It’s been rumored for a while now, but NASA’s plans to respond to congressional (mal)direction are starting to come into focus, and it’s not a pretty picture. Over at the Orlando Sentinel, Mark Matthews has the story:
The new vehicle will use left-over engines from the Shuttle orbiters that are now being retired. There’s only one problem. Unlike the Shuttle, which reuses the engines each time, the new vehicle will be completely expendable. There are only enough engines for it for four flights, and there are no plans to reopen the production lines at Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne to produce more, even if their cost wouldn’t be prohibitive.
In other words, NASA plans to spend $10 billion to develop a vehicle that has no defined payload, and will only fly four times. Each flight of this vehicle will cost the taxpayers $2.5 billion dollars, while doing absolutely nothing to advance our progress in conquering space.
Why is NASA doing this? Because Congress insists that they “follow the law,” and Congress wrote a law last year that NASA must spend a specified amount of money on a heavy-lift vehicle, using existing contracts and contractors. Why did Congress write that law? They will tell you that they wanted to ensure that the nation maintained forward direction and leadership in space, but if you look at the people who wrote the law (Sens. Bill Nelson (D) of Florida, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) of Texas, Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah, Richard Shelby (R) of Alabama) you will be struck by the amazing coincidence that they all have major Shuttle contractors in their states. In fact, they are surprisingly up front about it.
This is why, as Matthews notes, some call it the Senate Launch System instead of the Space Launch System. They may not be rocket scientists on the north side of the Hill, but they know how to bring home the space bacon, and they don’t even have to wait for pigs to fly — they already got a two-billion-dollar earmark in this fiscal year for this taxpayer travesty.
Congress did give NASA a slight out — they said they must use Shuttle contracts and contractors “unless impracticable.” Unfortunately, NASA seems to have come up with a practicable way to do it, and “impracticable” is, equally unfortunately, not a synonym for “useless.” So the waste will go on, at least until those senators’ colleagues start to pay attention to their antics, and start to care more both about how our taxpayer dollars are spent, and about actual progress in space.
For readers’ amusement (we laugh so we don’t cry), here is a little robot theater on the absurdity.
