Comments on: Conference report adds details to House’s proposed $16.6-billion NASA budget http://www.spacepolitics.com/2013/07/16/conference-report-adds-details-to-houses-proposed-16-6-billion-nasa-budget/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=conference-report-adds-details-to-houses-proposed-16-6-billion-nasa-budget Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway... Wed, 17 Sep 2014 13:35:41 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 By: Neil Shipley http://www.spacepolitics.com/2013/07/16/conference-report-adds-details-to-houses-proposed-16-6-billion-nasa-budget/#comment-419204 Wed, 17 Jul 2013 13:36:11 +0000 http://www.spacepolitics.com/?p=6492#comment-419204 NASA still has no idea what SLS/MPCV will actually cost. Either that or more likely they’re ashamed to be associated with perpetrating such on the American taxpayer. No leadership in evidence either. Pathetic really. This program is consigning NASA to irrelevancy for the next several decades unless Congress wakes up and the U.S. really will lose their lead in spaceflight to other countries.

]]> By: Dark Blue Nine http://www.spacepolitics.com/2013/07/16/conference-report-adds-details-to-houses-proposed-16-6-billion-nasa-budget/#comment-419173 Wed, 17 Jul 2013 04:45:32 +0000 http://www.spacepolitics.com/?p=6492#comment-419173 “The committee is also concerned that NASA’s work on the Space Launch System (SLS) is not progressing fast enough towards a version with a 130-ton payload capacity. ‘As a result, the program would likely reach a plateau with the achievement of the 70 metric ton capability,’ the report states.”

The GAO reported that NASA has deferred work on the 130-ton Block II due to budget pressures and can’t produce a cost estimate for anything after the first, unscrewed launch of the 70-ton Block I in 2017. See p. 69:

http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/653866.pdf

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