Science 1 January 2010: Vol. 327. no. 5961, p. 18 DOI: 10.1126/science.327.5961.18
NEWS OF THE WEEK
U.S. SPACE POLICY:
President Barack Obama plans to ask Congress to cancel work on a new rocket and instead fund a heavy-lift launcher to take humans to the moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars. The president outlined the new direction for the U.S. human space flight program on 16 December at a meeting in the White House with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, according to officials familiar with the discussion. NASA would see its 2011 budget grow by $1 billion both to get the new launcher on track and to bolster the agency’s fleet of robotic Earth-monitoring spacecraft.
The current NASA plan for human exploration is built around the $3.5 billion Constellation program, which was intended to provide a way to get humans to the space station and beyond after the space shuttle is retired this year. But its initial launcher, Ares 1, has faced a string of cost and technical problems, and an outside panel chaired by retired aerospace executive Norman Augustine was skeptical of that effort (Science, 25 September, p. 1606). Although NASA has done a good job confronting the rocket’s engineering challenges, says Augustine, “the schedule has slipped so badly it doesn’t fit into the future program well.” But some lawmakers, such as Senator Richard Shelby (R–AL), are sure to fight any changes to the program.
According to knowledgeable sources, the White House has decided that scarce NASA funds would be better spent on a simpler heavy-lift vehicle that could be ready to fly as early as 2018. Meanwhile, Europe, Japan, and Canada would be asked to work on a lunar lander and modules for a moon base, a contribution that would save the United States several billion dollars. And commercial companies would take over the job of getting supplies and possibly humans to the international space station.
“The decision is not going to make anyone gasp,” said one source in the White House, which hopes to ease congressional concerns about the impact of the new plan on existing aerospace jobs by transitioning workers from Ares 1 to the heavy-lift vehicle project. But Shelby and some of his colleagues fear that an Ares 1 cancellation will lead to mass layoffs in their states. Indeed, Shelby inserted language into the 2010 NASA spending bill that requires the agency to gain congressional approval before changing the existing rocket program.
Last month, Shelby also wrote to NASA’s inspector general asking his office to investigate alleged conflicts of interest on the Augustine panel. The legislator said that several panel members were registered lobbyists who took “direct advantage of their temporary roles on the Commission to further their personal business.” None of the panel members was actually a registered lobbyist, although Augustine says, “I’d be surprised” if lobbyists had not provided the panel with their input.
The form that the heavy-lift launcher would take has yet to be decided. But rather than pointing the rocket to the moon, as U.S. President George W. Bush proposed in 2004, this White House is more intrigued by human missions to asteroids, Phobos, and Deimos as a precursor to landing humans on the Red Planet. That option was given particular prominence by Augustine panel members when they testified this fall before congressional committees. To prepare for human visits, NASA may order additional robotic missions to the martian moons and asteroids.
Before making his decision, Obama reviewed several options presented to him by NASA, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The choices included keeping NASA’s budget flat and delaying a new launcher, giving it an additional $1 billion to build a heavy-lift launcher, ramping up NASA’s annual budget by $3 billion for an aggressive program, or reducing NASA’s budget and abandoning space flight. The president’s decision to go with the second option is a major departure from his 2010 budget plan, which called for NASA to receive a 5% increase in 2010 followed by level funding through 2014.
The Augustine panel concluded that NASA needed a $3 billion annual increase to move ahead with a robust space-flight program. Last month, Congress belatedly completed action on NASA’s 2010 budget, boosting it by $1 billion, to $18.7 billion. An additional $1 billion in 2011, combined with support from other countries, would put the agency close to the panel’s suggested level. “There are a lot of different ways to reach that level, including help from abroad and increasing NASA’s efficiency,” Augustine added.
It’s not clear when the new policy will be formally announced. One White House source said it was imminent, while another hinted that it would wait until Obama’s State of the Union address in late January. Another possibility is a 1 February release as part of the president’s 2011 budget request to Congress. Given the White House’s preoccupation with health care and climate change, however, NASA officials and their industry backers see the new policy as welcome proof that Obama also cares about space flight.
Science-2010-Lawler-Obama_Backs_New_Launcher_And_Bigger_NASA_Budget-18.pdf
