NASA Narrows Options for Post-Shuttle Future
WASHINGTON — Where to in space? A blue-ribbon panel charged by the Obama administration to review the United States’ human spaceflight program has narrowed the options to seven.
In three meetings last week, subcommittees of the panel presented possibilities for space flight after NASA retires its space shuttles, coming up with 864 permutations, said Edward F. Crawley, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a panel member.
“All we have to do is get it down to three by next week,” Dr. Crawley said Wednesday, drawing laughter at a meeting at the Carnegie Institution.
“That’s not a joke,” he added.
Three of the options under consideration will stay within the reduced budgets the administration is proposing for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration over the next decade. One essentially continues the current program of returning astronauts to the Moon — developed by the Bush administration after the loss of the shuttle Columbia in 2003 — but gives up on the goal of getting there by 2020.
A second extends the International Space Station beyond its planned demise in 2015 to at least 2020, but pushes lunar exploration even further into the future. The third makes a priority of sending astronauts out of low-Earth orbit for the first time since the Apollo program ended more than three decades ago.
This last option would dispose of the space station as scheduled in 2015 and eliminate the Ares I rocket that NASA has been designing to take astronauts into orbit. Instead, the agency’s limited money would be diverted toward developing a larger Ares V rocket, powerful enough to travel to the Moon. But to save money, landing there would be pushed off into the unspecified future.
The other four options are not constrained by budget limits, but Norman R. Augustine, the former chief executive of Lockheed Martin who leads the panel, said he did not want to present any options to the administration that would be “dead on arrival” because of an exorbitant price tag.
One of the four expands the “dash out of low-Earth orbit” option to a wider exploration of deep space, to a near-Earth asteroid and perhaps the moons of Mars, while still forgoing landings. Another continues the current program but replaces a permanent lunar outpost with stays at different parts of the Moon.
A third eliminates the Ares I and Ares V for a rocket more directly adapted from the current shuttles, replacing the orbiter with a disposable cargo container. With this option, it might be economically feasible to postpone the planned retirement of the shuttles in 2010 and narrow the gap when the space agency has no means of its own to send astronauts into space.
The final option is for NASA to aim directly for Mars and develop technology specifically toward that goal. The agency might still make a visit to an asteroid or the Moon to test the Mars hardware, but those destinations would otherwise be bypassed.
The panel will put together estimates of cost and a schedule for each option by its final meeting on Wednesday. The panel of 10, which includes former astronauts, academics and industry executives, is to produce its final report at the end of the month.
In presentations to the panel Wednesday, John Marburger, President George W. Bush’s science adviser, said he favored developing the underlying technologies for space exploration without specific target dates for reaching the Moon or Mars, to allow flexibility in managing fluctuating budgets and priorities.
Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, which supports exploration of Mars, argued that NASA had been successful only when it was given a specific target and deadline. Without a specific goal, Mr. Zubrin said, the agency’s programs have become a less effective hodgepodge.
In three meetings last week, subcommittees of the panel presented possibilities for space flight after NASA retires its space shuttles, coming up with 864 permutations, said Edward F. Crawley, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a panel member.
“All we have to do is get it down to three by next week,” Dr. Crawley said Wednesday, drawing laughter at a meeting at the Carnegie Institution.
“That’s not a joke,” he added.
Three of the options under consideration will stay within the reduced budgets the administration is proposing for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration over the next decade. One essentially continues the current program of returning astronauts to the Moon — developed by the Bush administration after the loss of the shuttle Columbia in 2003 — but gives up on the goal of getting there by 2020.
A second extends the International Space Station beyond its planned demise in 2015 to at least 2020, but pushes lunar exploration even further into the future. The third makes a priority of sending astronauts out of low-Earth orbit for the first time since the Apollo program ended more than three decades ago.
This last option would dispose of the space station as scheduled in 2015 and eliminate the Ares I rocket that NASA has been designing to take astronauts into orbit. Instead, the agency’s limited money would be diverted toward developing a larger Ares V rocket, powerful enough to travel to the Moon. But to save money, landing there would be pushed off into the unspecified future.
The other four options are not constrained by budget limits, but Norman R. Augustine, the former chief executive of Lockheed Martin who leads the panel, said he did not want to present any options to the administration that would be “dead on arrival” because of an exorbitant price tag.
One of the four expands the “dash out of low-Earth orbit” option to a wider exploration of deep space, to a near-Earth asteroid and perhaps the moons of Mars, while still forgoing landings. Another continues the current program but replaces a permanent lunar outpost with stays at different parts of the Moon.
A third eliminates the Ares I and Ares V for a rocket more directly adapted from the current shuttles, replacing the orbiter with a disposable cargo container. With this option, it might be economically feasible to postpone the planned retirement of the shuttles in 2010 and narrow the gap when the space agency has no means of its own to send astronauts into space.
The final option is for NASA to aim directly for Mars and develop technology specifically toward that goal. The agency might still make a visit to an asteroid or the Moon to test the Mars hardware, but those destinations would otherwise be bypassed.
The panel will put together estimates of cost and a schedule for each option by its final meeting on Wednesday. The panel of 10, which includes former astronauts, academics and industry executives, is to produce its final report at the end of the month.
In presentations to the panel Wednesday, John Marburger, President George W. Bush’s science adviser, said he favored developing the underlying technologies for space exploration without specific target dates for reaching the Moon or Mars, to allow flexibility in managing fluctuating budgets and priorities.
Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, which supports exploration of Mars, argued that NASA had been successful only when it was given a specific target and deadline. Without a specific goal, Mr. Zubrin said, the agency’s programs have become a less effective hodgepodge.
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