Ares and Constellation are dead, except in name. The NASA budget has been reduced to a level that is incompatible with completion of the program. I've read NASA insiders acknowledging this on semi-public message boards.
> But work at the staff level continues out of view of the nation’s elected
leadership, and in the recent passback to NASA from the Office of
Management and Budget, the news is not so good. After a small increase this year, Exploration Systems at NASA goes down by $3.5 billion over the next four years. When combined with earlier reductions of almost $12 billion during the Bush Administration, well over $15 billion has been extracted from the Exploration Systems budget in the five short years since the new space policy was announced. Funding for lunar return in the Constellation program was
already less than $4 billion in the years prior to 2015. This was to be allocated to early work on the Ares 5 heavy‐lifter, and the Altair lunar lander. With only a half‐billion dollars now available, this work cannot be done.
Ares and Constellation are dead, except in name. The NASA budget has been reduced to a level that is incompatible with completion of the program. I've read NASA insiders acknowledging this on semi-public message boards.
See this, for example: http://www.spacepolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/grif...
> But work at the staff level continues out of view of the nation’s elected leadership, and in the recent passback to NASA from the Office of Management and Budget, the news is not so good. After a small increase this year, Exploration Systems at NASA goes down by $3.5 billion over the next four years. When combined with earlier reductions of almost $12 billion during the Bush Administration, well over $15 billion has been extracted from the Exploration Systems budget in the five short years since the new space policy was announced. Funding for lunar return in the Constellation program was already less than $4 billion in the years prior to 2015. This was to be allocated to early work on the Ares 5 heavy‐lifter, and the Altair lunar lander. With only a half‐billion dollars now available, this work cannot be done.