Andromeda, a distant destination. Photo Credit/NASA Image
The White House, Congress and NASA must work quickly to resolve the space agency’s future exploration and transportation strategies, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel concludes in the committee’s latest annual report.
The Congressionally-chartered panel listed that lack of clarity as the over arching threat to safety facing NASA.
“For a considerable period, the need for clarity and constancy of purpose has been a key ASAP message,” the eight-member panel writes in the opening pages of its 30-page 2010 report. “Today the issue is still present and becoming ever more pressing. What is NASA’s exploration mission?”
According to the panel, NASA’s long term mission definition has been overshadowed of late by the debate over how the agency is to acquire commercial space transportation services.
“What should our next destination goal be? An asteroid? The moon? Mars?,” the panels ask. “The decision affects the necessary technology programs needed to prepare for such a mission. More importantly, from the aspect of safety, the lack of a defined mission can negatively affect workforce morale and the ability to attract and maintain the necessary skill sets needed for this high-technology venture.”
In the absence of a clear direction, the nation risks losing the leadership and skilled workforce NASA has developed throughout the shuttle era as well as the assembly of the International Space Station. The missing pieces will affect how the agency addresses risk in the design of future spacecraft as well as operational safety.
The panel, led by retired U. S. Navy Vice Admiral Joseph W. Dyer, raised additional concerns about NASA’s acquisition of commercial space transportation services.
The report was presented to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House John Boehner
The committee urged the space agency and prospective commercial providers to strike a balance between too little and too much NASA oversight into the development and production of spacecraft capable of transporting NASA astronauts to and from Earth orbit.
The panel expressed similar concerns over how the FAA and NASA address safety in the launching and flight of commercial spacecraft. Without careful coordination, operators could face conflicting and over burdensome regulations, the committee said.
NASA faces an uncertain future as the shuttle program winds down in 2011. At the same time, policy makers appear to be in agreement that activities aboard the International Space Station should continue through at least 2020.
That will force NASA to rely on Russia for the launching of U. S., Canadian, European and Japanese astronauts to the station aboard Soyuz spacecraft until U. S. commercial companies can take on the responsibility.
The best estimates point to 2016 at the earliest.
In February 2010, President Obama called for the cancellation of the previous administration’s Constellation program, which targeted the moon as a human destination by 2020.
While Congress and the White House appear to be in general agreement on the cancellation, lawmakers have called on NASA for the rapid development of a heavy lift rocket and a “multi-purpose” crew capsule that could be ready for station missions by late 2016 — if the commercial initiative falls through. Eventually, the heavy lift and new crew module would take on missions to deep space destinations. Obama has proposed an asteroid as the next destination by 2025 and Mars a decade or so later.
However, Congress has not agreed on a 2011 budget for much of the federal government, including NASA.
That is forcing NASA to spend on programs it generally plans to cancel or change, at least through early March.
The president will present Congress with a new budget in February.