Northrop and Boeing were expected to win the contract to build the ‘Orion’ moon module because they ran the Apollo program in the 1960‘s. They have experience moon landing. The contract for the 8.1 billion dollar contract ended up with Lockheed-Martin on August 31, 2006.
We could probably chalk it all up to Mike Griffin. Who is he?
He walked into the White House on 9/15/2005 and presented his plan to replace the dangerous space shuttle. Two of the shuttles disintegrated and exploded killing their occupants.
Mike Griffin is a rocket scientist and has a Masters Degree in Business Administration.
That may be why his new plan is to use rockets to replace the poorly designed shuttles. It may also be why approval was given without any figures or information on how to pay for it.
Griffin’s new fleet of rockets will be a rework of rockets used during the moon shots in the 1960’s.
The rockets will draw on design information and experience the United States has had in building and deploying nuclear weapons.
Mike Griffin served as CEO of In-Q-Tel. In-Q-Tel is described by it’s first CEO Gilman Louie as being formed "...to ensure that the CIA remains at the cutting edge of information technology advances and capabilities."
Mike Griffin is taking NASA ‘Back to the Past’.
Several board members of In-Q-Tel apparently have connections with Lockheed-Martin Corporation.
Why should we continue to pay these folks to do this? What happened to the NASA we used to know?

Northrop and Boeing were expected to win the contract to build the ‘Orion’ moon module because they ran the Apollo program in the 1960‘s. They have experience moon landing.

Of course approximately 0% of those people are still there.

Lighter than air craft and space planes can all perform the work of getting folks and payloads into orbit.

There does not seem to be any real intent to get into space. It is time for private interests to move into space - the moon, Mars and beyond.

The rockets will draw on design information and experience the United States has had in building and deploying nuclear weapons. I smell militarization...

Who is Michael Griffin? According to NASA his profile includes the following.
"Nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate, Michael Griffin began his duties as the 11th Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on April 14, 2005. As Administrator, he leads the NASA team and manages its resources to advance the U.S. Vision for Space Exploration.

Prior to being nominated as NASA Administrator, Griffin was serving as Space Department Head at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. He was previously President and Chief Operating Officer of In-Q-Tel, Inc., and also served in several positions within Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Va., including Chief Executive Officer of Orbital's Magellan Systems division and General Manager of the Space Systems Group.

Earlier in his career, Griffin served as chief engineer and as associate administrator for Exploration at NASA, and as deputy for technology at the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. He has been an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, and George Washington University, where he taught courses in spacecraft design, applied mathematics, guidance and navigation, compressible flow, computational fluid dynamics, spacecraft attitude control, astrodynamics and introductory aerospace engineering. He is the lead author of more than two dozen technical papers, as well as the textbook, "Space Vehicle Design.""

He seems well qualified to propose how NASA should return to the moon. I'm not surprised to learn he plans to use rockets, Is there any other way? Question is, what will the rockets carry?

I hope the design and build of these future rockets will utilize data gathered during the design and build of military rockets. He would be derelict in his duty if didn't.

What happened to the NASA we used to know? It lost its way, the immediate result of which was the destruction of two shuttles.