Sally Ride: With this budget, forget moon, Mars

As the Augustine Commission studies NASA’s options for future manned spaceflight, Sally Ride pointed out the obvious: we don’t have the budget for an ambitious program.

Ride: No money? No moon, Mars.

Regarding sending people to the moon and Mars, with the money currently available to NASA, “you just can’t get there” she says. Norman Augustine appears to agree. “If we do want a strong space program, we might have to face up to investing more,” he says.

It seems absolutely stupid to kill the existing International Space Station to make more money available—but still not enough—for manned  flights to the moon and Mars. The commission is even considering missions to the moon and Mars that wouldn’t even land! Yeah, that saves money…but kinda defeats the purpose of the trip.

My best guess for the future is this: they try to extend the life of the shuttle and ISS. And they make ingenuous noises about exciting manned missions beyond earth orbit.

The U.S. might provide more money after China or some other country sends some astronauts around the moon. And, like we did with the Soviets in the 1960s, we’ll get to play catch up…again.