Posted by Ray Katz in Mars, NASA, current, moon, private
Commission to NASA: End manned space flight
Commission "Vision": To meekly continue going into earth orbit—where we've been going for nearly 50 years.
Yes. You read that right.
The headlines portrays the Augustine commission’s position as a call for a “public-private partnership” for manned space travel. But what’s important here is what’s NOT being emphasized. The commission wants funding to be provided to commercial companies to develop their own manned spacecraft and for NASA to cancel its entire manned space program. (That mean, end Constellation, the successor to the Shuttle, current under development. The first Ares rocket is on the launch pad, right now, with a scheduled test flight.)
Oh. There IS still a role left for NASA; to be held responsible for the safety of the vehicles built and flown by the commercial companies. So, NASA gets all the risk and responsibility—but nothing else.
And the biggest point for me it: the abandonment of deep space flight by NASA, pretty much forever. The entire foreseeable future is “space taxis” by private interest going less than 200 miles up to the International Space Station.
(The commission is recommending that the ISS life be extended.)
This is supposed to somehow cover up the point that the United States is ceding it’s leadership in space. The country is too cheap to do it anymore.
The report, euphemistically titled “Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation” vaguely refers to using existing rockets to send astronauts on flybys of the moon and other distant location. Trust me: the money for those missions will never come. This is called “a flexible approach.” And that’s a euphemism for “we won’t be doing that.”
Representative Parker Griffith release a statement that tells it straight.
My prediction: The next man on the moon, and possibly the first person on Mars will be Chinese.
The Augustine commission produced a report that is a pack of lies with some truth for window dressing (NASA’s budget is too small). Obama’s campaign pledge was to cut NASA”s budget. The Augustine’s purpose was to kill the moon colonization program. Space travel to Mars or an asteroid requires nuclear/VASIMR type rockets which are not on the drawing board yet because we cannot get there without dying by radiation and/or bone loss from the long trips that would be required with current chemical rockets, and there is nothing to see at the Lagrange points which is emply space. They knew that the space station is the only thing that we can reach with the shuttle or the Ares which is already being test fired. They knew that the moon is the only dooable destination with chemical rockets. Wouldn’t that be clever to kill the replacement we are building and waste the investment and another 7 years for something to come down the pipeline at NASA or pipedream vaporware from Elon Musk.