Obama’s Space Plan: The Upside

After the research, we'll need funding to actually fly to asteroids and Mars.

If you’ve been reading my blog (and if not, why not?!), you probably know that I’m not a big fan of the Obama administration’s plan for manned space travel. (PDF of official document on spaceflight.)

With his decision to kill Constellation, and his notion of depending on Russia and, as yet, unproven (and in many cases, undeveloped) private spacecraft for manned flight, I think he’s taken a big step backward.

By now, we should not only have returned to the moon, but been to Mars—probably several times. If we still had a Werner von Braun, and an appropriate budget, all of this would have been done.

That said, I’d like to try to look at the positive. There are some good things about Obama’s plan.

1. Private spacecraft will soon be ready to go.

Yeah, they are “unproven”, but everything is until you work out the kinks. With a few unmanned shakedown flights, and some time for engineers to fine tune things, I expect SpaceX’s Falcon/Dragon spacecraft will be able to take astronauts to the International Space Station…freeing us from dependence on Russia.

2. Research is good.

Obama wants to spend money on research. I’m sure that Constellation could have gotten us to the moon and probably also to Mars, but more research could get us there in a better way…albeit later.

So, if we end up with faster spacecraft, improved safety, clever shielding from radiation exposure, and perhaps a more pleasant (though still long) ride to an asteroid and Mars…well, that’s a good thing.

Despite my considerable misgivings, the new space plan could turn out good. But only, ONLY, if we ultimately get the budget and wherewithal to go beyond earth orbit. It’s a very dangerous possibility that once funding for manned flight is removed, it may never return.

At least until there are Chinese footprints on the moon.