At least that’s what I want to think, because the idea that they’re serious is just depressing.

(1) Congress supports a human exploration program that is not critically dependent on the achievement of milestones by fixed dates …”

What that phrase does, is that it gives permission to Appropriators and to NASA for doing anything they want that ensures “development of capabilities and technologies necessary for human missions to lunar orbit, the surface of the Moon, the surface of Mars, and beyond”.

So everything counts. ISS, suborbital, commercial, SLS, Orion … everything. Anything can be funded at whatever level is easy to do, because there are no fixed dates. This authorization bill is all about pointing in the right direction, and not about getting anywhere.

Of course, when the funds aren’t available, Congress just huffs and puffs about pointing in the right direction, as they will, as directed, “establish a program to develop …”. Establishment of programs is cheap. Making them do something isn’t. This policy strategy is thus sadly defensible. But the money goes to constituents, so the program is, by default, successful.

I should note to our friend Mr. Grondine that this is exactly what Congress did with NEO detection. It said it was important, and (once the timeline in the George Brown amendment was ignored) grinned happily as it provided minimal funds.

This is about checking boxes.

Second, for some time now I have thought it will be a long time before humans successfully travel to Mars and do anything useful there. The health problems from spending even six months in LEO are significant. Mars is a very different planet from Earth. What will happen to humans in the microgravity environment of traveling to Mars? What problems will radiation cause? What will happen on Mars with less than full Earth gravity? And apparently some poisons dangerous to human health? I think we should be spending more time and effort investigating what happens to living beings in various gravitational environments. We might also look into what happens when we spin structures to give living beings some sort of gravity substitute.

No.

Brooks is referring to the Mike Griffin who tied NASA tech centers to a booster that suffered from severe combustion oscillation problems. One that literally “Blows Chunks”.

One that wasted $8 Billion and 7 years.

The Mike Griffin who crippled manned launchers and boosters from ULA while promoting ATK’s launcher and booster.

The Mike Griffin who acted in contempt of Congress in responding to the George Brown Jr. ammendment.

The same Mike Griffin who allowed AASS Ed Weiler to run amock to the tune of several billion dollars.

That Mike Griffin.

The Mike Griffin whose mess the current mission addresses as best it can, and does so within budget.

I’ve mentioned before that Obama may only invest so much political capital in fighting for Red State jobs, and he may just set back and let this implode, throwing as much fuel on this fire as possible.

Obama proposed his deal. Well, for many there is nothing like having Red States fight amoung themselves.

You mean THE Michael Griffin, the guy that allowed the Constellation program to run so far over budget that Congress agreed to cancel it?

I don’t think Rep. Mo Brooks appreciates the irony there…

1) Opposition to research on CO2 and its effects on climate, if any. I have no view on this, but will point out that in his veto of Kyoto, W. committed to spending enough research money to determine the effects of CO2 on climate, if any.

2) Support for ATK. My view from the start has been that if there is a legitimate defense need for larger solid grains,
DoD should pay for it. I think that in the future that money would be better spent putting ULA in the re-uszble first stage/booster business, in competition with SpaceX.
But as a large part of the US tech base is entwined with ATK’s solids now, work on those must continue for the time being.

In the Project Management Triangle of Fast, Good and Cheap, you can pick two, but you can’t have all three. So if Palazzo doesn’t want to fully fund the Commercial Crew program, and is telling NASA to do whatever it takes, including “radically altering their current plans”, it sounds like he is OK with sacrificing “Good” in order to get “Cheap” and “Fast”.

Not only that, but Palazzo doesn’t seem to understand that instead of spending $424M to buy another years worth of flights from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, that money could have been used to meet his fake deadline WITHOUT having to shortchange safety.

Yet another reason why Congress needs to stop trying to run NASA