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NASA Chief Technologist Robert Braun suggested that it would take at least a decade to develop a rocket and a space craft capable of taking American astronauts beyond low Earth orbit. Officially, both are supposed to be operational by 2016.

Braun made this assessment to an audience at the Kennedy Space Center on the occasion of the last liftoff of the Discovery space shuttle. NASA has already suggested the 2016 deadline cannot be met by 2016 within the proposed budget. Congress, however, has expressed disbelief in NASA's claims.

The suspicion is NASA is slow walking the development of the Orion space craft and the shuttle-derived heavy-lift launcher that could take American astronauts to destinations such as an Earth approaching asteroid, the moon and ultimately to Mars. That is because the project was one that was imposed upon NASA by Congress and was not part of the Obama administration original space policy.

Over a year ago, the Obama administration canceled the Constellation space exploration program. During the subsequent political fire storm, Congress wrote language into the NASA Authorization Bill ordering NASA to build two of the elements of Constellation, the Orion deep space craft and a shuttle derived heavy lift launcher and set at deadline for 2016.

In the most recent budget request for 2012, President Barack Obama slashed funding for the Orion and heavy lift rocket development, suggesting a lack of seriousness about following congressional mandates. Members of Congress, including Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., have told NASA and the Obama administration in no uncertain terms that the 2016 deadline was not optional but was enshrined in law.

Braun, at his Kennedy Space Center talk, did not seem to be overly concerned about another decade of Americans essentially going around in circles in low Earth orbit. We would do great things on the International Space Station. Commercial space craft, built with taxpayers' money, would be developed. Unmanned probes such as the Mars Science Lab, would explore space instead of human beings.

Braun's remarks are very likely to raise the frustration level of space exploration advocates, both within and outside of Congress, who still rankle at the sudden and abrupt cancellation of Constellation and the abandonment of the moon for the foreseeable future. It seems that President Obama's NASA is going to do what it wants to do, no matter what the desires of anyone else, least of all the members of Congress who control the purse strings, desire. The question arises, will Congress do anything about it in an era of restrained budgets besides to complain?

Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the LA Times, and The Weekly Standard.