Today’s Washington Post has a major piece on the very large shortfall that NASA is facing in the next few years by trying to both satisfy its commitments to the ISS partners and develop the new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) by 2012. Jeff Foust, over at Space Politics has a summary of the article as well as a few short comments. Check out both of those sources, both are well written and timely.
The news that NASA may need another $3-6 billion to finish the ISS and develop the CEV comes at a particularly bad time. Last week, Northrop Grumman reported that it has overrun its budgets by almost $4 billion on the NPOESS and JWST projects and that those projects would be delayed by 3 and 2 years, respectively. Earlier this week, NASA reported that it had discovered 9 hairline cracks in the shuttle tank foam on an unused external tank. This revelation could delay the planned May ‘06 launch by some unspecified length of time.
I’m in the process of writing a piece suggesting that the case for canceling the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) will be so politically logical in 2008 that the next administration will have virtually no choice in the matter. I will then discuss how we as space advocates could help to stave off the coming backlash, and to salvage some of the better parts of the VSE. I had thought I would need to do a bit of hypothetical news-making for that piece, but it turns out I just need to use today’s headlines. So, stay tuned!
