Because it’s not like we’re in the middle of an economic crisis or anything.

After the spectacular failure of the last spy satellite effort, the administration of President George W. Bush is trying once again to put a new set of government eyes in space through a $1.7 billion project approved last week whose goal is to have two new satellites in orbit by 2012.

The key players involved this time – including officials from the Department of Defense and the national intelligence director’s office – said in interviews this week that they recognized that the government could not afford another stumble.

The last project, called Future Imagery Architecture, was canceled in 2005 after indecision over what kind of capabilities it should have, which delayed progress and drove up the cost. It was canceled in 2005, before even a single satellite was launched, wasting at least $4 billion.

“We have to have the capability,” John Young Jr., who is under secretary of defense, said Wednesday, referring to the federal government’s need to gather imagery for its spies and troops and government decision makers.

But already there has been a dispute over whether the government, under the program now called Broad Area Space-Based Imagery Collector, should be building two new satellites of its own or acquiring images from private companies.

“It is déja vu,” said J. Christian Kessler, who retired this year from a State Department post where he helped oversee federal space satellite policy. “We are already on the path of repeating the failure that cost us billions the last time.”

How much is the new government bank rescue plan costing the tax payers? Oh yeah, billions.

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