“One of the worst aspects of Obama’s Socialism is cronyism, of which the commercial crew program reeks.”

As Inigo Montoya would say:

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

The Commercial Crew program was competitively bid and open to any qualified participants. Losers even had the ability to protest the awards, and no one did. Why is that?

On the flip side though, the SLS and MPCV programs were mandated by Congress to use the same contractors – no competitive bids.

So what better fits the definition of cronyism, a competitively bid program or one that was mandated by politicians to use specific technologies and contractors?

Face it Bub, the SLS program is the one reeking of cronyism here, and you know it. And because that appears to be one of your definitions of socialism, then apparently the Republican’s are socialists for supporting the SLS. How ironic, huh?

One of the worst aspects of Obama’s Socialism is cronyism, of which the commercial crew program reeks.

If it succeeds — and I think in some form that it will

We look forward to the dems running on this in 2014.

Don’t forget, Obamacare started out as a Republican plan, and only became evil incarnate when Obama started pushing it. (BTW, I think the Republicans made a serious strategic error when they called their own plan “Obamacare.” If it succeeds — and I think in some form that it will — a hundred years from now it will still be called Obamacare. It’s as if Social Security today were called Roosevelt Security.)

“If these funds could make SLS available, say, a year earlier for the asteroid retrieval, why not spend them?”

Because, oddly enough, the House also wants to make it illegal to do any work on an asteroid retrieval program.

So they want a heavy lifter, but they have no interest in possible uses for one.

Curiouser and curiouser…

— Donald

1. The Republican House wants to cut NASA’s budget, and make it illegal to plan a mission that was only proposed so the SLS and MPCV would have something to do to merit the $Billions being spent on them. Unfortunately there still is no known need for them.

2. The Republican House also wants to suspend common sense rules about program termination costs, and suspend common sense oversight of expensive programs that have no known need (i.e. Pork).

Now I’m not saying that Democrats are waiting in the wings to spend lavishly on NASA – they are not. But I just wanted to point out that Republican’s are not the saviors for NASA that some people think they are. And that won’t change with a Republican President, especially from the group that ran in 2012 not named Newt.

NASA continues to be a source of funding for certain states and districts regardless what result that funding has, and until a more understandable goal for NASA is agreed upon for all concerned parties, NASA will continue to meander along without any prospect of getting much done.

“A down select for commercial crew is essential to accelerate the glacial pace of that program.”

Glacial pace?

The Orion/MPCV has been an active program since 2005 and isn’t forecasted to fly with humans until 2021 – 16 YEARS AFTER PROGRAM START.

Compare that to the Commercial Crew program, which gets a fraction of the budget that the Orion/MPCV does. The initial contract was awarded in 2010, and we could have two different spacecraft designs flying crew by 2017 – 7 YEARS AFTER PROGRAM START.

Any normal person would laugh at your comment when presented with these facts.