CAGW ISSUES SPENDING CUT ALERT: NASA CONSTELLATION PROGRAM

(Washington, D.C.) –Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) issued its weekly spending cut alert aimed at the Constellation Program, NASA’s multibillion dollar Moon/Mars initiative.  As CAGW noted in both an Issue Brief and the June 2010 Porker of the Month, the cost of the Constellation program has gone into the stratosphere, and is no longer affordable. 

Despite having spent more than $10 billion on the program to date, NASA is no closer to sending an astronaut to space than it was when the program began, according to the Augustine Commission.  In 2010, the President signed into law legislation cancelling major components of the program, including the Ares 1 rocket.  However, due to a provision included in NASA’s fiscal year (FY) 2010 Appropriations Act, NASA will nonetheless spend an estimated $500 million on the rocket.  On January 2, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “in the last days of last Congress they funded five hundred million dollars for a rocket program at NASA that’s already been shut down. That can’t be too hard to undo.”  

On October 11, 2010 President Obama signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, which provided $10 billion to fund existing contracts for Ares and Orion over the next three years.  Nonetheless, NASA delivered a report to Congress this week that concluded that it still can’t build a rocket that “fits the projected budget profiles nor schedule goals outlined in the Authorization Act.”

The Orion space capsule has already cost the government $4.8 billion, requires another $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2011, and will not be operational until 2014.  As WESH in Orlando has noted, commercial providers have already demonstrated the same capabilities at one tenth of the cost of the still in development Orion capsule.

 “Taxpayers now recognize that President Obama and his congressional allies will say anything to sound fiscally rational, but their actions tell a different story.  The spendthrifts in Washington, D.C. cannot continue to sink tax dollars into this black hole; the Constellation program should be a prime target for the new Congress as it seeks ways to cut wasteful spending and reduce the deficit,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. 

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.

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