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NASA Moon Launch May Be Delayed After 2020

Posted by timothy on from the underpromise-vs.-underdeliver dept.

krou writes "The Guardian is reporting that NASA is quietly revising its internal estimates of a 2018 launch for its Ares V rocket. Although publicly the date given for the launch was 2020, the internal launch date was set for 2018. The shift in dates seems to be linked to 'growing budget woes,' and 'engineers say that means the public 2020 date to send humans back to the moon is in deepening trouble.' NASA administrator Mike Griffin blamed the White House, and the previous Bush administration, saying funding for Ares V and other projects fell from $4bn through 2015 to just $500m. 'This was to be allocated to early work on the Ares V heavy-lifter, and the Altair lunar lander. With only a half-billion dollars now available, this work cannot be done.'"

9 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. If we, the people had a vote... by erroneus · · Score: 3, Informative

    If we had a vote between spending whatever was needed to get to the moon again and bailing out another banker, I'll bet we'd vote to go to the moon. At least then we'd see some results from the spending.

  2. Not exactly "From Scratch" by gbutler69 · · Score: 5, Informative

    There was a MASSIVE infusion of technology and expertise from German Scientists that had been working on the "Rocket Problem" since the '30's. Also, there was significant military research in the U.S. before, during, and after WWII as well.

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    1. Re:Not exactly "From Scratch" by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2, Informative

      There was a MASSIVE infusion of technology and expertise from German Scientists that had been working on the "Rocket Problem" since the '30's. Also, there was significant military research in the U.S. before, during, and after WWII as well.

      From scratch. They didn't even START the design work on Saturn V till the year after Kennedy called for the moon landing. At the time they started, "state of the art" was the Atlas, for god's sake!

      The Saturn V was designed specifically for the moon missions, and pretty much everything in it was so bleeding edge it should have been painted red.

      Note, further, that the US military did almost no rocket research before or during WW2. And didn't do much of it afterwards. Not until von Braun and Korolev managed to convince the politicos on both sides that the other side was trying to get into space did either get budget to do much more than fire off leftover V2's.

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  3. Re:Why so long? by j-stroy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Nowadays, seemingly its all about optimization and minimums through re-inventing... The taste of the dev plan for ARES seems thin. Regardless of specifics, The Jupiter Direct plan has a more likable production dynamic as far risk management on the deliverables. IANARS

  4. Re:Well... by frieko · · Score: 4, Informative

    It comes down to money. Adjusted for inflation the 60's NASA budget was double or triple today's. And Gemini/Apollo was basically all they were working on. Of course, it was all just a fraction of the cost of an Iraq war or a bailout.

  5. Re:Can't we do ANYTHING anymore? by iamangry · · Score: 5, Informative

    Give NASA the amount of money the morons in Congress gave AIG over the last year and they'd get you to the moon next week sometime.

    Seriously... the formerly private company got over 10 times as much money as NASA did.

    Finance... it isn't rocket science. Ares V... well it is.

  6. Misleading cost quote, more like $50 billion by FleaPlus · · Score: 2, Informative

    NASA administrator Mike Griffin blamed the White House, and the previous Bush administration, saying funding for Ares V and other projects fell from $4bn through 2015 to just $500m.

    It doesn't mention it in the summary, but people need to keep in mind that figure's only for the Ares V, which is supposed to be building on the Ares I. The GAO (which is certainly historically better in its cost estimates than NASA) has estimated that the Ares I and Orion capsule will cost more along the lines of $40-50 billion.

    For comparison, funding SpaceX to finish developing commercial crew transport to the space station would cost $500 million. SpaceX would need to have a 100x cost overrun to cost as much as the Ares program.

  7. Re:Why does NASA suck so much? by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 2, Informative

    When you look back at the lunar missions, it was done with the idea that we need to get their before the end of the 1960s. Because we did it with one big rocket, we were limited in how much we could take in both people and equipment. But the idea was to beat them rooskies and if we could plant an American flag on the surface first, we won.

    Now, we're trying to do this with more than one rocket. We're trying to stay longer than we did in Apollo. And we're trying to do it on a budget, rather than spending lots of money.

  8. Re:Hmm. by dotancohen · · Score: 2, Informative

    Maybe, this time, we will make it to the moon!

    http://www.theonion.com/content/node/94463

    --
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