The Mississippi Tower was designed as part of the Constellation rocket program, now canceled, but construction continued on the project. The $349 million tower was designed to test rocket motors in realistic conditions. The Aries 1 and 5 boosters, as well as the J-2X engine were to be tested on the tower, but none of those designs will ever be built. The booster equipment, designed during the Bush Administration, was scrapped by President Obama in 2010, with the exception of the Orion space capsule.
The Mississippi Tower was built to test rocket engines in a chamber designed to mimic conditions in outer space. The Space Launch System (SLS), the successor to the Orion program, has no need for similar testing .
Roger Wicker, a senator from Mississippi, worked to keep construction of the massive tower in his state, despite knowing the structure would never be used. Actions by Wicker were carried out in order to maintain human spaceflight, according to a 2010 press release from the senator's office.
"The termination of the Constellation Program would be a major shift for NASA, and it could have serious implications for America's leadership in space as well as the economic well-being of Mississippi and the rest of the country... [W]e must not walk away from this program, in which we have invested billions of taxpayer dollars in critical research and new technologies," Senator Wicker's office reported.
Construction on the massive testing tower was recently completed, and the facility was immediately closed.
In addition to construction costs, the Mississippi Tower will cost NASA an additional $700,000 a year to maintain.
"NASA Administrator Charles Bolden... assured me that the nearly half a billion dollar federal investment in Stennis's new rocket testing facility would be completed and used for future rocket projects despite the proposed cancellation of the Constellation Program," Roger Wicker said in 2010.
Many observers are now questioning how NASA morphed from an agency able to put humans on the Moon in just seven years to one that is mired in bureaucracy. Part of the problem, David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post believes, could be constantly-changing goals from various presidents. In the 1960's, placing people on our natural satellite was the main mission of the space agency. In the 1970's, the space station Skylab became a priority, and then development of the Space Shuttle. A trip to Mars by space travelers was once a goal, and now visiting an asteroid is the next major step planned for humans in space.
The Orion spacecraft just recently underwent its first test flight, without astronauts aboard the vehicle.
