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Narrowing the Space Flight Gap
MarkWhittington writes with an article on the AssociatedContent site, discussing the impending US space flight gap. Between 2010 (the end of the shuttle era) and 2015 (expected date for the launch of the Orion project) the United States will have little or no spaceflight capability. This is an obvious concern to some members of Congress and NASA. "Is all, therefore, doom and gloom? Not necessarily. Just over a year ago, NASA chose two companies for its Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) program ... The goal of COTS was for the two companies to build prototype space craft capable of delivering crews and cargo to the International Space Station. A second phase of the COTS program would consist of a competition for a contract to actually deliver crews and cargo to ISS after 2010 ... Private industry may well come to the rescue and preserve American access to space, at least until Orion becomes operational."
At the present time, only one company is developing such craft. There is the risk that no other company will step up and we'll have a space Microsoft. Why can we trust private enterprise with this when only one company is interested?
As a graduate student in Aerospace Engineering, I'd disagree with your assessment. Those of us coming up through school now have gotten to know the space program during the 'return to flight' period and we recognize that human space-flight is not a given. It seems to me that the long continuation of the STS created some complacency and 'this is the way its always been done' mentality.
However, the new people coming up aren't as trapped in those paradigms, and I really feel that my generation is up to the challenge of doing what the Apollo generation did, but for cheaper, and in a sustainable way.
While its true that NASA isn't the beacon for intellectual challenge in the workplace that it was seen as in the 60's, I'd say Google best fulfills that role now, there are still plenty of very intelligent, very driven young people coming up in the space industry. We don't believe that the current way of doing things is the right way, and I feel we have the attitude needed, because we know that our failure could very well mean the end of human spaceflight for a long time, not just a 5 or 10 year delay.
With a large portion of the space industry retiring soon (something like 30%-40% in the next 10 years) my generation will be very involved in the future, and I have a lot of hope for what we can do.
The ban would not be permanent, but merely limited to the 2008 fiscal year. The point is not to keep NASA from Mars, but to force additional funding for what is currently an unfunded mandate. In 2004, when Bush announced his new space goals, NASA's budget was $15.5 billion. In 2007, the budget was only $16.3 billion. Adjusted for inflation, NASA's budget has been DECREASING despite having a mandate to undertake a new era of spaceflight. The Bush administration needs to work with Congress to dramatically increase NASA's funding levels.
With this temporary ban on manned Mars exploration, it can be interpreted that the Congress wants NASA to maintain its current scientific missions, including robotics, without cannibalizing them in order to pay for development of the manned Mars mission.