The Obama administration is attempting to kill the back-to-the moon program, the one promoted by Lockheed, Boeing, NASA and George W. Bush.
Obama’s 2011 budget request calls for $19 billion for NASA, a $276 million hike from the previous budget. The language in the budget repeatedly emphasizes technological innovation to make space travel less expensive.
The Constellation program had already run through about $9 billion to develop a new crew capsule, Orion, and a new rocket, the Ares 1. Both are vaporized by Obama’s new NASA strategy, reports the Washington Post.
Instead of going back to the moon, the administration wants to invest $6 billion over five years in a commercial taxi to orbit. The idea is to let the private sector take over the routine flights into space.
The $19 billion NASA budget proposal cancels the Moon-bound Constellation program, commits to flying to the international space station through at least 2020, and invests billions of dollars in commercial space vehicles and “game-changing technologies” intended to put the United States on a sustainable space exploration footing.
“The fact that we poured $9 billion into an unexecutable program really isn’t an excuse to pour another $50 billion into it and still not have an executable program, said Jim Kohlenberger, chief of staff of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “Instead we are going to make wise, prudent investments — an additional $6 billion over the next five years — to really propel us on a new journey of exploration and discovery.”
The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel says abandoning NASA’s besieged Ares 1 rocket is “unwise” because potential commercial space transportation providers are currently unable to meet stringent safety standards.
Under the COTS test program, the SpaceX (Dragon) and Orbital (Cygnus) robotic spacecraft will demonstrate their ability to supply the International Space Station in 2010 and 2011, respectively.
Those companies’ human-rated proposals are based on variants of the unmanned versions of those craft.
The Augustine Commission submitted options to the Obama administration in October for the future of the human space program. The Augustine Commission saw no chance that Constellation could succeed in its goal of a 2020 landing on the moon.
The United States Space program has seen its share of waste, cost overruns and even criminality:
- The Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) High program, originally estimated to cost about $4 billion, is at least 400% over its original budget and significantly behind schedule.
- The Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite program (AEHF) went from $6.1 billion to $8.7 billion.
- The NPOESS weather satellites went from from $6.8 billion to $13.8 billion. Costs more than doubled and the schedule has slipped five years to 2014.
- The Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, initially a $17B heavy lifter program, has ballooned $14 Billion over budget and counting (GAO Report).
- Boeing’s $5 billion Future Imagery Architecture was killed in September 2005, when cost estimates ran as high as $18 billion. That’s bigger than NASA’s annual $17 billion budget.
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Sierra Nevada Corp. was the big winner in NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) competition, receiving $20 million of the $50 million in economic stimulus money meant to seed development of commercial crew transportation services.
In a press release issued after U.S. markets had closed, NASA announced that Chicago-based Boeing will receive $18 million; Denver-based United Launch Alliance will receive $6.7 million; Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin will get $3.7 million; and Tucson, Ariz.-based Paragon Space Development Corp. will get $1.4 million.
In related news, Top Gear modified a three wheeled car into a Space Shuttle and launched it (video).
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