Jinto: The problem with "THEIR TECH" is that NASA insists on deploying it using cost-plus contracting. Actually it's worse than cost-plus contracting, because they go about it as some sort of partnership. This works well for NASA engineers having it their way, but it is a terribly inefficient system, on top of the baseline inefficiency of NASA being a large government organization. And if your ATK or Boeing, having a cushy cost-plus NASA contract doesn't exactly spur efficiency either. In complex projects, such inefficiencies tend to multiply. This is largely why we have watched this project grow from a few year endeavor at under 20 billion to a 10+ year endeavor at 40 billion and rising.
Just as bad, we are looking at 500 million per launch for the Ares 1.
$40 billion, half billion per launch, thats not all that much right? Wrong! First, a half billion per launch is about 3 times what SpaceX is going to charge for a manned dragon flight. How long do you think congress is going to be OK with that? Second, say we dump the 40 billion (only that hopefully), and somewhere around 2017 (wishfully) we get our Ares 1. At $500 million per launch, that is not as bad as the space shuttle's $1.5 billion... Well, if you calculate that $40 billion in, supposing it takes $40 launches before we decide to pull the plug, well (40 / 40 + .5 = 1.5) $1.5 billion per launch again! History has funny ways of repeating itself. Third, Ares is a huge worldwide perchlorate generator. Whatever your stance on perchlorates, issues like these tend to grow in time. Perchlorates are a global issue and thusly a major future risk to the Ares 1 project, and Constellation for that matter, should congress decide to take on this matter or sign a related treaty. Plus, it is not exactly good PR to have a space program that is being accused of lowering global IQs.
And yes, NASA is short on cash, but sadly congress is not in any mood to dole out few billion to NASA. And yes, NASA has been shortchanged, but this project has also doubled in cost. We can't just expect congress to support NASA simply because they were first. NASA does have a role in the future of space flight, its just not inefficient cost-plus rocket manufacturing and ridiculously overpriced ground operations.