Budget items are one thing. They are not a substitute for legitimate questions as to “where are we going to send our astronauts, when do we expect to fly missions BEO, and how are we going to do it.” The Administration’s biggest mistake wasn’t canceling CxP (though I feel it’s one of those), it was doing so without having an alternative program-even a bare-bones one that would be fleshed out with much more details later on-to offer in its place. Again: a failure to communicate, and faulty assumptions that Congress-still with a Democratic House at the time, would simply go along. At least Charlie Bolden had the guts to say it a week after the rollout: that he blew the presentation, didn’t listen to his PAOs, and he at least took the rap for it. Too bad Garver (and Dr. Holdren) didn’t.

Again, Ron: Perception counts in a lot of things, politics being one, and informing the public another. The Administration did little to counter the perception of “outsourcing HSF to private contractors”, “abandoning leadership in space”, and so on. Their fault. Not those who disagree with them.

“it was the perception that the Administration was against BEO missions that led to that.”

What a ridiculous statement.

If you look at what the President was proposing in the FY11 budget he submitted for NASA, it included the following:

– Top line increase of $6.0 billion over 5-years

– Transformative technology development and flagship technology demonstrations to pursue new approaches to space exploration

– Robotic precursor missions to multiple destinations in the solar system

– Research and development on heavy-lift and propulsion technologies

– U. S. commercial spaceflight capabilities

– Future launch capabilities, including work on modernizing Kennedy Space Center after the retirement of the Shuttle

– Extension and increased utilization of the International Space Station

And specifically:

1. Technology demonstration program, $7.8 billion over five years.
Funds the development and demonstration of technologies that reduce the cost and expand the capabilities of future exploration activities, including in-orbit refueling and storage.

To say that the President was against BEO missions is ignorant of the facts. And considering that those that understand what kind of situation NASA is in right now say that “NASA’s technology cupboard is bare”, meaning even if by magic an HLV showed up ready to use today, NASA still needs lots of money and time to build the hardware that uses one.

But that’s not going to happen, since Congress is too busy putting the cart before a horse that hasn’t even been born.

Face it Matt, you are wrong on this. Time to move on.

Rand, it was the perception that the Administration was against BEO missions that led to that. And the Administration did very little in the beginning to counter the perception. Not to mention the spin “If you’re for Commercial to LEO, you’re against NASA to BEO”, which Leroy Chao (ex-astronaut and a member of Augustine) was trying to counter. He mentioned it in an Orlando Sentinel article about a week after the rollout, ISTR.

“You have to get the Congresscritters on your side, address their concerns-and not treat them with contempt or tell them off, and find a common way forward.”

Look Matt, could Obama have wined and dine key congressional players ahead of time? Sure.

However you keep forgetting the facts – Congress agreed to cancel Constellation, so apparently wining and dining keep congressional players wasn’t required.

The only question is whether wining and dining key congressional players would have stopped Congress from mandating the SLS, and I don’t think so. Why?

You keep forgetting the power of lobbyists. Boeing was the prime contractor on the Ares I upper stage, and angling to the be the prime on the Ares V. And in case you missed it, Boeing is now the prime contractor for the SLS.

Now if you don’t think Boeing was lobbying in the background for the SLS, then you are being quite naive.

If you don’t think Congress can get their way, regardless what the powerful people in the Administration want – regardless the amount of schmoozing they do – then you better ask Dick Cheney about his failure to cancel the V-22 program when he was the SecDef. Sometime Congress just doesn’t care, and that’s what I think the situation was with the SLS.

“Constellation was the way to go.”

Wow!

First you say Congress should spend more money on the SLS, then you advocated that the SLS was too expensive.

Now you’re advocating that Constellation would have been less expensive?

Good thing you’re writing papers and doing sims…

At least one — the Vice Chairman of the Science Committee.

Constellation was the way to go.