Queen Bee Kay Bailey Hutchison was off her rocker again, repeatedly insulting Bolden, accusing him of secretly conspiring to cancel SLS. Bolden simply smiled and took the high road, complimenting her on her service. He replied with facts; it made her look quite nutty.

The rest of them just kept asking about pork for their states. Sherrod Brown from Ohio wants NASA to force ESA to use a test stand in his state.

They all want more money for SLS but not one of them said a word about what it would be used for.

The article (NASA Advisory Council: Select a Human Exploration Destination ASAP) outlines the work of the Human Exploration & Operations Committee (HEOC) of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) – a body that provides the NASA Administrator with counsel and advice on programs and issues of importance to the Agency.

I thought this excerpt was interesting:

“Major Reasons for the [future HSF exploration] Recommendation: The current mission objective for [SLS] EM-2 is listed as, “Demonstrate crewed flight beyond LEO.” Crewed flight beyond LEO was demonstrated more than 40 years ago in the Apollo program,” the HEOC group added. “NASA needs to show how EM-2 fits within the architecture for future human exploration beyond LEO and ensure that the objectives for a crewed lunar mission are consistent with the cost and risks involved.

“Consequences of No Action on the Recommendation: NASA leaves itself open to public criticism and loss of Congressional support if it cannot sufficiently justify the need for conducting a mission such as EM-2.”

In other words, don’t just fly around the Moon just because you want to show off your new rocket and capsule.

A couple of things are are starting to come together which will eventually force Congress to address NASA’s overall budget, and budget priorities.

1. If NASA does recommend a human exploration plan, or at least a destination, what does that do to NASA’s budget? Spending on the SLS and MPCV will continue for the next decade, and there is already not enough money to fund other NASA budget priorities such as Planetary Science.

2. What ever plan is proposed, any proposed budget that goes with it would have to show a very slow schedule if they assume the SLS will be used (which they have to for now). I think this will shock people how little we can do beyond LEO because of the sustaining costs of using the SLS.

3. I doubt a budget increase is being planned for NASA any time soon, so will the few in Congress who care about NASA (for many reasons) decide to double-down on the SLS to the detriment of other NASA programs? Or will this force a reassessment of the SLS?

I don’t think we’ll see much happening with NASA this year, but next year, regardless who is President, could be eventful.

Concur.

The important thing when calling witness for this type of political theatre is to make sure that –

1) You know the answers in advance
2) The answers are the ones you want.

Someone from the OMB stating – “Program X was y*100% over budget and the schedule was slipping at more than 1 month per month – of course we recommended termination” isn’t what they want to hear.

Got to hand it to B. Mikulski, she knows how to feed her constituents at the trough !

Mikulski is gracious, then Hutchison goes off on one of her nutty anti-SLS conspiracy tirades.

I guess that makes sense.

Re: Spelling

You’d think spell check would be smart enough to suggest that correct spelling with only one letter off… the closest option it was giving me was “appropriates.”

Oink. Oink. The Supercollider Redux.