VSE: No Bucks – No Buck Rogers

National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Overview, FY2009 Budget, and Issues for Congress, Congressional Research Service 26 Feb 2008 via OpenCRS

“NASA stresses that its strategy is to “go as we can afford to pay,” with the pace of the program set, in part, by the available funding. In 2004, the President proposed adding a total of $1 billion to NASA’s budget for FY2005 through FY2009 to help pay for the Vision, but subsequent Administration budgets more than eliminated this proposed increase, and actual appropriations by Congress have been even less. Most funding for the Vision is thus being redirected from other NASA activities. To free up funding for Orion and Ares I, the space shuttle program will be terminated in 2010, and U.S. use of the ISS will end by 2017. NASA has not provided a cost estimate for the Vision as a whole. Its 2005 implementation plan estimates that returning astronauts to the Moon will cost $104 billion, not including the cost of robotic precursor missions, and that using Orion to service the ISS will cost an additional $20 billion. A report by the Government Accountability Office gives a total cost for the Vision of $230 billion over two decades.”