America’s New Space Roadmap
It’s been 42 years since the establishment of the NASA and in that time we have seen some great successes: Apollo 11, Skylab, Mariner, Hubble, Mars Rovers, the International Space Station, and of course, the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle has symbolized America’s lead in space flight since its first mission in 1981. But as of now, there are only 2 more scheduled space shuttle missions. Current NASA plans call for the Shuttle to be retired in 2011. There are big changes in store for American space flight.
In recent years, the Constellation Program had been a primary focus at the agency. The program includes plans for a Space Shuttle replacement, a combination of a crew capsule, (“Orion”) Ares I and V rockets to get the capsule into space, and an Altair lander which would take humans to the surface of the Moon and eventually to Mars. However, in October, the Review of the United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee, also known as the Augustine Group, found the program was too far behind schedule, over budget and underfunded to meet its goals.
As a result of the committee’s findings, President Obama has decided upon a reorientation of NASA’s priorities. Rather than proceed with the Space Shuttles replacement, Constellation, NASA would rely on privately designed, manufactured and operated space vehicles like SpaceX’s Falcon 9 to ferry astronauts into space. The Orion crew capsule would continue development but as an emergency escape capsule on the International Space Station.
With the efforts required for human spaceflight to the International Space Station in private hands, NASA’s funds could be spent elsewhere. The President, in an April speech at the Kennedy Space Center, announced an increase in NASA’s budget, plans for a the design of a new heavy lift launch vehicle by 2015, an asteroid mission by 2025 and a crewed mission to orbit Mars by the 2030s.
The President’s plan has met plenty of opposition in Congress and among the American people. To some, the idea that NASA would cease to deliver astronauts to space, especially as other nations continue to prioritize human spaceflight, is demoralizing. But at the same time, shouldn’t NASA set its goals higher? John Glenn orbited the Earth more than 48 years ago. Neil Armstrong landed on the moon more than 41 years ago. Sending humans into orbit to stay on the International Space Station or putting them on the moon once more won’t capture our imagination like NASA’s missions used to. And it’s a testament to American ingenuity that tasks that only a few years ago took massive government agencies to accomplish can now be handled entirely by ingenious individuals in the private sector.
Hopefully a compromise can be reached giving NASA the freedom to dream big and efficient, while at the same time preserving its legacy as the primary driver of human spaceflight.
We can always count on famed astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson to offer an inspiring opinion on the future of space flight. Check out what he had to say about NASA’s future plans at a speech at the University of Buffalo.
