Source: The Houston Chronicle
So much has happened with the future of NASA’s human spaceflight program during the last two months I wanted try to provide a summary of what’s transpired, and what may happen now.
Feel free to ask additional questions below.
What’s the fuss all about?
President Obama has proposed a substantial overhaul of NASA’s human spaceflight program (see an overview of his budget). The space shuttle program, which is responsible for about 4,000 jobs in Houston, was already due to end this year. Obama’s significant change was to also end Constellation, a program to develop NASA’s next generation of rockets and space capsules. This program also accounts for up to 4,000 jobs in the Houston area.
Instead of Constellation, President Obama increased NASA’s funding by $1 billion a year to speed efforts by private U.S. rocket companies to develop the capability to fly humans to the International Space Station. Until that happens, perhaps by 2015, NASA will rely on the Russians to carry U.S. astronauts into orbit.
Why the change?
A blue-ribbon panel named by Obama, and chaired by Norm Augustine, declared last year that NASA was on an “unsustainable” trajectory and that, even with more funding, was unlikely to return humans to the moon before the mid-2020s.
President Obama also preferred to skip a lunar landing in order to focus on different targets humans have never reached, such as asteroids and potentially the Martian surface. Humans could get there in two or three decades under his plan.
Who is upset about this?
We have heard most from legislators from Florida and Texas, the states that will be most affected by the cancellation of Constellation and the lack of a firm plan for NASA to replace it with a human-rated rocket.
Some former astronauts also oppose the plan, including Neil Armstrong, Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan and Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, who have called Constellation’s cancellation devastating. There is also opposition from employees at the space centers who will be affected by cuts.
Who likes the plan?
Many former astronauts support the plan, including Buzz Aldrin, who called it Obama’s JFK moment on space, and others like Sally Ride and John Grunsfeld, the Hubble repairman. Last week Grunsfeld confirmed that he left NASA on Jan. 1 because of a growing frustration that the space agency wasn’t making sustainable progress in human spaceflight.
Members of Obama’s Augustine commission, who took a critical look at human spaceflight last summer, also generally support that plan, as do space exploration organizations like the Planetary Society.
What will happen now?
That’s up to Congress, which writes the budgets and will have the final say on the President’s plan. The key to winning Congress will probably come down to Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida senator who flew aboard the space shuttle with NASA administrator Charles Bolden.
Many senators in states where there are no NASA centers will follow Nelson’s lead. While he initially objected to Obama’s plan, Nelson has recently been more conciliatory, especially after the President visited Kennedy Space Center earlier this month and promised Florida space employees some job-finding help.
It seems plausible that a few more concessions from the President to Florida may swing Nelson’s support.
To continue reading: http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2010/04/an_faq_on_nasas_human_spaceflight_plans.html