Santa Was Nice To The Four Amigos
Coalition for Deep Space Exploration Commends Congress on Commitment to Deep Space Exploration
“These investments represent a strong commitment to America’s human, robotic and science exploration programs,” said Dr. Mary Lynne Dittmar, Executive Director of the Coalition. “The robust funding levels achieved in the omnibus will support the continuing development of America’s new space exploration systems – leading to the launch of Exploration Mission-1 in 2018. The Space Launch System and the Orion crew vehicle will take humans deeper into space than ever before.”
Smith Condemns Administration’s Space Exploration Delays
“NASA announced today that its schedule for the first crewed mission of SLS and Orion will slip to 2023; this represents a two year slip from previous plans for the first mission by 2021.”
Keith’s note: The SLS/Orion lobbying team is happy. Now if only the four amigos and their NASA managers can stop making negative progress on launch dates. You’ll notice that the Coalition omits mention of the 2021 to 2023 launch slip for the first crewed mission in their press release. Why spoil the good news with facts, eh?
– NASA Delays First Crewed Orion Flight By Two Years, earlier post
– The Four Amigos and The Future of Competition in Space Commerce, earlier post
– NASA Employs Faith-Based Funding Approach For SLS, earlier post
– GAO Finds NASA SLS Costs Not Credible, earlier post
– NASA Can’t Decide What SLS Engines It Does/Does Not Need, earlier post
– SLS CDR: Not As Smooth As Advertised, earlier post
Well the fact is the date still hasn’t officially slipped and the extra funding should really help with that. The 2023 date is predicated on the President’s budget (which insanely assumes less than a billion for Orion every year). By 2021 that is a difference of about $1.5 Billion.
Full funding of SLS/Orion and commercial crew should make everybody happy.
Well, yes, everybody who supports SLS, anyway.
How can full funding of commercial crew not make commercial crew supporters (of which I am one as well) happy?
..because the bill funds HLV, a $Bs flagship mission that must be complete by 2022, the Atlas LV that will be retired to fly crew to ISS, three crew providers when one or two would do, (Russia, cheaper Falcon) shifts funding from Exploration to operations which will end when ISS splashes down, then tells ‘commercial’…go get your own, were going BEO without you with the terribly expensive, sole source, expendable, decades old technology rocket.
http://arstechnica.com/scie…
It’s funny that you surmise that the new rocket builders to the industry are somehow making “modern rocket technology” … Except that, much of what SpaceX, Orbital, etc have made is based off of 50+ year rocket technology. Much like the internal combustion engine, rocket engines basically work the same way no matter what era they were designed – you mix fuel with an oxidizer, ignite it and contain/direct the explosion.