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NASA's Plans for the Future
FleaPlus writes "ABC News, Pasadena Star-News, and Space Politics report on a recent statement by NASA chief Michael Griffin on NASA's plans for the future and how it will be reflected in their annual budget. Griffin has ordered preparations for one last shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. He also plans to greatly accelerate development of the Crew Exploration Vehicle to have it ready when the Space Shuttles retire in 2010, stating that the CEV 'needs to be safe, it needs to be simple, it needs to be soon.' Some other highlights include $34 million for the Centennial Challenges prize program and the possibility of completing the space station with unmanned rockets after the shuttles retire. However, due to budget limitations, the cost of returning the Space Shuttles to flight, and over $400 million in Congressional earmarks, a number of other areas will see delays, including space station, aeronautics, and exploration research. NASA also plans on restructuring Project Prometheus to focus on developing space-qualified nuclear power systems for use in human and robotic surface operations, instead of a probe to Jupiter's moons." The Washington Post has a look at NASA's future as well.
Griffin sounds like a man with the kind of aggressive plans we need to make things like the shuttle replacement finally a reality and make US space efforts relevant and significant again.
Wonder who in the US bureaucratic nightmare pool is going to put a stop to his plans ?
My opinion is that the ones working on it should coin a name NOT including the word "nuclear". The public is so brainwashed on the matter that whenever they hear ir red lamp in their mind turns on :/
One that hath name thou can not otter
... they could have a new type of spacecraft much earlier. Russian engineers are pretty advanced in their plannings for a soyuz replacement: Kliper
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/kliper.html
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/kliper.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kliper
the maiden flight was originally planned for 2007-2008 if I remember that correctly (read it in a German aviation magazine (Fliegerrevue) some time ago), but as usual with such projects and russia: sadly they have no more money to complete it. Relatively little american money could have a huge effect here. But I guess national pride on both sides will prevent this from coming true.
regards, sqar
One area of NASA that didn't even get a mention in these stories is Earth science research. A whole bunch of the U.S. money going into research on climate change, oceanography, terrestrial hydrology, and atmospheric science is coming through NASA at the moment, but NASA's earth science budget is under serious threat. Virtually all future earth science missions now planned will face serious delays, and in the face of growing pressure to focus on manned missions, current satellites essential to understanding earth processes are recieving relatively little support. While they aren't as sexy as moon missions or manned flight to Mars, earth observing satellites are relatively inexpensive and are exceptionally useful in improving our understanding of Earth. In particular, deep cuts to NASA's earth science budget would hamstring efforts to understand climate change, a goal that even those sceptical of anthropogenic effects (ie the current administration) agree is reasonable (at least in public). For more info, check out recent editorials in Nature (April 29) and Science (April 22 and May 5). I would provide links, but they require paid subscriptions.