Just six years ago Bush talked about a new wave of space exploration that was designed in part to make NASA relevant in the eyes of the public. It was time to leave Low Earth Orbit, head back to the moon and perhaps onto Mars.
Aerospace companies started setting up for a huge payday, engineers (including me) were excited by doing proper engineering research and the public (who were ultimately footing the bill) got a little excited about it for a while. Then along came huge federal deficits, and public support went onto the next shiny thing (and I don’t blame the public, engineers are not exciting to watch).
The Moon does not make a lot of sense to me, we’ve been there and there is not that much more to prove. The idea of using it as a launch pad for Mars was spurious at best, why launch from Earth (gravity well A), to the Moon (gravity well B) and then onto Mars. Seems easier and more efficient to go from Earth to Mars (actually low earth orbit to Mars), but I’m just a taxpayer.
NASA has had huge success with its unmanned programs. Hubble telescope has been sending back incredible pictures and a lot of very important data for close to 20 years. The two Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which are still sending back data after four years on the red planet.
Manned spaceflight is a while different animal. The budget is X dollars and the cost for all that the agency has committed too seems to be way more than X.
NASA is committed to the International Space Station for only another five years. Even though the building phase is complete it’s still a huge budget eater. Politically NASA is committed to walking away from something that’s taken 20 years to build after five years of full operation.
After disposing of the ISS (to partners or bringing it down into the ocean) NASA is supposed to go back to the moon by 2020. The task of going to the moon was given to NASA by the previous administration and not adequately funded. With federal budgets so tight something clearly has to give, it’s too early to call for the end to manned space exploration, even if many scientists question the value.
I think the space program should be about goals, and not places. If the goal is exploration and “going where no man has gone before” then be clear about it, enlist international partners and go do it.
If it’s doing science then lets do it, fund the really exciting unmanned stuff and make ISS useful and doing fundamental research beyond 2015.
Reading industry press it’s claimed by many that the budget as it is today is not enough to do both in a meaningful way. I think doing one or the other properly, and either forgetting the other or doing enough to keep it ticking along. Doing both half-arsed seems a waste of money, time and engineering talent.
The ISS shows international cooperation works. White papers have suggested NASA needs to join with the Russians, Europeans and potentially the Chinese to explore the solar system, including flybys of Mars and the asteroids. I don’t think the US taxpayers would accept plans to include China, a country that is currently subject to a U.S. embargo on space technology. .
Obama will ultimately set the goals and budget. He’s called himself a “space buff”, and needs to lay out the vision for the future of spaceflight, both manned and unmanned. In his State of the Union speech next week he has the chance to clarify the picture, give the goal, produce the funds and then get out the way and let the engineers get on with what they’re good at (blowing budget and running late?).
