Charlie Bolden - The tears and the determination
There is a lot of emotion swirling around the American space agency (Nasa) at the moment, and it's not just among the thousands of US space workers who're losing their jobs.
The emotion goes right to the top.
Maj-Gen Charlie Bolden has given a tear-filled-but-determined interview to the BBC in which he reflects on the end of the space shuttle programme and the battle to win over critics of the president's new exploration strategy.
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The Nasa administrator is in a dog-fight, and he knows it.
The White House wants to shut down development of the Orion crewship, its Ares launch rocket, together with the rest of the Moon-bound Constellation programme.
In their place is a $6bn commitment to seed a vibrant commercial rocket sector to lift astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), and a promise to engage in an intensive R&D effort to find "game-changing technologies" that can take people beyond low-Earth orbit.
The Obama administration says Constellation was on an unsustainable path - realisation of its goals was stretching off into the distance and at enormous cost.
But Congress doesn't like the replacement vision. To many politicians in Washington, the new strategy lacks an identifiable architecture, a timetable and even a destination. Simply put - many Americans want to know where US astronauts are going, in which ship and when; and right now "they just don't get it".
It's Charlie Bolden's job to make people get it - to make them understand. So, how do you think he is doing? You may well have seen some of his Congressional appearances, and the speeches he's given of late.
There are those who think he's just sold the vision badly; there are others who think he's got the impossible sell.
Charlie Bolden, himself, says he was insufficiently prepared to roll out and explain the president's plan. He's made that confession on a number of occasions now and repeats it in the BBC interview with our Washington correspondent Philippa Thomas.
What do you make of his very public displays of emotion? We've seen Charlie Bolden swallow hard several times as he discusses the end of the shuttle. In our interview, the passion overwhelms him for a few moments. The tears flow:
"It is very difficult... it's really difficult. It's a programme that has gone for 30 years and it's been incredible. And you know during the programme I've unfortunately had an opportunity to watch or witness the loss of two vehicles, but most importantly 14 people. On the first crew that we lost on the Challenger, they were very, very, very, very close friends because I had trained with them. Mike Smith on the crew I had been in school with. So they were really close friends. It was a flight so close on the heels of my first flight; I had landed just 10 days prior to Challenger."
And speaking of the shuttle workers in Florida, he adds:
"Shuttle becomes like a person to them, and so they're very attached to them and as each vehicle flies its last flight, they have a really difficult time. Unless you've been in this programme, people don't understand that; and they think we're crazy."
I urge you to watch the video because a transcription can never really convey the full emotion of the message.
This is an important month for Nasa, Charlie Bolden and the president's plan.
Next week, on 15 April, Barack Obama will visit Florida's Space Coast to take part in a special conference.
Many are hoping the president will use the opportunity to elucidate some sort of compromise, one that retains elements of the soon-to-close Constellation programme.
This might include a clearer roadmap to a big new rocket, or a promise to continue with the Orion crewship, albeit in a less ambitious form.
Some politicians in Washington are not in a mood to wait, however, and have already introduced legislation that would mandate Nasa to keep flying the shuttle. They dislike the idea of US astronauts having to rely on Russian Soyuz rockets to get to the ISS while America develops its new era of commercial launchers and capsules.
These senators and representatives think the gap should be filled by extending shuttle operations beyond the end of this year.
That's something Charlie Bolden tells us quite firmly should not happen:
"It is time to move on. It's incredibly important for Nasa to try to get to the point where we can begin to explore again. [That's] not to say that what we've done in low-Earth orbit is not exploration. It is, but it's a different kind of exploration; it's scientific exploration; it's medical, it's biomedical research and the like. There are planets and other heavenly bodies out there waiting for us to come, and we can only do that if we move away from shuttle, [and] move on to a heavy-lift launch vehicle and the type of vehicle that will enable us to get away from low-Earth orbit, and do the types of things that people thought we were going to be doing in the Apollo era."
It would cost something on the order of $2-3bn a year to keep the shuttle flying. It's a very expensive vehicle to maintain and operate. That's part of the reason for wanting to retire it in the first place.
To restart production of shuttle components would not be straight forward.
Hundreds of workers have already been laid off. Extending operations would mean rehiring these people, only then to lay them off a second time when the commercial rockets and capsules are introduced later this decade.
In addition, if $2-3bn a year was diverted to more shuttle flights, the money could not then be spent on a replacement vehicle and the other technologies necessary to take humans beyond low-Earth orbit - somewhere the shuttle has never been equipped to fly.
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I'm afraid that when one speaks of the direction of the NASA manned spaceflight programme since Apollo the words "pig's ear" suggest themselves. In 1970 NASA had a clear mapped-out vision to Mars and beyond. Now they don't even know if in 2020 they will be able to lift a man into Earth orbit. In retrospect the Shuttle programme was a disaster for NASA: too expensive; too dangerous; and with too limited capabilities. The projections were absurdly optimistic (100 flights per Shuttle) and all other lines of work withered on the vine as money got poured into the programme.
Most of what the Shuttle has done could have been done with a Saturn Ib and Saturn V fleet: the former to launch and retrieve crews and the latter for heavy lift. In 1966 the Titan II could boost Gemini astronauts to 1300km altitude; in 2010 the Shuttle struggles to get to 500km and even unloaded with minimum crew can't get near to 1000km.
Now NASA is not even certain what is the way to go and as the length of time needed to develop a new booster increases with time (the Saturn V was only a paper concept in 1962, yet flew with astronauts in 1968), you have to wonder if NASA will be in a position to launch its own astronauts before 2025, let alone put them on the Moon by 2020. Given that Ares was meant to be flying in 2015, one really does wonder when the next manned launcher will be ready if they have to start from scratch again.
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Interesting interview.
I think the problem Bolden has at the moment, is that these commercial launchers, like Space X, do not have hardware to identify with, in the publics mind.
They've never actually launched anyone, not yet launched cargo vehicles to the ISS either.
If they did have, it would all be a much easier sell.
Say Space X had done at least one cargo flight to the Space Station by now and that their planned manned capsule was at the metal cutting production stage.
I personally think that the $2.5 billion to be spent on canceling Constellation should instead to spent on maintaining the program at a slower development level, until around 2014/15 when hopefully a smaller economic deficit, an improving economic situation generally, could provide NASA with the means to revisit a heavy launch vehicle, I'm thinking here along the lines of the DIRECT, derived from the Shuttle main fuel tank.
By this time, all being well, the commercial space launchers such as Space X, should be near to or actually in to, launching astronauts to ISS.
Thus releasing NASA from what has prevented a manned exploration effort since the 1970's, the costs and human resources tied up in the Shuttle.
Much as I hate to say it, the effort launched by NASA in 2004 to return to the Moon, did not look like it was going to make it, the delays and costs saw to that.
So did the economic crisis of late 2008.
If only the 2004 plan had concentrated on Constellation and the Ares 5, or similar, along with providing the incentives to private industry to take on the 'ISS Taxi' role immediately after the Shuttle retirement, without the Ares 1 and all the problems it would bring.
Rather like the X-Prize that led to the Burt Rutan Vehicle now marketed by Virgin, but for proper Earth orbit/ISS docking, though on a bigger, more ambitious scale.
Indeed, you might say that the first X-Prize, that led to the now looming ability for a sub orbital tourist joyride, was a natural precursor to something more ambitious, sponsored and aided by NASA.
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Would like to see focus on :
1.Unmanned ( and un-animal'd ) exploration of the planets . The projects so far have been amazing . Forget commercial , this is greater than commercial .This is about the survival of the earth and our species , and about the powers of human imagination .
2. Earth-threatening asteroids.
3. Looking after earth's atmosphere and sorting out space junk .
4. Trying to have the projects international and non military .
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In the long run the commercial route is undoubtedely the correct one (imagine how expensive aviation would be if there were no commercial carriers), but it is a risky course to expect the commercial carriers to take the load immediately and successfully.
It is optimistic to think that anyone could fly a commercial rocket to the ISS in 2015: just look at the delays in the A-380 and Boeing-Dreamliner programmes and they only have to fly within the Earth's atmosphere using simple and well-tried technology.
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#3 - What Earth-threatening asteroids? The more we study the PHAs the more the dinosaur-killers melt away. It looks increasingly unlikely that any genuinely Earth-threatening asteroid exists on human timescales. We seem to have littel need to worry until 1950 DA in the year 2880.
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Stargazer,I get what you say, however in looking at the Apollo timelines remember it was more like the Manhattan Project that built the A-Bomb, than a normal space project.
It was a race, just this time not a secret one.
To do it, up to the mid 1960's NASA's budget was higher (for a short time) than it ever would be again, the decline started in 1966/7.
A race started by a bold President, in response to some apparent Soviet space firsts in the context of the fight for influence across the world.
Had Al Shepard's sub orbital Mercury flight beaten Gagarin's proper orbital one, likely no Apollo would ever have happened.
Had the 'Bay Of Pig's' fiasco of an attempt to oust Castro not been such an early blow to JFK, quite possibly no Apollo program then either.
I think Apollo was the greatest exploration ever, it did far more good for the US, in so many ways, than it eat up in cash.
It's was bizarre than two further landings were scrapped when the hardware for them had been built and paid for.
However, it was essentially a 21st Century space program shoehorned into the 1960's, with the limitations in a sustainable means of carrying it on, due to the technology of the time.
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It will be very difficult for SpaceX or any other private company to compete in price with the Soyuz on a truly open market.
It's quite old, tried and tested, very cheap mass produced, proven safe technology. Even the $100 million projected cargo "sticker price" for a Falcon 9 launch is only slightly lower than that of the Soyuz, and it is likely to seriously go up with man-rating the Falcon and the Dragon.
There is a case for incentivizing the private sector to try and reach an American launch vehicle roughly the price of the Soyuz. Man-rating the European ATV will probably achieve this as well, with the end-price eventually likely to go down to 4 times the Soyuz with about 3 times the useful volume.
It's useful to have a range of LEO vehicles available, controlled by different countries.
But - starting a serious heavy launch vehicle programme for interplanetary travel would be the advance that everyone has been waiting for since the 1970's, and has been in reach since the Apollo programme.
The shuttle was admittedly a very costly diversion for NASA, and Constellation should probably have focused on the Ares V vehicle only. But canceling Constellation now, that Ares I is actually in flight testing, and a lot of money has been sunk into the package is slightly silly.
It won't be cost effective for LEO - that's not what it was primarily made for. It can act as a new start for finally getting off this planet again.
It is also near enough to completion that it would probably be a reasonable temporary back-up for (more expensive) LEO flights if the private sector doesn't develop a safe solution fast enough, ESA doesn't step up to the plate with the ATV and the Russians abuse their new-found monopoly.
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The current US administration keeps shooting itself in the foot. This move is ridiculous! The money spent on basic space research has kept the United States on the cutting edge of new technologies. So of course our current administration has decided the goals are wrong and instead of taking man into space it should become another arm of the Global Warming fiasco.
Anyone bothering to look at US polls will see the Democrats are heading for a major defeat in November. If the president continues to push policies that the Average American does not want, he will leave office in 2012. I had such hope for this president - to unify the nation and move it forward - Instead so many promises have been broken and far too many backroom deals have been made to gather support for his policies. Instead of change we can live with it's business as usual in Washington.
We live on such a small world. The future of our race lies in space. I fully expect the next Administration will change these policies again, but of course the billions already spent will just be wasted. When a young President promised to put a man on the moon within a decade it was a dream that became real. Now, this decision has gutted NASA. Yet it has become just another reason to change the current administrations.
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Sonicboomer, I was expecting a somewhat stronger response :-).
Unfortunately what you say just goes to prove my point more strongly. Yes, it was a 1960s crash programme. However, a few years ago NASA was admitting that it if were given the same presidential mandate as in 1961, it could not put a man on the Moon in 10 years (let alone in 8 from a standing start) "whatever the effort or budget".
Like any high-tech aerospace project, the realities of development mean that time to flight is always underestimated, usually by a minimum of several years, and the budget is hopelessly optimistic [I've seen this for myself]. Aries was just doing what the Shuttle had done years before - remember how it was meant to fly in time to boost Skylab up to a safe orbit???
I repeat my point. Neither NASA, nor private enterprise is going to get a manned booster ready by 2015. No way, no how, no Sir. Even if Ares continued it is doutbful that it would be doable. Starting from scratch on a new project the chances of getting a man-rated launcher by 2020 are ZERO. As you say, in the 1960s a very special series of circumstances conspired to make it possible. It would not be now.
NASA threw away a golden opportunity when it threw away the Saturn Ib and Saturn V. That was the authentic NASA tragedy. The Saturn V developed 7 million pounds of thrust; just using newer and lighter materials in the same design, with no other improvemente, would boost the thrust to 10 million pounds. Even the Saturn Ib would have a serious lift capability to low Earth orbit and would take 3 astronauts with consumate ease.
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Obama’s decision to cancel the Constellation programme is the death knell for American manned space flight ....at least until the Chinese start putting crews into space on a more regular basis, or until they land someone on the Moon. That may spark a new space race. In the meantime the only way for an American to get into space will be on a Russian rocket. Even if the private sector gets involved, a new design isn’t even on the drawing board, which places the launch of any joint NASA/private sector spacecraft decades away. NASA’S new mission statement amounts to: To boldy go…nowhere at all. Why does it matter? Because the moon landings were arguably the greatest scientific and technological achievement of the human species; and where does that species go when it has exhausted all the resources on its home planet? Quite possibly, nowhere at all.
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A barely literate uncultured anti-intellectual church-going thuggish Chicago lawyer of middling quality and far below average mental capacity is determined to ruin not only the US space programme but the whole country.
Plebs triumphant. Union rule. Mediocrity victorious.
Welcome.
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Mark (#10), there is a sort of nightmare scenario here. There is the prospect, that seemed unthinkable a year ago, that Barak Obama may be a one-term President. In that case, always supposing that a new initiative is announced, there is a real possibility that an incoming President could shelve it too. Constellation had a chance because George Bush got two terms. A big, new, costly and long-term initiative by a one-term President has every chance of being stillborn unless there is a special circumstance that makes it imperative that it continues (e.g. the Apollo programme in the '60s).
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I think the X-Prize shows exactly where NASA has failed.
Would a modified B-52 be able to launch a smaller rocket from 50,000 ft to address smaller payloads in LOE, in similar fashion to SpaceshipOne.
NASA spends too much money on huge projects that constantly slip and suck money from innovation. Innovation is constantly changing the rules of space flight. The development of ION engines can cut the time of a trip to Mars from 8 months to just over one. The whole assumption on the size of craft and resources shifts dramatically, did NASA's assumptions shift accordingly.
If NASA had proposed an aggressive program that attempted to utilize new technologies (some that had not even been developed yet) to reach Mars then I think it would have been funded. This "lets do what we always do" but bigger really does not push science and so when it slips there really is no excuse.
Please, Please Please NASA lets step out of the box and really push science. Every child wants to take a spaceship into space. Start there and work backwards. It's going to make money for virgin Galactic, why could private flights not have helped fund NASA if they had thought about it.
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When I first heard about the Constellation program, I could not believe my ears: after almost 50 years of technological advances, we returned to the same concepts developed for Apollo, making it an “Apollo on steroids”. Furthermore, it mostly used components developed 35 years ago for the Space Shuttle (boosters and main engines) and modified Saturn V second and third stage engines. All this on a time line longer than the total development for the Apollo and Shuttle programs! Because of the concept no new technological breakthroughs were necessary, thus practically eliminating any “trickle down” new advances. I have been a space freak all my life (I’m 63) and would have loved to see men on Mars in my lifetime, but because of the above I think that President Obama was right to cancel it, only hope that a new worthy goal and the new technologies needed to reach it be set for NASA.
PS for Andrax Andron (#11): the Apollo on steroid program could only be sold to a clueless person like GWB
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#14, would you also cancel the Airbus A-380 because it is just a stretched A-340, without any fundamentally new technology???
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Stargazer (#15): sorry, but you missed my point, besides the A-380 is not a stretched A-340 and the Boeing 787 is a new technology tour de force both in manufacturing processes and materials and does not use " well-tried technology" as in your #4
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14, Raises a point picked up in the cancelation announcement.
'un-innovative'.
The hard facts are to get the needed public support for an expanded NASA program, you have to demonstrate spin offs, innovations, recognizable to the general public.
'Apollo on steroids' might have been the best way technically to return to the Moon, politically it was a hole below the program's waterline.
However, how are Republican critics going to square attacking government spending excess (unless it's them doing it), with demanding billions being spent on Ares/Constellation?
Saying 'I want this for my part of the world, to get me political kudos for my career'?
Try selling that one.
Also, to outsiders at least, after decades of frankly, boasts about American business and technical superiority, are they saying this supposedly more dynamic US economic model, cannot produce - with NASA's help remember, a basic manned ISS taxi fairly quickly?
To do with a 50 year technical advantage, what Soyuz does?
So we have people who call Obama socialist, wanting a government funded program, as opposed to this President wanting to kickstart US Private enterprise in further areas of spaceflight?
Illiterate he is not, but then those who call him 'elitist' despite his actual background, seemed to give George W Bush, born into great wealth, a pass in this respect.
The point here is, you need coherent argument to change some aspects of the Obama plan (actually a plan drawn up by ex head of US Aerospace company, Lockheed Martin).
Saying the opposite of reality won't get anywhere.
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To #17:Beautifully put!
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Over a dozen US Astronauts claim to have seen UFO's not to mention hundreds of other very high level people - there are countless NASA videos online which show obvious peculiar objects moving in changing directions right next to the ISS - millions have seen them, yet no government acknowledges the truth. We know why, but since NASA cannot tell what a real UFO when it's right there in front of them, perhaps it's time to let space remain alone and let NASA learn to see.
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This is not going to go down well .... it usually gets calls of 'idiot' from the wings by people who can't see the wood in a forest ...
I have maintained for many years that the ONLY way we (Mankind) are going to fulfil our destiny in playing amongst the stars is by doing it together. Sounds like a fairy tale, eh?
The ISS was a good International project (if a little unimaginative and largely useless), but its downfall was that it was seen as American.
We need a global space initiative, managed by a central (UN) Space Office, collecting cash and know-how from around the World to steer a project out of LEO. Procurement can be on a juste-retour basis (like ESA).
The Americans and Russians have shown that one nation cannot do it alone. Do we have to wait until China and India also fail until we bang our collective heads together and conjoin forces? We can harness the power of Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Australia, UAE, South Africa and the 'minor nations' in the project, but, I am sure that all the nations on Earth are prepared to do their bit.
They will all see the worth and be excited by the prospect.
We need to forget our squabbles, our differences, our National pride, for the sake of getting Man out there and achieving goals for the greater good.
And I don't need the naysayers bleating that 'it will never be done'.
If we try REALLY HARD, we might just do it. Its better than talking and continually wasting the money that could get Man back into space.
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Well let's see. If the Americans don't pull off this space thing then we have to rely on our previous cold war enemies, who have haven't expressed themselves in a very positive light, what with their radioactive poisonings, environmental pollution, gangster rule, etc.
Or we could count on our Oriental friends who are busy oppressing their own people, damming their neighbour's rivers, polluting their reefs, and stealing our jobs.
Fairly obvious choice by default. Consider red missiles raining down from the stratosphere.
It's down to the Americans, folks. Support your democratic brethren.
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Very moving.
The anti-intellectuals (re #11) seem to be the people who don't know waht we are doing but want some chest-thumping announcement instead of reality.
The east side of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington is filled with triumphs of NASA (and NASA/ESA and NASA/Japan, etc.) -- the ongoing Mars rovers and Cassini-Saturn missions, Messenger to Mercury, Stereo new solar probes, Voyager moving beyond the solar system. These ongoing voyages of discovery are displayed with past icons like Sputnik and Soyuz, and Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Mir, and robots Pioneer, Viking, and Galileo. The astounding size of the ISS is made plain by an overhead model, with the attached Soyuz 3-person capsules dwarfed by the entire station.
NASA needs funding to continue the amazing sub-billion-dollar missions that are test beds and pioneering explorers, and the billion-dollar-plus flaghsip science missions like Galileo and Cassini/Huygens. A mix of four or five of these missions could fly for the 3 billion dollar cost of each extended shuttle year.
NASA can use Space-X 'Dragon' or perhap even Atlas + a resurrected Orion or other means to get to ISS. There's a healthy private launch industry already for all types of spaceflight except human-rated, in the US there are orbital sciences Pegasus and Taurus as well as Sea Launch, with more coming, like Space-X. This year a concept for smaller shuttle-like vehicle will be teted as the X-37.
NASA does need a newer, more capable heavy lift launcher, and also new in-space propulsion breakthroughs to reduce the payload that we need to lift to orbit in order to go on to Moon, Mars, icy outer moons, etc. To get there they need to innovate more than build a new 'commodity' launcher. The Orion crew vehicle might live on, atop some other launcher as a transfer vehicle to ISS, or ISS lifeboat, or even transfer vehicle to the moon, but the Aries part of Constellation is a 'commodity' program that seemed poised to soak up NASA's innovation budget like a less elegant continuation of the Shuttle program.
I miss the optimism and momentum of Apollo, which I could sense even as a child. 99% of the false starts and cost compromises since then didn't happen under Obama's watch. In the next year I'll look for 1) progress in private access to ISS and 2) a new set of goals for NASA with a funding plan, as the measure of whether hard choices this winter were succeeded by an effective and sustainable new start.
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My point was (and I omitted this part, my mistake) perhaps our space system is in need of serious repair, but would you rather have our enemies running it?
They're not exactly into human rights. Or any kind of rights, as far as I can tell. At least our thugs and dictators have to pretend to be democratic. What's to prevent a hostile country from raining down hell on us just to bolster the yuan or ruble?
Human society is messed up as a whole, but it's better when the least messed are in control.
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I'm a real science/tech guy - and love the idea of space exploration - but have come to the conclusion that we're simply trying to walk before we can run - with manned space flight. - in the next 20 to 50 years. Why on earth (Y) do we need to send people in to space when we can do the science so much more effectively with unmanned missions?
I understand the emotional attachment and romance of manned spaceflight - and I believe it will have it's place - but tThere is just so much more science and exploration that can and should be done through "no-manned" space exploration - that right now gives us much better return.
Let's focus on this for the next 50 or 100 years or so.
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Just for the record, the Shuttle was meant to slowly strangle and defocus NASA - no joke - that was the hope of Richard Nixon who absolutely hated the space program that would forever be associated with President Kennedy for whom he had nothing but utter contempt born of deep seated envy and rage. Nixon wanted to cancel the space program the day he took office but knew he couldn't pull it off politically so he did the next best thing - gave the green light to construct and operate a low orbit Shuttle that he knew had no chance of furthering Kennedy's vision - something he himself was incapable of articulating. Nixon was a an emotionally disturbed and spiteful man who at his core disliked people - especially those whom he viewed to be more intelligent, graceful and capable than himself. Had it not been for Nixon humans would be living on the moon and we would have already walked on Mars. We would have been well along the road to the Final Frontier pushing deeper into space using advanced propulsion systems such as nuclear powered ion drives. Private enterprise would be in full bloom not just starting. Sad really, but better late than never.
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Jonathan - I am a litte confused about the facts - can you check them? Your story says the White House is about to shut the Constellation programme down, but according to this source http://www.marssociety.org/portal/mobilize-now-to-save-nasa-human-space-flight/ the situation is hardly that clear cut and not a done deal. It would be good to get some clarification on the issue. According to the mentioned source there are strong political forces within the system trying to turn back the clock on the Feb. 2 presentation to Congress. Maybe you know more.
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@Claus. Technically, nothing is a done deal yet. At the moment, all we have is the president's 2011 budget request. It is Obama's desire to close Constellation, retire the shuttle this year, extend the ISS to at least 2020, spend $6bn on commercial crew/taxi development, and expand aeronautics and Earth observation. But Obama can do nothing without Congress giving him a budget. He needs at least $2.5bn just to shut down Constellation. Will he get this? Will Congress force him to roll back on some of his plans? TBD.
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Correct me if I am wrong but there are already a number of "commercial" companies offering launch capabilities. Arianspace with there Ariane 5 rocket which is the most successful to date is a prime example, they are miles ahead of SpaceX with their Falcon 9 rocket, why not simply use them and work with ESA to turn the ATV into a manned craft something which I believe might already be in development. All this money being talked about to try and do the job of the Souyuz capsule why not just not bother and keep using Russian Soyuz capsules or do what ESA are trying to do and buy some outright so that they won't be constrained by the Russian launchers and can launch from their own launch pads.
There are plenty of commercial options out there available to the Americans, the problem is that they are not American. If commercialisation is supposed to bring about this almighty leap forward in innovation then why limit NASA to just using American companies, either make the change complete or don't do it at all certainly don't do it half-heartedly like appears to be happening here. Will there be genuine choice in the market with lots of companies offering the same capabilities or will the huge financial limitations and risks mean that in reality only 1 or 2 major companies actually succeed and you are left in almost the same position you are in already.
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The ongoing tragedy of NASA, over the years maybe a quarter of NASA's whole budget has been thrown away by governments canceling projects half way through. Every new president has set his own new vision and cancelled programs and projects setup by previous administration. - Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Regan, Carter, and so on, all are guilty.
- Actually Kennedy did some pretty big cancellations himself to make way for Apollo and to pay for the Vietnam war - the big maned interplanetary probe series, the X15 program, Sea Dragon, and others. Ever heard of Area 51?, Kennedy cancelled the future technologies program including things like anti-gravity research and nuclear rocket engines.
As for the current stupid situation, the person we should be blaming here isn't Obama but Bush. NASA had a replacement for the Shuttle which was slowed by Clinton had but it was Bush who cancelled it in 2001. The new Shuttle was supposed to have been safer and cheaper to fly, able to run more missions with higher turnaround - and without the problems of foam, thermal tiles and so on.
People who criticize the Shuttle forget that it was originally quite a different program, and it was only really meant to only be a prototype. Originally the Shuttle 'SYSTEM' was meant to be far more capable and the program included a heavy cargo lifter (maybe like the M2) and a space tug, meant to complement the Shuttles human carrying capabilities. I think it was Regan who cancelled them, but it left the shuttle permanently crippled.
No one has mentioned it but a good and simple solution now would be to build new Shuttles, either similar to the originals or more like the X30 type. Of course anyone with the organizational ability to run a small shop (unlike Bush) would have had them built by the retirement date. The Shuttle had some awesome capabilities that NASA will really miss in the future.
As for financing, each Shuttle would cost about a week of the troops in Iraq, even Britain could have built a whole Shuttle program on the money we used there. As I keep trying to remind people America lost that first hopeful dream of space exploration after Apollo for one reason - it spent the money on the Vietnam war. Vietnam - Iraq.
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I think using advanced propulsion technology such as nuclear fusion powered space drives could make a commercial rocket more affordable. Thus, going to the Moon, Mars and beyond, can be a reality soon.
http://www.crossfirefusor.com/nuclear-fusion-reactor/overview.html
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NASA has signed a deal to “buy” just SIX Soyuz “seats” for $335 million… $55.8 million per “seat”… while, a few weeks ago, France has ordered 14 Soyuz rockets (42 “seats” in total or just 28 if each Soyuz needs a russian pilot) from Russia for only $1 billion, to be launched from Kourou…
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http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=120479§ionid=351020603
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so, why don’t buy and launch the Soyuz from KSC ?
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http://www.newspaceagency.com/articles/05soyuzfromksc.html
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the $15-20 billion saved can be used to develop the HLV and a Constellation-lite program
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If those Soyuz seats seem expensive, they are still ten times cheaper than a Shuttle and a good deal more safer and reliable.
While of course Soyuz with a crew a three and little in the way of cargo on manned flights, is not comparable with Shuttle, the STS is not ten times better.
Which is why a modern version both cargo and crew versions of Soyuz, from Space X or whoever, is the way to go in maintaining the now virtually complete ISS, now the station is being extended.
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Thanks Jonathan for the clarification. Apparently President Obama is to speak at a NASA event on April 15th - maybe something new will materialise. Personally I think space is a hard sell for politicians when there's no clear goal, as your story suggests. I suppose if I were American I would see space - or more specifically Moon & Mars - as an investment, because the tax money spent goes to create American jobs and American companies, not to mention all the spin-off benefits.
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