A few works on the subject from the constellation site:

A few words with Craig Steidle the director of NASA's Exploration Office.

Excellent article, Steidle sounds just like the sort of leader you'd want running the office of exploration.

Posted by Dogsbd at May 27, 2004 08:46 AM

Good first step to be looking but when are you going to be ready to actually do something other than look. It has been 1 yr plus and still no shuttle flights. It has now been 4 months since the presidential announcement. How long does one need to take in order to decide what to do.

Posted by Harold LaValley at May 27, 2004 10:35 AM

Much longer than you may expect. The decision is much more complicated than just looking over a dozen or so proposals like picking out a car color and saying "I like this one, lets spend a few billion on it".

When compared to the past 20 years or so the current process is amazingly fast.

As far as the shuttle's down time, I think it is just an indication of just how bad of shape it has been in. We've been incredibly lucky that there have been only two vehicles lost.

Posted by Dogsbd at May 27, 2004 11:07 AM

It is not that hard, when you base the designs from current available rockets, engine to fuel effiecency use, fuel type tanks and oxidizer, payload lift requirement, how many sections needed to minimize the weight from top to the bottom, and lets not forget radiation shielding weight, lunar lander, crew habitat module or the many other necessary items to do the job, food water ect....

Each of these items have been done many times before in much shorter amounts of time.

Like the article said not every thing is needed at once but has to be part of the plan that is put into motion for it to happen on time.

I suspect that nothing will happen until after the election. For the past week my morning news and coffee time has been spammed by a commercial dragging the idea of moon and mars missions into the election arena. And not in a kind light.

I have as of yet not see this on the east coast morning stations. I have instead seen Kerry bashing by Bush on the tax issues if Kerry were elected. Same old Same old Republicans versus the Democrats stuff.

Its a touching scene with cuts of GW from his speech on plans to explore space....then cuts back to some poorer looking single mom with kid who just oozes and groans abut how he's got his priorities mixed up and so on and so forth.

Well if Nasa or GW would give that some poorer looking single mom with kid. who is just oozes and groans abut how he's got his priorities mixed up and so on and so forth a job then all would be better.

Wow, that really pi$$es me off. A few facts of the 2005 budget are being laid down now and get this: of the 2.4 trillion dollars our government is going to pull in, less than 400 billion will be spent on domestic spending. That's 1/6 of our tax dollars to cover everything like Social Security, veterans benefits, highways, schools, our electric powergrid and so on.

The only two programs that will recieve an increase in funding (except maybe NASA) are military spending and foreign aid. So in other words, we have money to throw at Egypt but we don't have money for our own elderly and children.

I personally am voting for Kerry. Do I think he's a great guy? Not really, but I think he will be pickier about who he goes to war with and war is our biggest expence. Bush's Space Vision, while a go idea, has no effect on Nasa in the near future.

hey this is really cool i dont like kerry i like bush bush not carry 04'