[Vision2020] NASA's Constellation Program/Moon Base Plans Shelved As China Plans Moon Landing

[Ted Moffett]

China may beat the US for the next human moon landing:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/08/china-eyes-high-ground/?feat=home_headlines

Senior Chinese space officials have told their state media that China could
be on the moon by 2022 at the outside. Other authoritative Chinese space
engineers see a moon landing as a next step in the Tiangong program that
will launch three Chinese space stations into Earth orbit between 2011 and
2015. In 2008, NASA scientists told the Bush White House that, with the
technology currently available to the Chinese space program, Chinese
cosmonauts could be on the moon by 2017.
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http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/01/29/tech-space-nasa-budget-ares.html

Obama to cut NASA's moon plan: officials

U.S. President Barack Obama is essentially grounding efforts to return
astronauts to the moon and instead is sending NASA in new directions with
roughly $6 billion US more, according to officials familiar with the plans.

A White House official confirmed Thursday that when next week's budget is
proposed, NASA will get an additional $5.9 billion over five years, as first
reported in Florida newspapers. Some of that money would extend the life of
the International Space Station to 2020. It also would be used to entice
companies to build private spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the space
station after the space shuttle retires, said the official who was not
authorized to speak by name.

The money in the president's budget is not enough to follow through with
NASA's Constellation moon landing plan initiated by President George W.
Bush. An aide to an elected official who was told of Obama's plans, but who
asked that his name not be used because of the sensitivity of the
discussions, said Obama is effectively ending the return-to-the-moon effort,
something that has already cost $9.1 billion.

It all comes down to money. The six-year-old Bush plan, which a former NASA
chief called "Apollo on steroids," sputtered when promised budget increases
didn't materialize. And now money is a big consideration in NASA's latest
shift in focus.

A new direction for NASA has been on hold for several months while an
independent commission studied options and the White House weighed them.
Obama's choice will be made clear Monday, when he releases his 2011 budget
proposal.

"It certainly appears that the Bush moon mission [is] not going to be
included" in future funding, said a senior NASA official who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the
plans.
'Moon by 2020 is dead'

Space policy scholar John Logsdon, who was on an Obama space campaign
advisory committee and has served on NASA advisory panels, said Obama is
adopting the preferred option of a White House-appointed outside panel of
experts last year. That concept includes reliance on a commercial spaceship,
a space station that functions for five more years than planned, and a
"flexible path" for human space exploration. That might mean trips to a
nearby asteroid, a Martian moon or a brief visit to the moon, instead of the
Bush plan for a moon base by the end of the decade.

"What kills the moon mission is the decision to extend the space station to
2020," Logsdon said. That means the Bush goal of "moon by 2020 is dead. We
can't afford using the station for five more years and going to the moon."

While the Constellation program "is dead, exploration is not dead and that's
really important," Logsdon said.

Already proponents of the moon mission and thousands of workers in space
centers in Florida, Alabama and Texas are upset. Congressional officials in
those states have denounced such ideas and some of them sit on key
committees where they could fight Obama's plans. For example, Senator Bill
Nelson of Florida chairs the space subcommittee in the Senate. And the
chairwoman of the House space subcommittee, Representative Gabrielle
Giffords of Arizona is married to a space shuttle astronaut.

The budget numbers were first reported this week by the Orlando Sentinel and
Florida Today.

If Obama does cancel the Constellation program, it would leave "NASA and the
nation with no program, no plan and no commitment to any human spaceflight
program beyond that of today," said former NASA administrator Michael
Griffin in a statement.

He said this would be recommending "that the nation abandon its leadership
on the space frontier," Griffin said.

Kosmas and others raised questions about the safety of switching to a
privately run space travel system that NASA would pay to carry astronauts.
Companies pursuing such business include Space Exploration Technology Corp.
which is already building a new rocket, called Falcon, and capsule, called
Dragon. The company is run by PayPal founder Elon Musk.

And a recent report by NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel warned NASA
not pursue unproven technology and abandon the Ares I rocket — the first
rocket in the Bush moon program and one resembling the Apollo design.
Program underfunded

The report called such a path "unwise and probably not cost-effective."

But the Obama administration official said the Bush program was so
underfunded that it wouldn't get astronauts to the moon until 2028 or 2030.

The Bush moon plan was announced after the 2003 Columbia accident that
killed seven astronauts. After that disaster in which the shuttle broke
apart as it returned to Earth, a special investigative panel said NASA
needed a new goal. In January 2004, Bush proposed the return to the moon. It
would have involved the Ares I rocket, carrying astronauts in a capsule
called Orion. Another Ares spacecraft would carry heavier cargo.

So far, NASA has spent $3.5 billion on Ares I and $3.7 billion on Orion, and
nearly $2 billion on other moon mission work. In the mid-1990s, NASA went
through a similar stutter-step that meant abandoning plans that cost
billions.

That involved President Ronald Reagan's Freedom space station, which ran
into trouble after costing $11 billion without building any hardware.
President Bill Clinton had the space station redesigned and restarted.
© The Canadian Press, 201

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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