Posted on 01/18/2010 6:50:22 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
As the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama prepares to propose changes to NASAs human spaceflight program in the presidents 2011 budget request to lawmakers Feb. 1, an independent NASA safety advisory panel is warning the space agency against abandoning its current plans.
In an annual report issued Jan. 15, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel cautioned the United States against halting work on NASAs Ares 1 rocket to fund unproven commercial alternatives.
To abandon Ares I as a baseline vehicle for an alternative without demonstrated capability nor proven superiority (or even equivalence) is unwise and probably not cost-effective, the report states.
Designed to launch the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle into low Earth orbit, Ares 1 is a key element of Constellation, NASAs five-year-old effort to replace the space shuttle with rockets and spacecraft optimized for the Moon.
The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel report praises Ares 1 as a vehicle designed from the beginning with a clear emphasis on safety and notes approvingly that Time magazine cited the Ares rocket as the best invention of 2009.
The future of Ares 1, however, came into question last year when a White House-appointed committee led by former Lockheed Martin chief Norm Augustine urged Obama to consider dropping Ares 1 in favor of paying commercial firms to transport astronauts to the international space station.
NASA awarded a pair of contracts totaling $3.5 billion in December 2008 to Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences Corp. and Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to haul cargo to the space station aboard unmanned vehicles the companies say could evolve to carry people.
(Excerpt) Read more at spacenews.com ...
“...As the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama prepares to propose changes to NASAs human spaceflight program...”
I suspect he will ask that NASA only use “low-carbon emissions” engines and that transvestites are equally represented in space.
Interesting you post this...here’s an article from today’s Huntsville Times regarding the same subject...
http://blog.al.com/space-news/2010/01/post_30.html
Hope the White House doesn’t “ponder” too long...
Thank you very much for the link.
The Ares 1 is nothing more than a Space Shuttle solid rocket booster with a capsule strapped on top. This former NASA engineer fails to be impressed.
0bama and the Dems have zero interest in space exploration. Forget it.
Obama could care less about the space program. He’s taking his eye off the ball.
The list, ping
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