In another insightful article that shows why Florida Today really takes its space journalism seriously, John Kelly talks about some of the inconsistencies that have been revealed through Congressional hearings over the Augustine Committee’s analysis of Constellation in Caveats on space plan can’t be ignored
Kelly talks about the rigorous analysis the Augustine Committee treated estimates for launch of Ares I/Orion while accepting at face value dates given by possible commercial crew launchers.
He also discusses that while the Constellation budget overages were well researched, hired analysts for the Committee have stated that “…they did not apply the same methodology to estimating NASA’s potential cost overruns vs. private operators.” Kelly goes on to examine the EELV program, which produced the Delta IV and Atlas V, both of which were to be commercial vehicles but are subsidized far more than planned when the Air Force pitched the EELV program as “privatization”.
Kelly’s article, and others, continue to shed light on the inconvenient truth that the Augustin Committee, though honorable, was not even-handed in analyzing claims by NASA and commercial launchers.