However, NASA has to shoulder it share of blame for their budget woes, for decades now they’ve undercut private space launches of satellites (communications in particular) by millions of dollars, most of the time doing it at a loss to maintain their monopoly on the technology.

Don’t get me wrong, my very soul cries out for the adventure of space travel, but it can’t come at the expense of people here on Earth. Time for NASA (and governments in general) to sort out their budgets so us aspiring Starfleet cadets can get out there!

Boeing knows SpaceX has got the lead on them in development by a large margin and they probably lobbied like hell to save their asses. I can only hope that Musk can push forward despite this and beat them to the punch. The Orion module is incredibly expensive and horribly resource wasteful compared to the Dragon.

If anyone wants to read a book that will make you angry and show you the history of these kinds of decisions, I suggest reading Lost in Space: The Fall of NASA and the Dream of a New Space Age by Greg Klerkx. It’s an eye opener.