Brian Thorn wrote:
On Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:34:17 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Brian Thorn wrote:
Shouldn't somebody from NASA have gotten on the phone with them and told
them to freeze work on it when Orion got canceled?
They're forbidden to do so by law, courtesy Congress, which has to
approve any cancellation of Constellation work. So far, they haven't
passed the President's budget request, so NASA must keep going as
before.
I don't mean to tell them to cancel the whole thing, just not to spend
any more money on it till the budget gets the thumbs-up or down.

No. Contract law means NASA can't withhold payment just because they
don't want it anymore. They'd have to show cause, i.e., OSC (or
LockMart, whoever is prime) failing to perform, and even then OSC
would be able to challenge the decision, which could take weeks or
months. OSC has already done a lot of work preparing facilities and
hiring people to do the work NASA contracted them to do, so they need
the money NASA committed to them to meet their own obligations. That's
why there is so much money in the FY11 request to terminate
Constellation contracts.

It is worth adding that this is the result of the Congressional Budget
and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, passed in response to Nixon's abuse
of impoundment to eliminate funding for programs he opposed. The Act
effectively eliminated the presidential power of impoundment and gave
the full power of the purse back to Congress.

Obama's budget proposal is for FY11. Congress appropriated funds for CxP
in FY10, so unless Congress passes a supplemental appropriations bill,
those funds must be spent on CxP until the end of FY10. The Executive
Branch (of which NASA is a part) cannot stop spending the FY10 funds on
CxP simply because the FY11 budget proposal cancels the program.