More complications created by the fiasco created in 2002 in Afghanistan. Appreciate what happens when the bills come due. From the NY Times of 9 Sept 2009:
Quote:
Panel Calls Program of NASA Unfeasible
NASA, under its Constellation program, is developing a new rocket called Ares I and a new astronaut capsule called Orion, and the system is to begin carrying astronauts to the International Space Station in March 2015. After that, development of a larger rocket, the Ares V, and a lunar lander was to lead to a return to the moon by 2020.
The panel said that those plans were “reasonable” when they were announced in 2005, but that largely because NASA never received the expected financing, the first manned flight of Ares I would probably be delayed until 2017, and the International Space Station is to be discarded by 2016 under current plans. And the projected financing for NASA would not allow enough money for development of Ares V and the Altair lunar lander.
The panel in fact could find no program that “permits human exploration to continue in any meaningful way” within the $100 billion for human spaceflight over the next decade.
For $30 billion more, the current Constellation program is feasible, but would still not reach the moon until 2025, the panel said.
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Next year, the US will have no transport to ISS except using Russian rockets and Soyuz capsules. Nothing until 2017 when Orion is ready? This is the planning by the same George Jr administration that also created a second war in Afghanistan - that will cost massively more. No money left for his Man to Mars boondoggle. No money for even something to replace the Shuttles. Another surrender of American technology leadership due to bad management. No money because "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter". More complications - even the manned space program - because of details listed by DanaC.
More complications that adversely affect whether we can even achieve the strategic objective in Afghanistan.