Constellation never had a chance

Veteran NASA program manager Wayne Hale, who had an inside view of the birth and slow death of NASA's Constellation program, writes that there was never a real chance for the program given two factors: the decision of the Bush administration and Congressional leaders not to up NASA's budget, and the fact it took much longer and cost much more than expected to return the Shuttle to service following the Columbia accident.
COMMENT: The government essentially expected NASA and its contractors to pull off a miracle: developing new high-tech systems with a much smaller budget than they needed. That strategy almost never works, and this time was no exception.