USAF has put lawmakers in the “dilemma” of having to make a decision about the service’s request to retire 30 older C-5 airlifters and purchase 30 additional new C-17s in their stead based on “imperfect information,” admitted Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, USAF’s military acquisition chief. Hoffman told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Service’s air-land panel April 26 that the service simply won’t know how much program cost growth it will have on the C-5 reliability enhancement and re-engining program until “later this summer.” Unfortunately, a Congressional decision cannot be put off, he declared, “because, if no decision is made, that, in fact, is a decision, and the C-17 factory will start to shut down.”
NASA, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance are all preparing to launch their next-gen rockets from Florida’s Space Coast, two of them before the year is out. One is expected to liberate the U.S. launch enterprise from its reliance on Russian-made RD-180 engines, while all three rockets could eventually carry astronaut crews.