NASA Moon Landing Canceled

[Sionnach Glic]

Sep 8, 5:53 PM EDT

Obama space panel says moon return plan is a no go

By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A White House panel of independent space experts says NASA's return-to-the-moon plan just won't fly.

The problem is money. The expert panel estimates it would cost about $3 billion a year beyond NASA's current $18 billion annual budget.

"Under the budget that was proposed, exploration beyond Earth is not viable," panel member Edward Crawley, a professor of aeronautics at MIT, told The Associated Press Tuesday.

The report gives options to President Barack Obama, but said NASA's current plans have to change. Five years ago, then-President George W. Bush proposed returning astronauts to the moon by 2020. To pay for it, he planned on retiring the shuttle next year and shutting down the international space station in 2015.

All those deadlines have to change, the panel said. Space exploration would work better by including other countries and private for-profit firms, the panel concluded.

The panel had previously estimated that the current plan would cost $100 billion in spending to 2020.

Former NASA associate administrator Alan Stern said the report showed the harsh facts that NASA's space plans had "a mismatch between resources and rhetoric." Now, he said, Obama faces a choice of "essentially abandoning human spaceflight" or paying the extra money.

The panel, chaired by retired Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, includes executives, scientists and ex-astronauts. It posted a summary report Tuesday on both White House and NASA web sites.

NASA can't get beyond low-Earth orbit without spending more, but space travel with astronauts is important, the panel found. That will cost an extra $3 billion a year and is "unquestionably worth it," Crawley said.

The question is where to go.

The Bush plan was to go to the moon, which would serve as a training ground for flights to Mars. The Augustine panel agreed Mars is the ultimate goal, but said going to the moon first is only one option and not the preferred one. Instead, the panel emphasized what it called a "flexible path" of exploring near-Earth objects such as asteroids, the moons of Mars, and then landing on the moon after other exploration.

"There's a lot of places in the neighborhood," Crawley said. "In fact, going to the moon is more difficult than going to a near-Earth object."

The panel also said the space shuttle should continue flying until early 2011 to finish all its space station work and that it can't realistically retire by Oct. 1, 2010 as the Bush administration planned.

The panel called "unwise" the Bush plan to shut down the space station in 2015 and steer it into the ocean, after 25 years of construction and only five years of fully operational life. The space station's life should be extended, the panel said.

Once the shuttles are grounded, it could be another six to seven years before the United States has its own transportation into space, the panel estimates. That's because it will take a few years to build and test the new Ares rocket. In the meantime, NASA will have to rely on the Russian Soyuz.

The panel also urged NASA to pay private companies to develop spaceships to ferry astronauts to the space station and low-Earth orbit. That may be riskier, but it would free up NASA to explore elsewhere, the panel said. Elon Musk, chief executive officer of SpaceX, said within a few years he could send astronauts to space for about $20 million a person, less than the $50 million Russia is charging. He hopes to launch his private rocket, Falcon 9, later this year or early next.

NASA should encourage other countries to join the U.S. in exploring space beyond Earth orbit, the panel said.

"If after designing cleverly, building alliances with partners and engaging commercial providers, the nation cannot afford to fund the effort to pursue the goals it would like to embrace, it should accept the disappointment of setting lesser goals," the report said.

The panel outlined Obama's options. In two cases, the federal government could choose not to spend extra money on exploration and thus wouldn't go to the moon or anywhere new in the next couple decades. The other plans involve spending more money.

The panel suggested that if NASA continues its current moon plans, to save money it should kill plans to make a smaller Ares I rocket to carry astronauts and go right to the bigger Ares V.

Other variations of going to moon plan could rely on a version of the space shuttle system that would use the boosters and external tank with a capsule attached.

NASA already has spent $7.7 billion on its current moon plan, including the design and construction of new rockets. The Ares I has a test of its key first stage scheduled for later this week and an overall test launch scheduled for Halloween.

So much for that.

[stitch626]

Space exploration would work better by including other countries...

Yeah, like they can get along normally.

[Tyyr]

I cannot believe they actually recommended Ares over the competition. I might have believed Ares I to keep going. Even as a total clusterfuck we had spent money on it so I can maybe see not shit canning it (even though it was crap). Ares V though was only a semi-good idea because you'd have Ares I lifting the crew. Without Ares I, and with it being reduced in size, its one of the least attractive/cost effective designs in the bunch.

I agree with them that Mars is the ultimate goal, I agree that near earth objects are important. I don't agree with totally sidelining the moon. I do agree with keeping the ISS going. We spent two decades and a 100 billion dollars on it. Throwing it away after only a few years of actually doing something besides giving the shuttle something to do was a ridiculous idea.

[Aaron]

Anyone shocked? Anyone? Bueller?

[Tyyr]

That a government appointed panel would uphold another government entity's plans even though they're a total disaster? I probably shouldn't be.

Then again I'm a hopeless optimist at times.

[Teaos]

I have always supported NASA being disbanded and sold to private space agencies. Then the government hands out grant money to do things like build the ISS or go to the moon/mars, the private companies bid for the contract and money to do it. Works for the military usually when it comes to military hardware.

[Aaron]

Yeah and it results in massive cost overruns, usually.

[sunnyside]

I have always supported NASA being disbanded and sold to private space agencies. Then the government hands out grant money to do things like build the ISS or go to the moon/mars, the private companies bid for the contract and money to do it. Works for the military usually when it comes to military hardware.

Actually they already mostly do that. NASA is the agency running the show, but the stuff is often built by the likes of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. And they have an army of other contractors doing various things for the agency. All of which probably have sub contractors who have their own sub-contractors.

I liked that quote from Armegedon "American components, Russian Components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!" Like as not that's close to the truth.


The big problem (in other safety critial industries) is that some contractor at the lowest level will do some shoddy work. Now big companies do shoddy work too, and everyone suffers cost overruns on this stuff. But at least they know or can find out what's shoddy and how bad it is. With the tiered structure all too often a different sub-sub-sub contractor is suddenly doing the work, sending in a slightly different component that looks the same, and nobody in the higher levels even knows it's happened until something goes wrong.

[Lt. Staplic]

Can someone else here explain how going to near-earth-objects is somehow cheaper than going to the moon? They may be closer sometimes, but no where long enough to really go on an in depth mission. And more likely than not their still further away than our moon. Heck they even threw in Mars' two moons as better possibilities than our own

[Tyyr]

Well, I can't speak to Mar's moons, I'd have to research it. As for NEO's the issue is that NEO's have almost gravitational attraction. You don't have to haul along all that extra propellant to escape from them. Heck, most of the have so little gravitational attraction that you could land the Orion module directly on them.

[Atekimogus]

The report gives options to President Barack Obama, but said NASA's current plans have to change. Five years ago, then-President George W. Bush proposed returning astronauts to the moon by 2020.

Here is what I have problems understanding. The NASA already put people repeatedly on the moon some 30 years ago, correct? Now I am quite sure they do not have the budget they used to have then but how come that it seems they once again start at zero as if the moon landings never happened? (fyi I do not believe the moon landings were faked)

The new ares rocket for example. Now I have little insight in rocket science but the principle of a rocket surley hasn't changed in the last 30 years so why design a new one when there surley are still blueprints of the saturn V somewhere? Sure there are maybe more efficient engines around today and whatnot but somehow they make it seem like they have lost all knowledge of the 70-80ties and are starting from scratch.

[Sionnach Glic]

I don't quite understand it myself. Surely they could just produce a new Saturn V, Apollo craft and lunar lander?

[Tsukiyumi]

I don't quite understand it myself. Surely they could just produce a new Saturn V, Apollo craft and lunar lander?

Apparently, we just tossed all of the components out when we were "done" with them. Way to plan ahead.

[Nickswitz]

I don't quite understand it myself. Surely they could just produce a new Saturn V, Apollo craft and lunar lander?

Apparently, we just tossed all of the components out when we were "done" with them. Way to plan ahead.

Come one, we're the United States of America, we don't need to plan ahead; I mean look how well that worked for the economy

[Graham Kennedy]

I don't quite understand it myself. Surely they could just produce a new Saturn V, Apollo craft and lunar lander?

Apparently, we just tossed all of the components out when we were "done" with them. Way to plan ahead.

You have the issue of why you want to go tot he moon. The Apollo program was developed to put folks on the moon, let them play around for a few hours, then come back again. If that's what you want to do then sure NASA could probably get more Saturn Vs built... though the production lines have been closed nearly 40 years now, reopening them would probably involve huge difficulty and expense. But I'm sure with enough money, it could be done.

But there's not really a whole lot of point to going to the moon just to do what they did before over again. They're talking about using moon missions as Mars training. That means landing honking big stuff there - shelters that can hold a dozen people or more, supplies for long term stays, construction gear, god knows what else. Saturn Vs aren't going to cut it in missions anything like that.

Personally, this whole thing strikes me as an absurdity. In today's money the Apollo project cost $145 billion dollars. Anybody who thinks NASA is going to put a man on Mars for less than five times that much is living in a dreamworld. I'm even tempted to say for less than fifty times that much. Talk of spending a few billion here and there and mucking around on the moon first and then we'll suddenly be ready to go to Mars... it's dumb.

With Apollo, Kennedy said "Here's what we're going to do, and it's going to be hugely difficult and hugely expensive, so we're going to have an all out national effort to do it right." The modern version of that seems to be that if we just spend a little money here and there, it'll all somehow work itself out eventually. Stupid.