R.I.P. Constellation

One of my fears about the election of President Obama is that he would revert to his real position on space exploration.  You’ll recall that he flip-flopped on his support for the human space flight once it became clear that he would lose too many votes in Florida (and Texas!) if he didn’t.  So we heard a few platitudes about his commitment to the human spaceflight program, just in time to get the man elected, of course.

Today we learned that he has cancelled the Constellation program.  This is consistent with his original “I don’t like Constellation; it’s a Bush program” philosophy.  Although he didn’t address NASA in last week’s State of the Union address (in fact, I was saddened that he failed to refer to the agency when he purported to want America to retain its preeminent position in science and technology), he did telegraph his intent, I think.  So we should not be surprised, just disappointed that we elected such a rank amateur to our highest leadership position.

In theory Constellation will be replaced with something shiny, new, and more Obama-esque.  As with far too many things from our President, the details are not only lacking, but absent.

The one ray of hope in today’s announcement is that there is money in the budget to do something; Will it be something that at least preserves the current, highly-skilled workforce?  We can only hope.  But it must come fast.  Many were relying on the awarding of the EGLS contract, which will now be cancelled with the rest of the program.  Without a replacement — by this October — thousands of ground and launch support jobs in Florida will be lost.

A portion of the team I work on at Johnson Space Center is funded by the Shuttle program, and we were counting on moving into Constellation work as the Shuttle program retires.  Absent a tangible and specific plan, I am saddened to think what this development will mean for my team as the holidays approach this year.

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