Down to 3 plans for NASA

The Augustine Commission, which is developing and reviewing plans for NASA direction in manned space flight, has been told to present only three options. At the moment, they have seven.

Norman Augustine's commission: 3 crippled options

Of the seven, only three stay within the budget within which NASA must work. These plans are tantalizing and disappointing.

1. Continue the Constellation program and return to the moon as planned. But, under this plan, the next moon landing would be further into the future, beyond the original goal of 2020. It seems that an undefined goal like this might actually mean “never.”
2. Keep operation the International Space Station beyond its planned retirement of 2015. And push lunar exploration into the undetermined indefinite future. (Probably meaning: “never.”)
3. Concentrate on getting people beyond Earth orbit for the first time since 1972. Ditch the Ares 1 booster (currently deep into development and testing) and rush ahead to develop the bigger Ares V booster—which is capable of sending people to the moon and beyond. Under this plan, we would get people to the moon more quickly—but they would be unable to land.

Mars is completely out of the question.

Curtailed budgets means curtailed plans. That’s the bottom line. I think there are no good option here. To make real progress in manned flight beyond Earth orbit, we’d need to throw away the $100 billion International Space Station.

If we want to be a great spacefaring nation, we’ll need to come up with the money. Otherwise, we’re ceding the final frontier to others.