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Five years after Augustine: How does the panel feel about NASA’s Space Launch System?
http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2014/06/five-years-after-augustine-how-does-the-panel-feel-about-nasas-space-launch-system/
Five years after Augustine: How does the panel feel about NASA’s Space Launch System?
Posted on June 17, 2014 | By Eric Berger
In 2009 President Obama asked Norm Augustine, and other luminaries such as the late astronaut Sally Ride, to review the state of NASA’s human spaceflight program. Five years ago, today, the commission held its first public meeting. Their final report came out in the fall of 2009 (see .pdf).
The Augustine committee found that NASA’s existing program, Constellation, had fallen significantly behind schedule, and that there simply wasn’t enough money in the budget to build a big rocket and new space capsule. But their overriding recommendation was this: Once and for all, they implored lawmakers, give NASA a clear goal and the funding to support it.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress promptly ignored this, and implemented the construction of the Space Launch System. But they didn’t actually provide the funds to use the SLS. Obama had moved on to health care by then. So NASA was left to muddle along with an expensive rocket, ambitious goals but nary the means to achieve them.
As part of the human spaceflight series I’m writing, Adrift, I’ve had a chance to interview a number of the Augustine commission members, including Augustine himself, about what they think about the political decisions made in the wake of their report.
<snip>
Five years after Augustine: How does the panel feel about NASA’s Space Launch System?
Posted on June 17, 2014 | By Eric Berger
In 2009 President Obama asked Norm Augustine, and other luminaries such as the late astronaut Sally Ride, to review the state of NASA’s human spaceflight program. Five years ago, today, the commission held its first public meeting. Their final report came out in the fall of 2009 (see .pdf).
The Augustine committee found that NASA’s existing program, Constellation, had fallen significantly behind schedule, and that there simply wasn’t enough money in the budget to build a big rocket and new space capsule. But their overriding recommendation was this: Once and for all, they implored lawmakers, give NASA a clear goal and the funding to support it.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress promptly ignored this, and implemented the construction of the Space Launch System. But they didn’t actually provide the funds to use the SLS. Obama had moved on to health care by then. So NASA was left to muddle along with an expensive rocket, ambitious goals but nary the means to achieve them.
As part of the human spaceflight series I’m writing, Adrift, I’ve had a chance to interview a number of the Augustine commission members, including Augustine himself, about what they think about the political decisions made in the wake of their report.
<snip>
Via http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=34982.0
