Buzz Aldrin Asks Obama For Leadership in Space

Right, Buzz. Good luck.

The ONLY thing Obama has shown any propensity for showing "leadership" on is the democrats war on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

Obama is going to socialize NASA and lead a government takeover of U.S. human space flight!

I think NASA is already a government organization:-) But right now the Obama administration appears to be pushing for private manned launch capability.

NASA needs to focus on establishing a permanent base, or bases, on the Moon-- something they should have done right after the end of the Apollo program, IMO. Moon bases will be the ultimate destination for wealthy space tourist and Lunar Lotto winners.

Once private companies begin to transport humans to LEO, transporting tourist to the Moon using reusable OTVs and lunar landers should be relatively easy.

Marcel F. Williams

Yes Buzz - we do need leadership. We've not seen any of that in a long long time.

The Flex approach if done the right way is a much more affordable way to do real exploration much sooner.

The spacecraft should be based on modified ISS hardware. There are elements already built for ISS, like the US Hab, that could easily be completed and certified for future mission use. If you use advanced propulsion systems, like Vasimr, then the vehicle can be a cycler and need not be dumped every time another foray is made. It can depart from and return to ISS. You could take the ISS workforce and expand their responsibilities to include the new vehicle. A reasonable time frame to have the first planetary clipper on the way to geo should be in 5 to 7 years.

This is visionary thinking - why is no one in NASA thinking this way ?

Orion, and the NASA capsule approach would not be needed at all. Its a great approach for an Apollo-like return from the moon or Mars in which we throw the entire system away after each trip.

That is fifty year old thinking.

If you want a capsule for bare bones earth to orbit and return transportation, its a good test for Dragon. Let NASA commit to buying up X number of seats a year to ensure Dragon has a business model. They can be given a bonus for providing the capacity on an accelerated schedule. They can sell most of their seats to Bigelow and Virgin. Dragon should be able to fly in a few years. It has the added benefit of being small enough to launch on any of a variety of boosters.

We will still need to replace Shuttle's earth-to-orbit and return capacity, and we should also build a replacement, smaller, safer, less expensive to operate passenger carrying craft to replace Shuttle's capability; hopefully one that won't be splashed into the ocean and thrown away on each mission. This is where the new money needs to be spent.

Time to put Constellation, Orion, Ares and Altair out of their misery. That program was never sustainable, and was not going to get anyone anywhere for another generation the way it was being run. It was the wrong idea, wrong approach, poorly orchestrated, at the wrong time.

We will get back to the moon but not with the Constellation method; we'll get back there when it can be done more affordably and safely.