NASA's Mississippi Misadventure Costs More than US $ 350 Million

NASA allowed $ 350 million of public money to disuse by developing infrastructure without any use.

The infrastructure, according to The Washington Post, is the A3 Test Stand, a 30 storey tower in Mississippi that was to test fire rockets meant to courier a spacecraft to moon and Mars. The rocket project was shelved in 2010 but NASA continued to build the tower even when costs rose from $ 110 million. The tower was completed in June this year but immediately mothballed.

According to ABC News the project will continue to cost US $ 700,000 as NASA plans to maintain it in disuse. A former NASA employee said the tower instance shows how the space agency is concenred more about jobs and is being directed by a few individuals for self-serving purposes.

The tower was to test rocket engine J-2x in a vacuum container but Obama administration had cancelled the plans in 2010. However a senator from Mississippi along with a congressional delegation prevailed up on NASA and got the agency to continue building the tower.

"I hope the question is not so much why we continued building a partially built facility. I hope the question also becomes why did the president decide to cancel this program when science and technology has given us so much information and so much research. ... That ought to be the question. Was the decision of the Obama administration ill-founded? And I believe it was," Mississipi senator Roger Wicker told ABC News.