Fly, baby, fly!

The Ares 1-X flew, successfully. Pix and video here.

I’m extremely troubled that after pouring literally hundreds of billions of dollars into the financial bailout last year and more hundreds of billions into the stimulus package this year, some idiots still talk about how much money we’re wasting on manned spaceflight. Here’s the answer: 3-4 billion a year. Not 34, 3 to 4. With projected increases to 7 or 8 to get the Constellation program up and running.

Is 3 or 4 billion dollars a lot of money? Well, it sounds like a lot. But this is a country that spends a billion a year on chewing gum. That is coldly contemplating bailing out GMAC to the tune of 3 to 5 billion–for the third time in a year. You know what you can buy with the manned space program budget? Two stealth bombers.

So no. Just no. Manned spaceflight done the NASA way is probably a lot more expensive than it has to be. But compared to the budgets of, well, anything, on a national scale, it’s a pittance. And even that pittance has been steadily eroded by the last three administrations.

I’m not 100% on board with the Constellation program. I fear that it will keep thousands of former shuttle program people  employed at the expense of not getting us beyond low Earth orbit for another three decades. I think the competing DIRECT proposal has a lot going for it. But for now, today, Ares 1-X is what we got. And whether I agree with everything they’re doing or not, NASA needed a win.

And it got one.