The Obama transition team has presented a questionnaire to NASA officials asking, among other things, how much money could be saved by canceling the Ares 1 and scaling back the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle. These are two of the vehicles that are intended to replace the Space Shuttle.
While the questionnaire, a copy of which was obtained by Space News, also asks NASA to provide a cost estimate for accelerating the first operational flight of Ares 1 and Orion from the current target date of March 2015 to as soon as 2013, NASA was not asked to study the cost implications of canceling any of its other programs, including the significantly overbudget 2009 Mars Science Laboratory or the James Webb Space Telescope.
