By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Don't try to put astronauts on Mars yet -- too hard, too costly. Go to the moon -- maybe. Or build rockets that could zip around the inner solar system, visiting asteroids, maybe a Martian moon. Keep the international space station going until 2020 rather than crash it into the Pacific in 2016. Help underwrite commercial spaceflight the same way the United States gave the airline business a boost in the 1920s with air mail.
And spend more money on space.
These are some of the best options for NASA in the years ahead, according to a blue-ribbon panel that spent the summer reviewing the human spaceflight program. The committee, headed by retired aerospace executive Norman Augustine, on Tuesday gave the White House and NASA the executive summary of its report, with the full report and more granular findings to come later this month.
Although taking a dim view of the status quo at NASA, the Augustine committee clearly endorsed the goal of a robust human spaceflight program and all but pleaded on behalf of the agency, which runs on an annual budget of about $18 billion. A space exploration program "that will be a source of pride for the nation" will require roughly an additional $3 billion a year, the committee found.
"The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. It is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources. Space operations are among the most complex and unforgiving pursuits ever undertaken by humans. It really is rocket science," the committee wrote.
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more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/08/AR2009090802464.html?hpid=sec-nationPDF of the summary:
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/384767main_SUMMARY%20REPORT%20-%20FINAL.pdf (summary of the summary: pp 11-12)
Note that this is a complex, wide-ranging review, and only an executive summary has been released so far. Lots of room for careless (or willful) misinterpretation. I have seen news articles presenting the whole thing as an argument of the Moon vs. Mars, which is grossly oversimplified.