Re: John Young says CEV

In article <1180055381.893327.148910@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
hallerb@xxxxxxx <hallerb@xxxxxxx> wrote:
you never know bush will be out of office soon, and his CEV may go to
the trash bin of history with him...

Unlikely. It appears you haven't been paying attention -- CEV has fairly
broad and strong bipartisan support, as a shuttle replacement.

The more interesting question is whether anything will happen about the
return-to-the-Moon part, and more importantly, on *what schedule*. It too
has bipartisan support... but not as broad and not nearly as strong. The
fun comes about three years from now, when the shuttle-operations budget
item starts to plummet towards zero -- will NASA get to keep that money
and redirect it toward lunar hardware development, as is now planned?
Some schedule slip, at the very least, is not at all unlikely.

I continue to think that NASA is making a grievous strategic error in not
seizing the opportunity to dump the White Cane (aka Ares I) and go
straight to the White Elephant (Ares V) as the CEV launch vehicle. If
they've *got* to build their own launchers, it makes a whole lot of sense
to build only one kind, and the idea that the White Cane would be quick
and easy to do was quietly discarded some time ago. Developing the White
Elephant now instead would be unlikely to add significant cost or delay,
would greatly increase margins for weight growth in the hardware... and
would avoid needing a second big lump of launcher-development money before
any lunar operations could take place. The White Cane has had enough
problems in the last year or two to make a perfect excuse for dumping it,
but the window of opportunity for doing so is rapidly closing.

The single likeliest way for the return to the Moon -- or at least, the
government's version of it -- to get seriously delayed is for Congress to
postpone funding White Elephant development, on the grounds that it costs
too much and there is no near-term need for it. That's especially likely
if the White Cane overruns its budget and schedule, which is all too
probable. Nobody's going to balk at funding the launcher that's part of
the shuttle replacement, but an expensive followon is another story.
--
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