Delivering ISDC’s luncheon speech on Friday, XCOR CEO and Augustine Committee member Jeff Greason expressed his exasperation over the policy debate going on in Congress, his hope that Congress would kill an unaffordable Constellation program, and gave some prescriptions for how the United States should move ahead in exploring the cosmos.
A compilation of Tweets from Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) and the FAA’s Ken Davidian (@cswicki):
Augustine Committee & Congressional Debate
- Greason, talking about Augustine Cmte: to my surprise some people paid attention to the report this time. (@jeff_foust)
- Greason: utterly dismayed by space policy debate so far. Need discussion based on facts, but that is not happening in Congress. (@jeff_foust)
- The discussion to date is “baby wants his rattle back.” The budget for Constellation was just made up. (@cswiki)
Constellation
- Greason: some parts of Cx were doing well (Orion) others not (Ares 1). Could be solved w/enough $ and time, but not in NASA budget. (@jeff_foust)
- NASA was not going to get the $$ to get Ares to ISS. “If something cannot continue, eventually it must stop.” (@cswiki)
- “I hope CxP is cancelled before we spend anymore $$ on it.” Congress can’t force continuation of CxP but refuse needed budget. (@cswiki)
- Greason: Congress mandates that NASA do what cannot be done, but doesn’t give it the funding. That is recipe for disaster. (@jeff_foust)
- Greason: even if money was unlimited I would not spend $35B to develop a booster that duplicates the Delta 4 Heavy. (@jeff_foust)
Moving Forward
- Greason: NASA needs comm’l human spaceflight far more than comm’l human spaceflight needs NASA. (@jeff_foust)
- How to explore and settle within the resources available. The US *has* launch vehicles. HLLV would be helpful to exploration. (@cswiki)
- We shut down our previous HLLV program b/c we couldn’t afford it then and we’re no richer now. (@cswiki)
- It’s possible to explore w/the budget we’ve got, but it won’t look like Apollo. Copying Apollo but not the approach misses the point. (@cswiki)
- Greason: need to move beyond exploration as the only paradigm for humans in space. (@jeff_foust)
- NASA’s acquisition process is worse than you think. Can it be reformed? Either close the doors and start over, or shift NASA from provider to customer. Being a customer, NASA can’t control $$, schedule, *and* reqts. (@cswiki)
- US Space Industrial Base is sick b/c there is not enough business. We shot ourselves in the foot w/ITAR. (@cswiki)
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