Finding a heavy lift vehicle.

Gov't wants NASA to produce a heavy lift vehicle: but NOT this one.

Congress really wants a heavy lift vehicle. And they want it fast. Or maybe they don’t. It’s hard to tell, because member of Congress attack NASA for saying they can’t do it without enough money or time. (The HLV NASA had been developing—Ares V—was cancelled by the president.)

And Congress never comes up with the money. Also, designing and producing a big, new rocket takes time. Congress, not known for speed or competence, doesn’t seem understand this.

Nonetheless, NASA is supposedly working on a new HLV and Congress supposedly want them to make one.

The big question is: why? There’s no plans to go anywhere, and the only manned spacecraft still being developed by NASA—Orion—has been downgraded to an escape pod for the ISS. Does Congress have some secret military plans for such a rocket?

This brings me back to the shuttle. Instead of developing a reusable space plan, NASA developed the shuttle—a space truck—capable of carrying a whole bunch of stuff along with astronauts into space. One compromise made to produce that vehicle: an escape system for endangered astronauts.

It turns out that the Defense Department wanted a big manned space vehicle because they thought it would get great pictures on spy missions. A few years later, the quality of small, unmanned spy satellites would do the job. But NASA paid with an expensive, difficult to fly vehicle that ultimately caused the death of 14 astronauts.

I think the manned exploration of space should be made by those who are actually interested in it. Congress has other interests. Let’s not let them do that again.

Congress should either fund NASA for manned spaceflight, or not. They should NEVER meddle.