Herb Schaltegger wrote:
From testimony at Griffin's confirmation hearing:
3'President Bush said no later than 2014. He didn1t say we couldn1t be
smart and do it early,' Griffin told members of the Commerce Committee.
'That would be my goal. It is unacceptable to me that it should take
from 2005 to 2014 to do the same thing2 the country did during the
1960s.'"

Yeah. Nice words. But budgets speak louder than words. Until NASA has
money to built that mythical CEV, it won't get built. Apollo had very
specific mission requirements: go to the moon and back. An capabilities
other than that were not a requirement , even if Apollo was capable of
doing them. So even once CEV gets some budget, there is no garantee that
it wohn't be cut the minute there is some cost overrun.


And CEV still doesn't come close to replacing the shuttle. NASA also
needs to develop a cargo tug with automatic docking/berthing
capailities, it needs to develop a disposable remote manipulator arm for
that cargo tug, or develop a CEV that can have an arm in it that is
returned safely to earth. Oh and it still needs to develop a replacement
for the MPLM.

And what will NASA do with an astronaut corps during all the years it
won't have a manned space programme ? Shouldn't it close its astronaut
school now and stop training shuttle astronauts ? Isn't that wasted
money ? For the few flights that remain, they don't need to grow the
number of astronauts.