NASA’s Commercial Crew Program must drive Richard Shelby absolutely crazy. It just has to. There’s no other way to explain the utterly nonsensical reasoning being used to justify the Senate Appropriation Committee’s decision to slash NASA’s budget request for the program by more than 27 percent.

The Obama Administration came to Congress requesting $1.244 billion for FY 2016 to keep Boeing and SpaceX on track to begin commercial human spaceflights to the International Space Station by 2017. Anything less, NASA insisted, would result in further delays and more reliance upon Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.

The House came through with $1 billion in its funding measure. When the proposal came up before Shelby’s Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee in the Senate, appropriators cut the amount even further to $900 million. That amount ended up in the measure approved by the full Senate Appropriations Committee.

What’s really interesting is the language in the spending bill. It cites concerns over whether the program is already in danger of not meeting its 2017 deadline to justify a lower spending level that will all but guarantee it won’t.

To date, milestones intended to show progress in the development of the ISS Crew capability have already begun to be delayed. More technically challenging milestone completion dates are about to be reached or may be potentially postponed further. It is the intent of the Committee to continue to closely monitor and review progress of the ISS Crew capability through the quarterly reports that are provided by NASA.

Got that?

The Senate is right about one thing. Milestones have slipped. But, it’s too early to give up on the 2017 date. And how does cutting the budget request help with that anyway? Congress has cut the funding request every year, and it’s caused nothing but the delays NASA warned them about.

Congress is perpetually behind on doing key things like…oh…passing the federal budget. Federal agencies are regularly forced to operate on short-term continuing resolutions, usually passed just before various deadlines, until Congress gets around to fulfilling one of its main Constitutional responsibilities.

If you use the logic being applied to commercial crew, Congress’ operational budget should be slashed by 27 percent. Nothing would inspire Congress and its esteemed members to work faster and more efficiently than if they were perpetually short on operating funds.

Ah, but there’s more. With Congress, there’s always more.

Furthermore, NASA issued a notice of intent on February 6, 2015, to purchase another six seats from the Russians during the 2018-2019 time period. While NASA appears to be protecting its access to ISS, the Committee notes NASA has consistently stated that domestically launched crew transportation capabilities will be ready during this time period so that the United States can end our reliance on such vehicles. Particularly concerning is that the notice of intent specifically states that “NASA needs to secure crew transportation with a known reliable provider to ensure a continued U.S. presence aboard the ISS.” Such statements are deeply concerning and indicate that even NASA, which has continual insight and oversight of the ISS crew program, does not have confidence that even with significant financial and technical support, the availability of a reliable domestic ISS crew capability by 2017 is guaranteed.

In reality, this is little more than NASA hedging its bets. The space agency is aiming for 2017, understands that delays are possible, and is protecting its access to the space station just in case. Imagine Congressional outrage is 2018 rolled around and NASA lacked seats on either Soyuz or commercial crew systems. Soyuz seats have to be ordered years in advance, before NASA knows for sure how much money Congress is providing for commercial crew and whether the 2017 deadline can be met.

Thus, NASA’s prudence is being used against it. Way to support the agency, Senators. You do realize that cutting the request will probably mean sending more money to Russia’s crumbling space program? How wise is that?

There’s another paragraph that hints at why Shelby and others on the committee really hate commercial crew: it costs so much.

The Committee notes that the initial rounds of development funding for ISS Crew capabilities represented a $1,900,000,000 investment prior to awarding another $6,800,000,000 in potential payments for two ISS Crew providers to finish development of their vehicles and conduct initial flights. At the end of this final round of vehicle development and testing of this capability, NASA will have paid a total of $8,700,000,000 to conduct a competition between several companies. This substantial investment from the Federal Government comes prior to NASA purchasing future crew services or the ISS from these domestic providers.

That is a lot of money. At least in its own terms. However, it pales in comparison to what’s being spent on Shelby’s favorite programs, the Space Launch System (SLS), Orion and related ground systems. The total Senate appropriators want to spend on these programs in just FY 2016 alone? A cool $3.5 billion. At that funding rate, it equals roughly 2.5 years of commercial crew spending.

In a bit of irony that’s almost certainly lost on Shelby, he and others have complained about the Obama Administration underfunding SLS and Orion, thus endangering flight schedules. The solution to this problem: adding more money to the programs to keep them on track. It doesn’t hurt that many people in Alabama are employed in these programs.

My best guess is what really bothers Shelby is that commercial crew isn’t being done the traditional way. That method involves NASA putting out the specs, selecting a single provider on a cost-plus basis, owning the vehicles, and employing lots of civil servants in places like Huntsville. In other words, NASA’s not doing things the way SLS and Orion are being developed.

And that’s the real threat to Shelby. If you have commercial space vehicles being designed and built in places like North Las Vegas and Hawthorne, what will there be for the good folks in Huntsville to do? You wouldn’t need as many people? You might not even need the center anymore.

It’s no small concern. It’s actually an existential threat. Alabama is a relatively poor state that takes in far more in federal spending than it contributes in taxes to the treasury. Huntsville is particularly dependent on the federal government.

If Shelby can’t bring home the bacon for his state, he will find himself unemployed. That’s why he must do everything possible to make sure SLS and Orion get as much money as possible and that commercial crew doesn’t succeed.