Posted 4/14/2010 05:23:00 PM by Douglas

Funny news for NASA today. Turns out the present administration doesn't want to cancel the Constellation program, except. . except, oh shit, just read it.

President Barack Obama is reviving the NASA crew capsule concept that he had canceled with the rest of the moon program earlier this year, in a move that will mean more jobs and less reliance on the Russians, officials said Tuesday.

The space capsule, called Orion, still won't go to the moon. It will go unmanned to the International Space Station to stand by as an emergency vehicle to return astronauts home, officials said.

Am I missing something? It can bring people home, but will be launched unmanned? So how is that going to reduce reliance on Russian launch vehicles? Is there a space escalator in development we don't know about?

So there's still no way to get to the ISS, no lunar option, yet NASA's getting $6 billion more over the next 5 years. With no discernable mission or plan for a mission, this isn't about a jobs program in (key swing state) Florida, is it? Oh yeah, I guess it is. I fail to see what is so "Bold" about these things:

• Leads to more than 2,500 additional jobs in Florida’s Kennedy Space Center area by 2012, as compared to the prior path.
• Invests in Florida, adding $3 billion more for the Kennedy Space Center to manage – a 60 percent increase.

With no mission, where is this "heavy lift" vehicle going, and what is it lifting? Without a goal, as misguided as it may be, there's really no point to any of it.

One note, Keith, it's not just old people that are sad to see the manned program go. Come to Clear Lake and see the yard signs and other protests about the disapproval of the end to NASA as we've known it for the last 50 years.