NASA Panel Submits Its Big Plan For Future of Human Space Flight

At last, the rumors can stop flying. Unfortunately, they're not alone in that

By Stuart Fox Posted 09.08.2009 at 4:47 pm 8 Comments

Ares Rocket (again) courtesy of NASA

After months of research, public hearings, and debate, the NASA Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, also known as the Augustine Committee, has finally submitted its recommendations to the White House.

Despite wide-ranging rumors that the panel would recommend scraping the Constellation Program or landing on an asteroid, the summary report posted on the Committee website today lays out eight pragmatic, budget-minded options. The recommendations, binned out into three groups based on funding availability, cover a wide range of options.

The first two plans represent a modest future for space flight, and note that without serious budget increases, NASA isn't going back to the Moon before the 2030s, if at all. And forget Mars.

The second bunch of options, which the Committee estimates would cost an additional $3 billion a year (plus yearly increases at the rate of inflation), aim for a lunar landing by the mid-2020s.

The third group of plans, for which they don't give a cost, involves exploration of the Moon and Lagrange Points by the early 2020s, with a possible human exploration of a Martian moon by the late 2020s.

All but two of the plans call for commercial space companies to replace the Ares I rocket for low-Earth-orbit missions, and identify the Ares V as the corner stone of the NASA's future.

The summary report makes some other interesting points as well. The report says, "the Committee finds that no plan compatible with the FY 2010 budget profile permits human exploration to continue in any meaningful way," and also finds that NASA cannot avoid a seven-year gap during which the U.S. will launch no people into space, while NASA switches over from the shuttle to the Ares V.

Most importantly, the report essentially kills the "Mars first" plan, saying, "Mars is the ultimate destination for human exploration; but it is not the best first destination."

All of this is complicated by a white paper leaked to the press on Friday. As reported by the Orlando Sentinel, this internal NASA policy paper contradicts some of the report's findings, and advocates a comprehensive, 30-year program to land humans on Mars.

Basically, the take-home message of the report is the same line NASA's been saying since Mercury: No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

[via the NASA Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee]

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8 Comments

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animemaster

09/08/09 at 10:36 pm

I almost wish spacex where publicly traded, it would be interesting to see how it's stock would rally around such a report.

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The Wonderer

09/09/09 at 8:19 am

A pretty interesting report. It's nice to see that the people on this committee seem to be thinking realistically about space exploration.

We cannot travel into space without appropriate equipment. Unfortunately that equipment is extremely expensive at this point. Until NASA can substantially cut the cost of space travel, they will have extreme budget constraints.

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kstauff

09/09/09 at 9:21 am

We spend something like $400 billion dollars annually in interest on our national debt. Maybe this would be affordable if we weren't blowing through cash on entitlement programs and interest we can't afford.

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Sonicman10

09/10/09 at 10:44 am

now there goes the mars mission, yet, you wonder why the us keeps going into debt. but another lunar landing by 2020 sounds attainable-DaSonicMan

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Setarip

09/11/09 at 5:50 am

NASA and our current space exploration is embaressing. Its not all NASA's fault though, if we spent our money on more progressive programs such as space exploration, we would be far ahead of where we are now. I personally think getting to the moon should take no longer than the year 2020(with the right funding) and possibly sooner. Just look at past programs that did far more in as little time as possible(think Hoover dam, apollo program, manhattan project) All of these programs were completed much faster than what NASA currently projects its next lunar mission--and on of those past programs was a lunar mission! All with technology far inferior to what we have today.

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rpbarbati

09/12/09 at 4:23 pm

And yet how much are we continuing to spend on killing people every year - 100's of billions of dollars!!

We are retarded and will probably be rewarded for our intelligent use of our intelligence - by a mile wide asteroid impact when we aren't paying attention.

We spent 180 billion on AIG, an insurance company. How ironic that we aren't willing to spend that much for planetary insurance.

Rodney

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TechnoFreakFace

09/14/09 at 6:53 pm

i quote "exploration of the Moon and Lagrange Points"

WHAT THE HELL IS IT SUPPOSED TO MEAN EXPLORE!?

THE LAGRANGE POINT IS JUST A POINT BETWEEN EARTH AND THE MOON WERE THEIR GRAVITATIONAL FORCES ARE EQUAL...EMPTY SPACE!!!
NOTHING TO EXPLORE!!!

explore the moon?!! found a new mountain, crevice, cute rock .....i dont give a damn........

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jjetrek

10/23/09 at 11:23 pm

I agree with" The Wonderer "if NASA can not get it's fiscal priorities together There are smart people here in United States and rest of civilized world A private company is currently building a space port either in New Mexico or Arizona. Maybe they ought to team up with them.
I've heard we already have fusion engine (About Half the speed of light ) So instead taking three years to Mars. It will take only three to six months.I also believe NASA ought to be International Space Agency. The Moon is just stepping stone to Mars, people. It will be colonized if certian kind of Lunar mineral will be found.To help earth I've just found out if didn't have the moon, humans would n't exist. Hell, we 've just found out that the moon has ice on it.