Posted on 02/11/2004 4:12:29 PM PST by vannrox
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites)'s ambitious plan to send Americans back to the moon and eventually to Mars must not be undertaken on the cheap, a space policy expert told a White House-appointed panel on Wednesday.
Norman Augustine, a businessman and engineer who headed an earlier examination of NASA (news - web sites) after the 1986 Challenger shuttle disaster, warned members of Bush's new space exploration commission not to set firm schedule targets or budget limits for the project.
"It would be a grave mistake to undertake the major new space objective on the cheap," Augustine told the panel's first hearing. "To do so, in my opinion, would be an indication for disaster."
To pay for it, Bush proposed a five-year, $1 billion increase in NASA's budget, which is now about $15 billion. An additional $11 billion over five years would be reallocated from elsewhere in NASA's budget.
The new commission, headed by the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s former top weapons buyer Edward "Pete" Aldridge, has 120 days to report on the best way to develop the president's space program that would send humans back to the moon as early as 2015.
At a news conference after the hearing, Aldridge said the biggest hurdle for the moon-Mars plan was keeping up interest over the long term, including multiple presidential administrations.
"How do you keep the value of space and the contributions of space before the American people, in fact all of mankind. in a continuous way?" Aldridge said. "If you can't do that, you'll achieve what we have in the past: spikes and valleys in the space budget according to the particular whims of the political leaders at the time."
Bush announced his space exploration plan on Jan. 14, less than a year after shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003, killing all seven astronauts.
The remaining three shuttles have been grounded, with no return to flight expected before September, and the International Space Station (news - web sites) carries a two-person skeleton crew.
Augustine noted similarities between conditions at NASA during his panel's work 14 years ago and the current climate, and said some of the same problems persist.
SHUTTLE CONTROVERSY
Then as now, he said, the space station and shuttle programs consumed much of NASA's budget, with a major impact on smaller programs, and the space agency was prone to infighting.
"The drive for self-perpetuation seemed to be growing at a faster rate than the drive for innovation," Augustine said.
In 1990, he said, the Augustine panel urgently recommended an end to dependence on space shuttles, which they viewed as research-and-development vehicles.
Former shuttle astronaut Tom Stafford, who chaired a presidential commission on the future of U.S. space when Bush's father was in the White House, told the latest committee that the Apollo program that sent the first Americans to the moon succeeded in part because of the specific nature of the mission.
Stafford's 1991 report was commissioned to look at President George H. W. Bush's 1989 plan to establish a permanent moon base and launch a human mission to Mars.
That plan was never put into practice. Critics said it was too expensive, with some estimates putting it at $500 billion.
The Bush plan to go to the moon and Mars has drawn criticism from members of Congress, including Republicans, who question whether there is enough of a financial commitment to the long-term project.
We were trying to book a trip on Priceline.
Or was that the new Priceline?
The reporter missed the story. The story is the panel, which is seeking public input.
My answer:
"Ok, YOU pay for it, be my guest, spend as much of YOUR money as you like!"
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