Posted on 02/16/2006 2:54:12 PM PST by anymouse
The U.S. human spaceflight program is "strained to the limit," NASA's chief said on Thursday, warning against any long gap between the end of the shuttle era and the first flight of a planned new spaceship.
"The United States risks both a real and a perceived loss of leadership on the world stage if we are unable to launch our own astronauts into space for an extended period of time when other nations possess their own capabilities to do so," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told a congressional committee.
Griffin acknowledged that NASA already expects a gap between the shuttle's planned retirement in 2010 and the start-up of a new crew exploration vehicle in 2013 or 2014.
But he said extending this gap would over-stress an already stretched program.
"Our human spaceflight program is not an optional program," Griffin told members of the House of Representatives Science Committee. "We are already strained to the limit."
Griffin fielded pointed but largely sympathetic questions about the Bush administration's $16.8 billion budget request for NASA for fiscal 2007.
"I am extremely uneasy about this budget," Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (news, bio, voting record), a New York Republican who chairs the committee, told Griffin. "This budget is bad for space science, worse for Earth science and possibly worse for aeronautics."
A large slice of the U.S. space agency's resources are focused on achieving President George W. Bush's ambitious plan to return U.S. astronauts to the moon by 2020 and eventually send humans to Mars.
NEW RACE TO THE MOON?
But before that can happen, NASA must satisfy its commitments to finish building the orbiting International Space Station by 2010, and that cannot occur without a working space shuttle fleet.
The shuttles have been grounded -- except for one shakedown flight last year -- since the fatal February 1, 2003, break-up of Columbia. The next shuttle flight, considered a test of safety improvements, is tentatively set for May.
The U.S. mission to send humans back to the moon for the first time since 1972 will not occur until 2018, Griffin said, barring any unforeseen program delays. He warned that any further slips in this schedule would risk a loss of critical expertise at NASA.
If there is an extended hiatus between the end of the shuttle program and the start-up of the crew exploration vehicle, Griffin said the space agency could permanently lose its key staff.
"Then when we choose to resume human spaceflight at a later date, we will have to retrain this cadre of people, create new subcontractors," he said. "We will resume our progress in a very stumbling and halting way."
He declined to give a cost estimate for NASA's human mission to Mars.
"If we were sitting here today with the capabilities that this nation had purchased as of the end of the Apollo program, we could go to Mars within a decade," Griffin said. "We have decades worth of hard work in front of us just to be able to get back to where we were. And then Mars will be the decade after that."
So, you're saying the money went to fund "a different sort of moon shot", then?
These advances would have come whether the vehicle used for human space flight was the shuttle or not. My point for bashing the shuttle is that SO MUCH was invested in making the most complex machine the world has ever seen to go THREE HUNDRED miles into space. THREE HUNDRED MILES!!!! Most times the Shuttle doesn't even make it that far. What do you think Ruttan could do with the tiniest fraction of what NASA has pissed away to go THREE HUNDRED MILES into space.
In case you are wondering why I am emphasizing 300 miles(give or take a couple dozen miles of course), is because it is a JOKE to be stuck, and don't kid yourself, we are stuck at this mark. NO human advancement into space is really going to take place until we establish ourselves at the Lagrange points We had the ability to do such in the freakin 60s, but our wonderful NASA desided to piss away the next 40 years of human space flight to build a hunk of complex junk that can BARELY Slip the Surly Bonds of Earth.
And don't even get me started on the International Space Station. All a waste that have taken the worlds amazement and awe of space travel and threw it into the refuse bin. Children no longer want to be astronauts. Why invest your life in something that is a pale comparison to something others have done in the past?
Yes, I understand the need to reorganize after the moon missions, because the Apollo program was to say we can do it, versus actually doing somethign while we are there. GReat, get your house in order for a decade or two, but it's been over 30 years since we've been to the moon and how did NASA get it's house in order in this time? By spending an untold amount of money to do something that old technology could do cheaper, faster, safer, etc...
The shuttle and International Space Station have all but killed America's dream of space exploration. It makes we want to cry to be perfectly honest with you.
No. He would get drummed out of office if he admitted that (he has hinted strongly to that effect, though.)
It is my statement of fact that this is so.
Griffin is doing the standard NASA Administrator role of coming "hat in hand" saying "we are doing the best we can, please keep filling our trough with cash, else we'll never get to the Moon, or Mars and a whole lot of smart people will be looking for honest work."
Reality has a way of making transparent even the best constructed fiction. No shuttle flights and having to pay the Russians to carry our astronauts and cargo up to the very expensive space station, that we can't effectively utilize for the science benefits, that it was sold to Congress on, is beginning to get embarrassing even for the most hearty NASA supporters on the Hill.
NASA's recycled manned launcher (CLV) and Lunar plans (CEV, etc.) are so uninspiring, that even avid space supporters are having difficulty getting excited about them, and have little faith that NASA will actually produce flight hardware anytime this decade, if ever.
I feel for Griffin, as he seems to be an honest man sent on a fools errand to justify the unjustifiable to those who have seen this routine done too many times before by better liars.
Anything so developed would have cost much less (a very small fraction, and probably a fraction of a single shuttle launch) without having to fund the space shuttle, and because they are useful, would have been. The shuttle wasn't built so NASCAR could have better insulation, it was built for space missions which needn't have taken place. The Hubble has been successful, but could have been orbited using an expendible heavy booster. The space station is just a surrender-sovereignty nightmare funded by the US taxpayer. US taxpayers likewise and in the same project funded the continued Russian space program.
our wonderful NASA desided to piss away the next 40 years of human space flight to build a hunk of complex junk that can BARELY Slip the Surly Bonds of Earth.NASA doesn't write its own budget, the Congress does that. Johnson's and Nixon's war in Vietnam ate the Apollo program. I love that scene in the movie "Apollo 13" where the politician says to Lovell, "if there is an Apollo 14," then goes on to complain that, having beaten the Russians to the Moon, there wasn't any further point to funding Apollo. The short attention span of most the public regarding space is well summed up by those fictionalized remarks.
I think you know, but don't want to say. NASA still does extremely well in areas where politicians aren't heavily involved. Unfortunately, the new manned programs will draw the politicians like flies on crap.
AGAIN. I'm not pissed that Apollo went poof. I realize it was a race, that we won, to imply get to the moon. Apollo unltimately failed becaue political pressure was such that they only cared about the second we crossed the finish line, versus what we would actually do when the race was over.
Fine, cut the budget. Get your house in order. Take a decade or two "off" to do something LESS grandiose. But what happened? NASA desides to spend a massive chunk of it's funding to build the most complex machine in human history to go 300 miles up.
The whole shuttle concept was a waste of 40 years of Human space travel. It has sucked the joy out of it. Childrens dreams of being an astronaut have been replaced with being in a boy band or being Britney Spears.
Was it going to take a hit with the budget cuts? Sure. Did it have to sink to such a low that it is today? Nope.
I am not advocating tossing safety out the window. However, if we had saddled the development of aviation the way we do space, I am not sure passenger travel would yet be the norm.
NASA desides to spend a massive chunk of it's funding to build the most complex machine in human history to go 300 miles up.Congress made that decision.
"It is my statement of fact that this is so."
I have worked both space sectors, public and private, and I can assure you that is a statement of *opinion*.
NASA has many problems, and the big boys feeding at the corporate trough are loathe to step away, I'll grant you that. However, private space is starving.
Somebody has to get us into space, sooner rather than later. NASA is our best near-term shot, though woefully inefficient. Rutan and others will pass up NASA, but we don't need to wait.
Beyond that, the big boys really are trying to get something done, it isn't all a matter of sucking up tax dollars for no return.
At least this is encouraging to hear - FINALLY - http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8735
QUOTE - Letting the human spaceflight programme "atrophy" after Apollo damaged the agency for three decades, he said.
It sucks that the science part will temporarily suffer. But any increases to the OVERALL budget will come from a human presence in space, not from pretty pictures of Pluto.
maybe this instead?
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8735
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn8735
"I'd be willing to support that as long as any additional money went to the unmanned side of the programme, and as long as the money didn't come from other science agencies," said Boehlert. "But money is not exactly growing on trees around here."
Oops. I keep on forgetting. Most sites link URLs automatically.
I too have worked in the government space sector (both NASA and Military) and the private commercial space sector. I have worked fairly high up in NASA's manned spaceflight program and can assure you that this in not merely opinion, but verifiable fact.
It is clear that you are letting your closeness to the problem blind you from seeing (let alone admitting) what is becoming glaringly obvious to everyone else.
I understand that, as it has been hazardous to careers to even privately acknowledge that "the emperor has no clothes" at NASA.
However, private space is starving.
That begs the question of why this is so? Could it be that NASA has had a hand in creating this scenario, instead of nurturing this important industry?
Somebody has to get us into space, sooner rather than later.
No, there are no guarantees that we ever will recreate the "Space Program" of old. Even pouring billions of more tax dollars into NASA's budget does not guarantee they will accomplish the job, given the bureaucratic de-evolution that is crippling it. NASA is still living off of the legend of "doing the impossible" glory days from 30 years ago.
In the commercial sector accomplishment is rewarded, and failure is not tolerated, let alone rewarded as it is in the government.
Yes and no. There's a tremendous overhead cost that comes with those companies, but a lot of it has to do with NASA reporting requirements. There are some fairly serious problems at the systems engineering and management levels, too -- an over-reliance on process, as a replacement for knowledge, which leads to bloat in non-productive staffing.
However, the business itself is intrinsically expensive: it takes thousands of people to keep the Shuttle program going, even when it's not flying. There's nothing you can do about that.
Why don't they give Dick Ruttan and his company a shot at designing the replacement space vehicle? NASA needs new blood and innovative thinking, NOT the means of throwing more money at the same old problems.
Because, quite frankly, Rutan has no idea what's involved once you get below the top-level stuff. They'd have to re-learn old solutions. You labor under the misperception that the current crop of engineers and scientists are stupid, and that Rutan has some sort of magic wand. Sorry, that's just you responding to Rutan's smoke-and-mirrors pitch.
A very excellent question.
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