NASA: What’s the new plan, exactly?

Senator Bill Nelson:: his committee has confusing plans for NASA

The latest of many version of NASA’s future has been passed by a committee of the U.S. Senate. The committee is chaired by Senator Bill Nelson, who once flew on the shuttle.

Let’s think about what it says. Well, first of all, we’re NOT going to the moon. On the other hand, Orion—the spacecraft designed for a return to the moon—would be continued. Yet the booster designed to carry Orion—the Ares I—is being canceled. The Senate plan calls for the expedited development of a new heavy lift vehicle. It’s not clear to me whether the planned heavy lift vehicle—Ares V—is being canceled in favor of some new one.

In any case, the new heavy lift vehicle might take astronauts, someday, to an asteroid and Mars. But nobody really knows.

The Senate wants money to help commercial space companies develop and fly manned spacecraft into earth orbit. But they are asking for far less money for this than the Obama administration requested.

Frankly, I don’t know where all of this is going…but I expect, it is going nowhere. If this bill gets passed and signed into law, I feel certain that in a few years, both the private space initiative and the manned asteroid (or Mars?!) missions will be cash-starved. They won’t survive.

And if this bill is defeated, I expect a successful private space initiative for orbiting astronauts. Also, I expect that I won’t live long enough to see an American astronaut go beyond earth orbit.

But it’s all a confused mess right now, and nobody really knows.