The United States is (or, more precisely, was) on the verge of rebuilding its independent manned spaceflight capability through the Commercial Crew Development program (CCDev), and in particular SpaceX's contribution to that program. Namely, a rocket they're already flying (Falcon 9), a human-rated version of the Dragon spacecraft they're already flying as a cargo hauler, and at a price less than a third of what NASA is currently paying Russia to transport US astronauts to the International Space Station - all within 2-3 years. But no, we can't have that, can we? Of course not - not in this surreal, self-inflicted budget environment where up is down and increasing expenses is fiscal discipline. So...No space for you!
Congress has had it in for CCDev the moment it became clear that SpaceX, rather than its "mainstream" competitor Boeing, would win handily, and now the sequester has created the perfect opportunity to just let it be gutted by default while more politically favored (and useless) programs are protected. Let's just emphasize the logic of that: Because money is artificially scarce due to the GOP's refusal to ask their millionaire financial base to pay one cent more in taxes for the good of the nation, Congress is going to force NASA to pay three times more than it otherwise would, any number of years longer than it would otherwise have to, and pay a semi-hostile foreign government for a service that US infrastructure could provide.
This is what "belt-tightening" means to Republicans: No money to invest in things that would save money, so we'll just have to hunker down and spend way more to achieve less! And, of course, what GOP-authored faux-budget-hawk travesty would be complete without the massive waste of money involved going to a foreign country rather than back into the US economy? OH, BTW...did you hear the Pentagon now has to buy surveillance data from China because US assets are too expensive? Gee, do you think maybe SpaceX, with its upcoming heavy-lift launches at 1/3 to 1/4 of the cost of those currently offered by the military's main launch contractor, might have an answer to that? Naaaaah.
Thankfully SpaceX doesn't depend on its NASA business to move forward on the human-rated Dragon - it would just go a lot more quickly with NASA money. So due to these budget issues, instead of 2015, they might only be ready by 2017, 2018, or later. In other words, it's a totally punitive, pointless waste of US taxpayer time and money, a squandering of national potential for no reason whatsoever, and yet another act of apparently deliberate sabotage of US economic development. Is there any good, useful, productive, forward-looking thing in this country or this world that Republican political authority doesn't drool at the prospect of attacking?
I suppose when your agenda is to turn America into 10th century Thuringia, 1970s Soviet technology still looks pretty amazing. That is, if they even know what any of the preceding words mean, and aren't just scribbling their budget numbers on the walls of Congress in Crayon, if not feces.
Old and busted:
New hotness:
No wonder the GOP hates SpaceX - its employees are a third of their age and have three times their average IQ.