons on 10 to 20 and says he has the interest to justify that. He has EOIs from 6 countries already and he hasn’t got anything that’s human-rate flying yet. What will he get when he has??!! This will fire up interest in HSF all over again – like it hasn’t since Apollo days.

SpaceX F1/Dragon flys in about 7 days. Elon reckons 60-70% chance of success. I’ll bet higher simply because they have delivered on everything so far. Maybe not on time, maybe for higher cost, but they have put new hardware in orbit. Something NASA failed to do over the last 30 years.

“NASA should be the only entity for HSF. They should be the main leaders in designing, developing and manufacturing all the space vehicles for HSF.”

According to a recent blog post of Wayne Hales, when NASA ordered the gemini capsule they gave the commercial aerospace contractor 2 1/2 pages of requirements that was the sum total of their “designing, developing and manufacturing” of that capsule.

When they ordered the apollo capsule they gave the commercial aerospace contractor 24 pages of requirements that was the sum total of their “designing, developing and manufacturing” of that capsule.

30 years ago they worked on the shuttle… so where is all this modern experince you think NASA has to “build” spacecraft? They don’t build much of anything when it comes to human spacecraft and never have.

Using your logic, my chevy car dealership should be in charge of designing, developing and manufacturing cars, not any GM plant.

The whole premise of private aerospace companies is to make a PROFIT – so costs will be high whether it is LM/Boeing/SpaceX.

1) The whole premise of LM, ATK, Boeing, ULA, and every other NASA contractor is to make a profit. Costs have BEEN high for the last 40 years.

When NASA signs a fixed price contract with LM, Orbital, SpaceX, Boeing etc., the same engineers, welders, electronics techs, and fabricators do the work that delivers the product. NASA relies on these contractors to build what they develop. As far as LVs is concerned, NASA has FAILED to build a workable LV with cost-plus contracting.

NASA should be the only entity for HSF. They should be the main leaders in designing, developing and manufacturing all the space vehicles for HSF.

See #1 above.

Of course, some of the funds definitely need to be contracted out to private companies, but NASA should be the main overseers. This is one of the Space Agency’s main goals when it was first developed.

Nonsense. Stephen Smith has posted many times NASA’s Charter and nowhere does it charge NASA with “overseeing” Human Space Flight. Quite the opposite, actually. But you know that, Gary.

They also have a LOT of experience in this area. I think it will be a tragedy for us to soley depend on commercial spaceflight and this may cost the lives of our future crew.

They have more experience with killing astronauts than any other agency, company, or organization. So until CCDEV or COTS-D chalks up 14 kills, NASA really has no reason to point fingers, or to try and play the “fear card”.

If given the choice between riding the Shuttle, or a CST100/Delta IV, I’d go with the one that hasn’t killed anyone yet.