NASA is currently undergoing an existential crisis and struggling to find the way forward. NASA’s in-house event-planning-planning panel, the turgidly-named Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, is to report back to President Obama by the end of August with some ideas.
According to the New York Times and the Houston Chronicle, options being considered include retire/continue with the Space Shuttle, extend fuding for the International Space Station beyond 2016 or de-orbit the thing, establish a permanent base on the moon or skip the moon and go to Mars, use humans for space exploration or robots or both, stick to near-earth or the inner planets or go further afield, proceed with the new Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets or switch to a more evolutionary Shuttle Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle or revive the Saturn V…the full list contains 3000+ items .
Chairman Norman Augustine and RUSHSFPC, as the committee acronymizes to, have narrowed the options and grouped them into seven main scenarios as per space.com:
- NASA Baseline Plan
- Space Station Focused
- Dash Out of Low Earth Orbit
- More Directly-Shuttle Derived System
- Deep Space
- Lunar Global
- Mars Direct
The NASA Baseline Plan approach is the least expensive, keeps to near-earth missions, involves no new initiatives and depends on foreign partners. Mars Direct is the most expensive scenario as it involves a permanent base on Mars.
Complementing the lack of direction and complicating the picture is the lack of funds. The federal deficit will be $1.8 trillion for 2009, and the NASA budget is currently at an all-time low of 0.52% of the federal budget. And, public support for the space program has been only lukewarm over the years, as evidenced by continued calls by some to divert NASA funding to social programs.
Our 2¢ worth of advice continues to be: sell the ISS and go to Mars. However, more fiscally-responsible parties will no doubt prevail, and urge that NASA keep flying the Shuttle, continue the ISS and keep doing flybys with the occasional lander.
Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee – website
Related posts:
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve read that NASA has a plan to go back to the moon in 2020. Why go to the moon again in the first place?? Since Apollo, all development has been leading towards that, ever since shuttle development began. But in the face of restricted budgets, progress has been slower than if politicians had been interested. It’s only in the last decade that more serious thought has been given. While I do not pretend to know everything about the current status of the NASA studies, I believe there are more urgent issues for the world to attend to.
First, I think it’s a shame that we’ve lost so much interest and funding in space exploration! Second, have there been any further developments in civilian travel to space?
Yeah, I find it hard to believe that we can’t still learn more from the moon.
I think NASA should do something that would really capture the imagination of the public, which means they should try to go to Mars and beyond.