Related to my last posting…if you have any interest in how NASA manages its affairs, contact your congresscritter.
Besides gutting Commercial Crew Development (CCDev), this would direct the agency to sink even more money down the rathole of Senate Space Launch System, a heavy-lift booster concept from the whiz-kid engineers senators from — ah, never mind. You can guess which states: if it has a NASA center, you’re getting warm. But if they have their way, it will surely end up much like the proverbial horse as designed by committee…and cost about a gazillion times more than whatever BS number they’re throwing out today.
With all the crazy-@$$ spending that DC desperately needs to cut, Commercial Crew is a paltry sum and would help actual businesses in an actual emerging industry. This is much the same concept as government contracts for Air Mail service that kick-started the airline industry in the 1920’s. It’s a safe bet that SpaceX will have human-capable hardware in orbit while Marshall is still trying to figure out how to put five grains of composite propellant into a four grain casing.
Sorry, had to say that for geek cred. Just using “ten pounds of crap into a five pound bag” doesn’t sound steely-eyed-missile-manly enough.
The take-away: ditch SLS, keep CCDev. One will save a lot of money while the other spends far less on something that will return far more. And it’ll get Americans into orbit, on American equipment, much sooner.
The Chiles Files 