{"id":6918,"date":"2014-03-16T20:24:12","date_gmt":"2014-03-16T20:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=6918"},"modified":"2014-03-16T23:33:50","modified_gmt":"2014-03-16T23:33:50","slug":"space-policy-roundup-mar-16-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=6918","title":{"rendered":"Space policy roundup – Mar.16.14"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dennis Tito is wrong. SLS\/Orion is a spaceship to nowhere, not even to Mars and back, because it is too grossly expensive :\u00a0The Spaceship to Everywhere\u00a0– Dennis Tito\/Huffington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tito’s Inspiration Mars<\/a> has morphed from an interesting demo of private space capabilities into a desperate excuse for NASA to justify SLS\/Orion. Tito ignores the enormous development and annual program costs of SLS\/Orion (and the enormous opportunity cost for the loss of what could have been done with that funding). He ignores the need to fund an improved upper stage for the SLS to make it capable of a Mars fly-by. He ignores the safety issues of flying people on just the second flight of the system – and to Mars no less. As noted here<\/a>\u00a0and here<\/a>, Tito seems to listen only to Doug Cooke, who was a key member of the Mike Griffin cabal that created the Constellation fiasco and who helped convinced key Congresspersons to force SLS on NASA. All of this will leave Inspiration Mars as nothing but a bizarre footnote to the space developments of this era.<\/p>\n

===<\/p>\n

More space policy\/politics related links:<\/p>\n