Nasa 'needs another £30bn to fulfil Moon mission'

The Times ^ | 8/13/2009 | Jacqui Goddard in Miami

[bruinbirdman]

Nasa will not be able to meet its target of sending humans back to the Moon by 2020, or even dream of landing on Mars, because it is suffering from chronic underfunding, a presidential review panel has warned.

The US space agency needs at least another $50 billion (£30 billion) over the next decade if it is to come close to delivering on its vision for retiring the space shuttle, completing construction of the International Space Station and launching ambitious new voyages of discovery.

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon in 1969. He believes
a new lunar mission would be pointless
- even if it were affordable

The bleak assessment comes from a ten-member committee established by President Obama to review America’s manned spaceflight programme. Made up of aerospace experts and former astronauts, it is not due to make its final report until the end of this month.

But at its final public hearing, the panel revealed that it has already concluded that Nasa’s current goals are “not executable”.

Without extra funding for Constellation, the programme that will replace the shuttle fleet and send astronauts farther out into the solar system using a new generation of spacecraft, the Moon is unlikely to receive human visitors again until at least 2030 and Nasa risks building a rocket to nowhere.

“If Santa Claus brought us this system tomorrow, fully developed, and the budget didn’t change, our next action would still have to be to cancel it,” Jeff Greason, a committee member and aerospace pioneer, said.

“We are on a path right now for a system that requires roughly double the current budget just to operate,” he added.

Sally Ride, a retired shuttle astronaut who became the first woman in space in 1983, agreed. “It can’t

[MarineBrat]

Sally Ride, a retired shuttle astronaut who became the first woman in space in 1983...

Journalism school, n'at!

[microgood]

Sorry, America is bankrupt. When we go into Chapter 11, they will have to auction off what is left of NASA.

[Prodigal Son]

Yet isn’t it the NASA guy who’s always going on about global warming and how we’ve got 4 years to save the planet? If he gets his way, human civilization will never be going anywhere off the planet or sending any rockets into space at all because all our money will be diverted to trying to keep cows from farting and other idiotic schemes.

[Moonman62]

The problem with NASA is a manned program that is directed by politicians.

[JerseyJohn61]

space ping

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

That is why NASA needs to merge with the U.S. military. The U.S. military already provides the launch facilities and rockets. NASA can really benefit from DARPA projects.

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

There is really no point, Obama will kill this just like the F-22 and ultimately the F-35...

[SoftwareEngineer]

Sally Ride, a retired shuttle astronaut who became the first woman in space in 1983

OK.. I don't like Soviets much (actually not at all) but their German rocket scientists beat our German rocket scientists in a bunch of "firsts" including putting up a woman in space (who apparently was yelling hysterically during her orbits) in the 1960s....

Anyone who has even remotely followed space knows the following Soviet "firsts"

• First man in space
• First man-made satellite in space
• First woman in space
• First space walk

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

You should be more of an optimist.If all the big manufacturers(Northup Grumman,Pratt-Whitney,etc) exert some force on the White House that it would be beneficial to all parties which includes a merger of the USAF and NASA.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

But they were not the first to land on the moon which was the ultimate goal. That you have to thank Dr. Wehrner Von Braun and his rocket team.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

This man's vision took us to the moon

[Rabin]

Well you are to correct, and what to do? But a gov possibility. Perhaps a newer Shut, under the cash for klun….. No probably not.

[ClaudiusI]

I wouldn’t be so impressed with the soviet space program if I was you. Leonov almost didn’t survive that first spacewalk because of the incompetent design of his suit. Most of the firsts were publicity stunts and not true milestones.
Forget the Mercury program, look at Gemini; the first spacecraft capable of changing its orbit; the first rendezvous in space (done by the astronauts in the capsule, and not the controllers on the ground), the first docking, the longest duration flights up until that point (and by the end of the program we had soundly beaten the Soviets in the sheer number of man-hours in space.) And not to mention developing the techniques necessary to work in Zero-G (and we can thank Aldrin for that, which is probably what he should really be most famous for.) All of these tasks were true milestones, and Project Gemini is the greatest success in the history of the American program because it did everything it set out to do, did it on schedule, and did it without the loss of a single life. And that’s amazing considering they weren’t sure it was even POSSIBLE to do half of what they needed.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

You have to thank Dr.Wehrner von Braun for all the successes we had including developing our ICBM force

[SoftwareEngineer]

But they were not the first to land on the moon which was the ultimate goal. That you have to thank Dr. Wehrner Von Braun and his rocket team.

Oh! I totally agree! Our Germans were better than their Germans. I suppose if one wanted to be cynical we could say that the Germans won the space race!!

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

All of our rockets can trace their lineage to the V-2 rocket

[SoftwareEngineer]

I wouldn’t be so impressed with the soviet space program if I was you. Leonov almost didn’t survive that first spacewalk because of the incompetent design of his suit. Most of the firsts were publicity stunts and not true milestones.

I totally agree that they were stunts. That is why I used double quotes around the "firsts". The Soviets did not care about cost or human life

Having said that, from a strictly technical perspective they were first.

[SoftwareEngineer]

This man's vision took us to the moon

I agree! I love Dr. Von Braun for his contributions to our space program

[SoftwareEngineer]

All of our rockets can trace their lineage to the V-2 rocket

Heh! Heh! As I somewhat jokingly said in another post, those darn Germans are the ones who won the space race!!!