After all, what's the difference between SpaceX and Boeing? Aren't they both contractors? The regulatory atmosphere Bigelow, Orbital Sciences and SpaceX all face makes certifying a new passenger aircraft look like running a lemonade stand (outside any modern municipality, that is!).
Their agenda for the future of American manned spaceflight is as transparent as it is vague on destinations. The administration sought to bring a halt to Constellation primarily because its official architect was George W. Bush. Their profligacy will trillions make the cost overruns of the development of the Ares boosters and Altair lander look like bar-room spillage.
They have nearly succeeded in ceding on site resource utilization on the Moon and access to the surface of that natural "deep water" port to deep space to the Chinese, hobbling one of our very best infrastructural advantages, clipping our wings and draining our brain trust in an overt and demoralizing way.
Progressives and the Zero-Sum game central planners have openly despised NASA since Walter Mondale nearly crippled Apollo after the launchpad fire in January 1967.
One can guess what kind of reaction we can expect should the day come when one of these new contractors loses a vehicle and crew in a catastrophic accident
What you said!!
Dittos!
Bump!
Unions and a byzantine bureaucracy.
The administration sought to bring a halt to Constellation primarily because its official architect was George W. Bush. Their profligacy will trillions make the cost overruns of the development of the Ares boosters and Altair lander look like bar-room spillage.
Constellation was a regurgitation of a plan cooked up by W's father. Inexplicably, the big Ares boosters were going to take over fifteen years to develop in spite of reusing shuttle booster parts. Returning to the moon was going to take longer than the Apollo program did it over forty years ago. It deserved to get cancelled.