Bush Space Policy Responses

NASA Watch

Comments on President Bush's new space policy? Send them to nasawatch@reston.com

"As a NASA/KSC person, all I can say about this is "Woo-freaking-hoo!" Now we have to hope it doesn't tank like SEI (under Pres. Bush (41)) did.

You ought to get peoples' takes on this one with a comments page!"

Your comments thus far:

With all due respect to space advocates who view the new space policy as a positive thing, I am a space advocate who sees it in an entirely different light.ÊI look at the same policy and see a shutdown of U.S. human spaceflight in 2010.ÊBeyond that, there is an incredibly unchallenging timeline for retuning to the Moon.ÊThis Òbold visionÓ is no more than political double speak.

Manned missions to space are financially irresponsible and totally unrequired at the present time. We can gain all the same benefits and more with robotic missions at one tenth of the price. The benefits from the robotic technology development to humans are much greater and immediate than technology advancements due to manned missions. Additionally, the cost savings from these robotic missions can be applied to improve life for earthbound humans. For 40 years, NASA has been sending humans to space claiming we are benefiting from what experiments they perform, when they have been performing the same damn experiments over and over. We are gaining nothing from the ISS and will not gain anything immediate from manned missions either. Let us go to space to build outposts and such but do it all with robots. Only then we should consider sending humans into space. Imagine the technology gained by such ambitions and how that technology is directly applicable to improving life, right here on earth. For a tenth of the cost we get one hundred fold or more in return. Don't be fooled by the politics and the romance of seeing a person prancing around on the Moon or Mars. Be practical in your space ambitions. Our planet can not afford to sustain manned space missions for little or no return in the investment. Thank you for your attention.

I applaud Pres. Bush's attempt to provide NASA some direction. However, after observing NASA's attempt to respond in the last few weeks, I am not encouraged by what I see. Sean O'Keefe seems to be good for NASA from a political viewpoint but his background is military and his Godfather Dick Cheney is also defense oriented. In turn Generals and Admirals have been brought in to run NASA and the Exploration Initiative. While these people have leadership experience, they are severely lacking in space program background. Going to the Moon and Mars is not the same as building or flying airplanes. Should I conclude that the real objective of going back to the moon is military related. If not, I wish for the best but worry about the ability of these people to get us there.

It is amazing that NASA was set up as a "civilian" agency in 1958, under the rubric of Ike's admonition about the "military/industrial" complex. The Space Science Board and those involved, such as John Foster Dulles, called for a civilian agency to assure a focus on space as a place for scientific, peaceable exploration. Post 9/11 and in the thros of the paradigm shift initiating war, NASA and its contractors are being taken over by retired military. Military Shuttle pilots are ok, it is in the bowls of the Program that I am concerned.

The espirit d'corps of ring knockers with their readiness reviews defies the culture NASA blossomed from. NASA was a place to dream not scheme. Swagger stick prodding does not bring focus and just does not work in an R&D world. As this course has been laid and reinforced with more military retiring into NASA's coffers, there appears to be a future where the avaracious little beasts will consume themselves, and nothing will get done.

NASA will never change, because the military mindset cannot change. We are in need of a revolution not evolution, and our tedious marching in cadance is stiffling what we all do best in this space buisness, think outside the box, or in quantum think, see no box at all. Somehow this Administration must stand tall, and get the message. NASA is a civilian agency involved in great risky business. Congress passed Public Law 85-804, Indemnification for Ultrahazardous Activity, relating to the nuclear industry and the Space Shuttle. Our melt down is not in flight assets, nor in infrastructure, it is in a rusting workforce. It is better to wear out than rust out, and the stagnant inertia housed in military leadership seems to portend a fate where we are so safe and so perfect in quality that we will never launch. We will always be ready, but we will never launch.

If we have the guts to be proactive in war, we should be equally resolved to take on this ultrahazardous activity, and go up hill. If it takes bringing the bold, the brave, and even the brash to push the button, so be it. I am not advocating recklessness, but relentless pursuit of our dream, where the risks we perceive define our duty, a duty which must include going back to doing what we do so well. Those of us in this business know what that is, Let's Roll!

Editor, NASA Watch:

As a long time space enthusiast and amateur astronomer, I welcome any new initiative that pushes mankind further into space. However, as a non-American (a Canadian) I would like to offer a different point of view. The exploration and exploitation of space cannot and should not be the work of one country, but rather the work of all countries that can and wish to contribute. Rather than having the US run a program and inviting a few tag-along countries, I suggest an international consortium modelled on INTELSAT (see http://samadhi.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/Programs/intelsat.html for a brief description of how INTELSAT operates). Governmental agencies, non-governmental organisations, and private businesses could contribute funds and expertise to long-term space exploration and exploitation of space resources, and expect financial returns in proportion to their investment. In this scheme, the US could keep those space programs that it considers to be in its own vital militiary, security or economic interests (and pay for them itself) and work through the consortium to accomplish the longer term more expensive manned and unmanned exploration programs. I know that Americans don't like to be involved in any international program that it doesn't completely control and bend to its own benefit, but perhaps now you have a chance to change that.

Comments on President Bush's new Moon-Mars Initiative:

As a member of the science community, science-driven programs such as Discovery and Explorer are especially important to me. However, I feel that some missions can be equally justified on the merits of pure Exploration. Therefore, I applaud NASA's new focus on Exploration as a major theme in its planning for the next few decades. I think the upcoming manned missions to the Moon and Mars will generate a groundswell of public excitement. However, the manned program needs an engaging spokesman such as Steve Squyres of the Mars Rovers team to communicate effectively. Most of NASA's spokesmen for their manned program are boring or worse, and that sadly includes Administrator O'Keefe who is addicted to talking like an insurance actuarial statistician.

There are some interesting aspects of the upcoming missions to the Moon that the media have overlooked so far. First, somewhere in America today there lives the First Woman on the Moon. Her first footsteps will capture immense headlines.

Second, there has been no word from NASA as to HOW they will again land a crew on the Moon. Will they use the tried-and-true method of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous, with a separate Lunar Lander? Or will they utilize a Direct Approach, landing the entire CEV on the Moon? I would appreciate a public debate on the merits of each approach.

Third, where on the Moon will these landings occur? It appears that the polar areas have gotten a lot of media attention because of the possibilty of water ice in those locations. However, there are other sites on the Moon that are just as important to science and exploration as the polar zones. It would be instructive to dig out the old list of landing sites, from the Apollo program, that were considered for the cancelled Apollo 18, 19 and 20 missions. In addition, there was extensive planning for extensive field trips on the Moon as part of the cancelled Apollo Applications Program. It would be fun to dust those off and re-examine those plans as we prepare for our return to the Moon.

Concering a manned voyage to Mars, can a fly-by of Venus be utilized to open up an early-return window after the crew departs from Mars? Throwing in a Venus fly-by would also generate great PR since we would be visiting 2 planets with one mission, even though no landing on Venus would be recommended.

Also, will the CEV capsule utilize the splashdown mode or will it be designed for touchdown on dry land?

Lastly, I hope that the name "Constellation" doesn't apply directly to the new Crew Exploration Vehicle. It won't be so bad as the overall name of the entire program of manned deep space endeavors. However, I strongly urge NASA to pick a snappy, inspirational name such as APOLLO for the CEV itself. Perhaps it is now politically incorrrect to pick such pagan names as Gemini and Apollo, but I hope that O'Keefe, et al, can be brave enough to pick such a name. Nothing longer than 3 syllables, please. Also, no more PC names such as "Spirit" and "Opportunity." If NASA is to be bold and inspirational, then lets choose a name that reflects those qualities.

The sooner we get President Bush's Exploration Initiative going, the sooner we will get humans to Mars and learn what the planet is all about! I look at the 3+ weeks that it has taken the rovers to drill a little dust off a rock and proclaim it as volcanic. Then I imagine Harrison Schmidt landing, taking his hammer to the rock, and proclaiming the same thing...in about 5 minutes!

The Rovers are a prime example of why robots are NOT the way to explore space.

A member of NASA's Gen X: joined after Apollo and will leave before Mars.

Keith,

With Carleton S. Fiorina as a member of the Presidents Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond I can only say... Good Luck.

In my opinion what she did to Hewlett Packard, was and still is extremely negligent. Lets hope she does better in space.

A still mad HP Stock Holder

As a student who has dreamed of spaceflight for years, I'm in tears over the decision to abandon the Hubble to a slow death before its time. Astronauts and manned missions are flashy and exciting, but it's the beauty of the images that Hubble returns that ignites a true and long-lasting love affair with the stars.

Without the Hubble images of M16 and M27 to remind me why I'm putting myself through the difficulty of studying astrophysics, I would not have made it to graduation.

- A heartbroken dreamer

Several people have said, God bless President Bush, this makes no sense to me, from my observations, Bush is God! As far a money to pay to pay for the space missions, the President has a blank check! Now really! Space. Any business man worth his or her salt knows, to take are business to lower income countries like India and China (Heck China is going that way anyways). As far as the ISS, the Russians are handleing things just fine ( Why fix something that's not broke). I'm all for this space stuff, always have been! This thing with President Bush, moon, mars, is nothing but politics. The only reason this space stuff came up again is because of the Chinese. Going to space is a real good idea, but it always seems to be for all the wrong reasons. I find it funny when presidents throw something out there past their term, I mean it's every new presidents job to undue eveything the former president has done. I've enjoyed reading other peoples opinions here, and I agree with about 90% of them! Everyone, have a nice day!

Keith,

Here's something to probe into... Why is it that seemingly ALL those writing on the Bush space policy act like there's this huge gap in space station access? As I recall, the plan is to test the Constellation s/c unmanned NLT FY08. Shuttle scuttle scheduled for circa FY10. Constellation ready to support beyond-LEO flights circa FY14. Is EVERYONE believing that it's going to take six years (about the duration of Mercury PLUS Gemini!) before a crew rides a Constellation?? I think you should dig into what the real deal is about this supposed gap.

After nearly three weeks, it is time for this commentator to pronounce judgment on Bush's space plan. After careful consideration, I would give Bush an A for convergence, a C - for financing, and a B+ for consideration.

At the same time, the space community and the larger non space community have also chimed in, with varying degrees of success with regards to destinations, critique, real space awareness, costs, benefits, and whether or not their favorite candidate for high political office favors or opposes the Bush plan for NASA, and how. Mostly they hate space because Bush proposed it, not because they inherently have any cogent, informed thought about space development and policy, the idea of a Spacefaring Civilization away from Earth. They don't, and never have. Some Presidential material, that!

Democrats as a whole apart from Presidential candidates largely decry NASA and Bush's plan, arguing the usual stale arguments about more social welfare spending being needed by their constituents, when the many trillions of dollars spent on social welfare spending could be in ending poverty, drug abuse, hopelessness, could be a bigger failure if we hadn't spend much less on space since the mid 1960's shall we say? Give you more billions for failed social welfare and educational systems that don't teach the most basic real fact about space development and settlement? Give more money for a failed system that does not emphasize individual property rights here on earth or out in space in any significant, effective way, promised much and delivered little? No more I say. I choose to invest in the future of man, in the future of freedom, and progress, for choice and rights, for space for everyone, here and now, and for generations yet to come, for the ages no less.

Waiting in space for everyone alike, rich and poor, is the future of the human race in generic as well as individual terms, because if the common man or woman is locked out of property rights in space, it should not be for lack of trying to get a grubstake on the High Frontier. Via any means necessary, and preferably by networked means if available, and cheap too.

With regards to space policy and programs, as well as an overarching goal via Presidential Mandate, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report Volume I and parts of II, The Commission on the Future of the Aerospace Industry, the World Space Congress, and the Columbia accident itself, and the struggle to build to completion the International Space Station Alpha, then use it to the fullest with some focus and real purpose, all still await address, and we will account for our actions or lack thereof in the next few years if we do not get involved now. Each of these incidents or reports indicate the need for consensus, convergence, goals, and sustained effort for years to accomplish anything substantive and frontier enabling in space, which is sorely overdue. Columbia's destruction and the deaths of its crew are confirmation of the failed policies of cutting NASA's budget to meet overtly political needs to use space for purely political ends, a practice which has proven not only bankrupt, but also harmful to true progress in astronautics and space development/settlement as well. No more using space for purely p0litical reasons; space is important in and of itself, and should be recognized as such by all informed, aware people in the spacefaring nations.

It is time to not only reevaluate what we have been doing, how we have been doing it, but also create new demand for space that is individual driven, by networked means, for as many personal ends as is possible to conceive, and we should start now. This would give hope, a reason for discipline, study, learning and scholarship, teamwork and cooperation, to the youth of the US and the spacefaring nations as a whole. People who create their own futures via networked means, and build a future in space a piece, a spacecraft, a market and an industrial process or two all at the same time, are the real future of man, not further wars for poorly defined reasons, liberal social welfare programs that accomplish nothing over decades of time, and corporate greed as witnessed in the last few years that are obviously bankrupt policies, and should be abolished.

In their place, space development and settlement can provide all the adventure, excitement, commercial activity, and room for expansion for thousands of year, once we are truly anchored in space and making goods for use in space, tapping energy, and getting the common man and woman involved in a fundamental way. This is a better use of money from public and private sources than the rat holes we have been pouring money down in the last one to three decades, with nothing to show for it but more of the same, a decrease in personal freedoms, economic sluggishness, and the ongoing frauds of liberal and conservative politics as we have known them, corporate American malfeasance and corruption, and lying manipulative politicians who cut NASA's budget to make themselves and their policies look good, at NASA's expense.

A state, or city or group of cities and municipalities, counties, or other cooperative economic investment association can raise sufficient capital to build, test, fly, and operate space craft to process raw materials and energy into marketable quantities of fuel, oxygen, water, metals, glasses, ceramics, radiation shielding, electrical power, and other commodities needed by orbital civilization. All of this and more lies waiting for us in space, if we will but seize the high ground and do what needs to be done to gain and empire in the Inner Solar System. Anything else is unnecessary intrigue, and a waste of time, money, and effort. Onto our destiny in Space.

I think unmanned space exploration makes much more sense than manned exploration.

First of all, it is of course very much cheaper (or less expensive). Further, it would stimulate development of robot technology which is likely to have many earth-bound applications.

The argument that we need humans on-site to really understand the remote environment doesn't make any sense to me at all. Humans would need instruments to assess what they are seeing. Being there would allow them to react more quickly, but so what? Let it take a few minutes or days before we react to something that we find. It would probably take a group of experts to decide on the best course of action anyway, and they would be here on earth, not up there on Mars.

Finally, the idea that the pride of the nation requires that we send Americans to other planets doesn't do it for me either. When we were competing with the Soviets this may have made sense, but today it is anachronistic (or simply silly).

NASA has issued a contract stop work order for at least 2 months on All NGLT contracts (including RS-84 kerosene engine) while the new Code T figures out how to implement Bush's CY 2004 Space Exploration Directive.

Hi Keith,

Thank you for posting committee hearing schedules and thereby helping us average citizens participate in the process. Today, my 10 year-old, home-schooled daughter & I attended in person (our first) NASA's hearing before the full Senate Commerce Committee (I'm military stationed in DC). Here are a few, short observations if I may:

1. While Administrator O'Keefe may not be the "Mark Anthony" type motivational speaker, he's strength is legislative affairs. His reputation of fiscal responsibility & demonstrated success the last 2 years in getting ISS under budgetary control plays well to both sides of the aisle.

2. With the exception of Senator Brownback, all other senator's statement & questions centered on either (1) saving indefinitely existing jobs tied to the Space Shuttle (2) money should be better spent on social programs (Senator Lautenberg particularly) or (3) poor-mouthing America's ability to finance such an endeavor (how long ago did they all approve a $800 billion drug plan for seniors?)

3. Senator Brownback was especially note-worthy (no, I'm a resident of TX and didn't think Senator Hutchinson had a particularly strong performance). Senator Brownback was the only one that spoke of the tremendous need to inspire the next generation. My 10 year-old may not have paid attention to everything said in the hearing, but she remembered his comments and restated them to her grandparents tonight on the phone.

4. 1 particularly terrible performance was Senator Wyden. He tried twice to steer the meeting away from NASA's future to the handling of passenger data from Northwest Airlines. For the record, the 15 disks received were of such a proprietary format that NASA could do nothing with it, and returned all disks. All disks were secured & handled as classified material.

In summary, the President's mandate is particularly brilliant. You sense committee democrats want to kill it before it gets off the ground (especially in this election year), but the budget increase request is so small that they can't. NASA will have to spirally develop, and future budget decisions will be based upon previously demonstrated success (the DoD model). Remember, no bucks....no Buck Rogers.

To nasawatch :

The only reason Bush suggestet a return to the moon and beyond to mars is because the Japanese and the Chinese anounced the would go to the moon and establish a base there.

It means nothing since we are broke anyway.

Hello Keith, I have been reading the responses that people have been posting up at your site. And I have been keeping with the discussion of Pres. Bush's space plans. I would like to propose a solution to the conundrum facing space development for the masses. I recommend that we make space exploration open source. By this I mean that we put together all the knowledge and let people pull together to make their own space program and run it. I came up with this idea after seeing the success of the Linux operating system in the market and how many people can work on a common goal.

My idea would be based on acquiring the knowledge that has been acquired by NASA and other agencies in working on space exploration. At the present we have more knowledge and technology than the early pioneers had at their disposal. They needed a lot of money to develop and build the vehicles to get into space and work there. I think it could be done with the resources that we have now. What do you think?

Dear Keith,

Bush's policy focuses on the moon and Mars. But there is a Third Way: near Earth asteroids.

According to the following on-line article, there are three good reasons to go to asteroids:

* Fear: an asteroid will collide with Earth someday (planetary protection)

* Greed: asteroids are resource-rich (in situ resource utilization, space commercialization)

* Curiosity: scientific study (curiosity-based research)

Like the moon and Mars, a combination of robotic and human explorers is suitable.

"Near Earth asteroids: the third option" by Jeff Foust http://www.thespacereview.com/article/90/1

Hi Keith,

The President's mandate is the right course of action for the following reasons:

1. Robotic exploration compliments human exploration; it doesn't replace it. There are missions best suited for robots, and then there's the point where only humans can geometrically expand the knowledge base. While the country is intrigued with Spirit & Opportunity (as they should be), it can't compare with putting a fellow American on another world and associated nation-wide inspiration it will bring.

2. There are just too many physiological challenges in going to Mars. Both Mir & ISS have taught us that the human body is THE weak link in such a trip. Evolutionary break-throughs in bio-technology are necessary, and they will happen. Realistically however, they won't be in the coming decade or next. I say "no" to spinning mankind around in low Earth orbit until such break-throughs materialize.

3. The moon is a near-by, technological proving-ground for vehicles (both space & ground), basing (at L1 and both on & below the lunar surface) & harvesting equipment. The lessons learned from a near-by proving ground will increase technology advancement. Our space industry (and associated secondary industries) will benefit tremendously, and help reinforce good 'ole American ingenuity.

4. The moon as a resource should be explored & cultivated. This means pursuing the energy potential of Helium-3 as well as investigating other resources you & I can only dream of today.

Yes, the shuttle should retire by 2010, and resources directed at getting mankind beyond low Earth orbit. People smarter than me should determine whether future vehicles are re-usable/expendable by optimizing performance & cost, not by what is sexy.

Where mutual benefit exists, other countries are welcome to join America in executing this nation's mandate. However, it is up to this country to lead, and the spirit of internationalism must not weaken our nation's vision or resolve.

A simple tax-payer

Neither Marshall or JSC have earned the right to take responsibility for the CEV. The major programs they've managed over the past 25 years have been massively over budget, not to mention grossly lacking in results. Their major accomplishment has been to create lots of jobs for locals and get a bunch of politicians re-elected. They'll win the CEV because of their political power, sucking most of the remaining money out of the other Centers, but they should, for a change, be held accountable for their past performance. Someone should demand accountability, otherwise we'll become a 3rd-rate space power.

Regarding Boeing's conceptual vehicle graphics: the company's artwork is probably better than their true engineering expertise these days. I did some consulting for NASA on the X-37 orbital vehicle and air launched test vehicle projects and it was disconcerting to see how much blatantly incompetent "view graph engineering" was coming from the contractor. I hope to be pleasantly surprised that the vehicles actually work and make it to a runway landing (if the program isn't totally canceled) but I have serious doubts. After all, this is the same company that played a significant role in Columbia's loss with misapplication of the "Crater" program for debris damage assessment. Will NASA keep blundering along and trust the taxpayer dollars and astronauts' lives to today's Boeing? Big mistake if they do.

Hi Keith,

I would just like to say, and from what I've read from your editorials, I agree with the new space policy being put forward by the US administration. As a space enthusiast, I would love to see this project finished. Most people are quick to say this is nothing more than an election process, however I believe it is more the work of Sean O'Keefe, and as such it will really depend on him whether or not this project is successful.

As for those who lament the cancellation of the Hubble Servicing Mission, saying it was the most successful science mission NASA has ever done. I think everyone will agree that the most sucessful mission, period, was the Apollo Moon Landings, which slightly eclipse the great pictures of distant galaxies. I will say that I would like to see Hubble continue to operate, however from an engineering standpoint, it is much more cost effective let it deorbit and replace it later. If this plan works like it should, I could almost see satelites being launched from the moon using lunar resources to build. I'd assume that would bring the cost down much farther than any new carbon composite miracle material could from earth. Instead of a multi billion dollar Hubble, we could have a couple thousand dollar hubble, not to mention just building one on the surface of the moon. Even if you use an exorbitant price to process the materials on the moon, none of the resources are owned by a nation or a company and would thus be very cheap to use, plus no property taxes.

Take a good look at what this plan is proposing and not just what it is cutting back and you'll see that this is the best technical option we have, which also currently has the backing of the White House and many congressmen (Rep and Dem) who are personally concerned with space.

We learn that being good leaders means knowing how to follow. Space Enthusiasts and scientific professionals might do more good by saying yes, we will follow this plan to the fullest.

I'm really disappointed; in so many ways. I've spent most of my space career waiting for an announcement like Mr. Bush Mentions Mars Part 2. But it's come from one of the worst presidents in history; a man who never visited JSC (even as governor of TX) until a national tragedy. A man with a track record of unfunded mandates, false statements, and false promises; but with a political machine that is finely tuned to use the mindless, lazy lemmings that form the media.

I'm even more disappointed in NASAwatch for being one of those lemmings. You seem to have become a mouthpiece for the administration. Once Goldin was gone, you seem to have become partly blind; and your affinity for Bush and the Republicans is so obvious, you really ought to be included in the soft money pot for the Republican party.

Boeing's new spacecraft concepts look like a giant leap backwards for mankind. I can't believe we'll be abandoning reusable space plane concepts to go back to capsules and throw-away rockets!

Hi Keith,

We learn that being good leaders means knowing how to follow. Space Enthusiasts and scientific professionals might do more good by saying yes, we will follow this plan to the fullest.

Boeing's new spacecraft concepts look like a giant leap backwards for mankind. I can't believe we'll be abandoning reusable space plane concepts to go back to capsules and throw-away rockets!

Keith,

Thanks for providing a forum for everyone. I would like to see you require that people sign their names, though. It's very very easy to snipe from under cover of anonymity, and it does a lot of harm.

I think we have Vice President Cheney to thank for the new NASA policy; I know from inside sources that, as his "homework" over the August 2001 recess, he took away a small reference library worth of reading on the topic of space. That was immediately followed by the events of 9/11 which put everything else on hold for quite some time. Columbia reminded us that we shouldn't have dropped the ball on developing a new vision for NASA.

If I were a member of this administration, reading the NASA Watch feedback column to see how our new proposal for NASA is being received by the community most likely to benefit from it, I would be very discouraged.

Instead of pointing to the administration and blaming them for uncompleted programs and eternally changing directives, try thinking of them as issuing policy in response to public interests and demands. One read-through of the postings below makes it clear that pro-space fans and professionals--the core constituency that they should be able to count on--is wildly divided in what it sees as the right path to take. As different factions take the lead, the administration policy veers to follow what seems to be the current "majority" opinion. If WE don't know what we want then how will they get it right?

I was recently reminded of Arthur Clarke's wonderful quote: "The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."

For those of you who don't even want to try, could you please stop acting like hold-down bolts and unhitch yourselves from the pro-space bandwagon? Some of us have places we want to go--soon!

Keith,

If NASA has any chance for success in carrying out President Bush's space plan, they must start to recognize that human space exploration beyond the confines of low earth will require a progressive culture of integrated perspectives, synergistic connections, and viewpoints not normally considered in conventional thinking. In other words, shifting their paradigm is a must.

Pres. Bush says he wants to involve other countries in this venture. I have some personal knowledge of the U.S.'s and particularly NASA's reaction to international involvement. I doubt that there is much sincerity behind this, except a hope for someone else to pay the bills. Any real commitment will involve really sharing decision-making, technology, opportunities for leadership, glory, flag-waving, chest-thumping claims of natural superiority - I really cannot imagine this happening.

However, if there is any reality to this, allow me to suggest some areas where other countries could get involved:

1. Share system design with China. As the country most actively pursuing related goals, a lot of benefit could be gained by sharing technology - for example, docking port design and systems (and CO2 scrubbers?). (Note that "sharing" is not the same as "dictating.") This could lead to more lifting power and delivery opportunities - perhaps even rescue mission possibilities, when they become necessary.

2. The ESA is already developing a new GPS system, based on current technology. It would probably be faster and cheaper to develop a fleet of lunar satellites for GPS and comms relays based on this technology than starting over.

3. Japan and Germany particularly have developed advanced maglev technology. This could well be the best technology for a lunar launch system. A track of relatively light rails, a sun shield to keep them cold, a sled to serve as a reusable launch platform, and solar cells and batteries for power. Electricity is a lot more readily available than rocket fuel on the moon. (It seems to me that this could also play a major role in a creating single (chemical) stage to orbit vehicle on Earth - and could be very economical if the technology was also used for commercial applications, such as launching earth-bound aircraft without using fossil fuels.)

4. Canada has lot of experience with robotic mining equipment. This would likely be very useful in establishing any permanent bases, and in exploiting extra-terrestrial resources anywhere to make missions feasible.

If the U.S. is serious about international involvement, they have to make significant opportunities and incentives available for participation. We'll see if it happens.

It is sad to see so many negative comments about president Bush's vision on space exploration.

Keep up the good work, don't give up telling these people to use real facts, not fictions (i.e. one trillion dollars for Mars trip, as used by senator Lieberman).

Dear Keith,

It's good to see that Bush's space policy aims to use lunar resources:

"Lifting heavy spacecraft and fuel out of the Earth's gravity is expensive. Spacecraft assembled and provisioned on the moon could escape its far lower gravity using far less energy, and thus, far less cost. Also, the moon is home to abundant resources. Its soil contains raw materials that might be harvested and processed into rocket fuel or breathable air." Remarks by the President on U.S. Space Policy http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040114-3.html

It's similar to what the late Gerard K. O'Neill said about the space program:

"a great deal of cost can be saved, and the time scales for all space activities drastically shortened, by making the maximum use of resources which are already located at the top of Earth's gravity well" Alternative Plan for U.S. National Space Program http://www.ssi.org/alt-plan.html

There seems to be a steady shift towards in situ resource utilization using robotics: Zubrin's Mars Direct, Mars Reference Mission, etc.

Keith, et. al.:

I commented briefly earlier about Bush's new "plan", but the recent cancellation of the Hubble servicing mission, and your recent postings make me feel that I must follow up:

While I applaud any new attention and focus in the cause of space exploration, I have to question your seemingly uncritical eye for this proposal, and your constant heaping of scorn against all who would point out its flaws.

Yes, the new "plan" is better than the directionless morass we have been in for the past several years, but any truly critical eye would note that this is yet one more example of sweeping half-done projects into the garbage bin. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the X-projects, launcher plans and exploration initiatives left on the table. Now in addition to all of the ones from the past we add OSP, ISS (now a dead end) and the Hubble space telescope (to be abandoned in its prime). Further, this is yet another course change for an obviously rudderless agency. Constantly changing course and starting over from scratch wastes billions of dollars, and squanders positive public opinion.

Keith, we look to you for the critical eye. We trust you to point out when the emperor is wearing no clothes. I can't believe that you feel that this plan is perfect. I would appreciate greatly an editorial, critical review of the president's "plan". Please tell us what you really think about the specifics.

Some thoughts from a space enthusiast in the UK.

Before judging the Presidents proposals, some the commentators in this discussion would do well to do some basic research on what lays behind the plans. The policy was not conjured out of thin air but appears to be based on the LUNOX plan put forward by NASA in 1993. Basically automated construction of a lunar base and robotic mining of the lunar surface to produce oxygen for the return flight. Go look it up! - http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/Station/Slides/sld051p.htm

As for the common criticism, that with the demise of the Shuttle, NASA would also loose its heavy lift capacity, NASA has studied a cargo only version of the Shuttle - 'Shuttle - C' going back to the 1980's. This system would be more than capable of launching a booster and command module complex to lunar orbit. Atlas or Delta launchers could launch astronauts to rendezvous with this ship in LEO if the Shuttle Launch system was still considered too risky.

Studies into Gemini and Apollo systems carried out by the USAF (MOL) and NASA (Apollo X) in the 1960/70s may also give some ideas as to the direction that the US space program is going.

FInal thoughts: Using a modular system gives much greater mission flexibility, with the possibility of a longer period of development by building on already flight tested hardware. Such a system could even be developed together with Russia and the ESA not only to save costs but also to benefit from their experience.

Surely Former astronaut trainee will head Bush-proposed moon-Mars commission should read Former trainee astronaut trainee will head Bush-proposed moon-Mars commission

The closest Pete got to space was the crew photo shot for STS-62A.

When will NASA's human space program finally get to finish a program before it gets scrapped for political reasons? The U.S. will complete the ISS in 2010, and then immediately abandon ship. (...major bummer!) The ISS could/should have been built years ago except for budgetary and political squabbling.

I worked at NASA JSC from 1994 until 2002. I arrived at the center starry eyed and looking forward to a career of supporting the space program. I left NASA in 2002 with a heart full of frustration after seeing one program after another get cancelled for political and budget reasons. I provided support for the X-38, and saw that program cancelled because the X-38 could not ferry crews to the ISS. In reality, there was onging work for making the X-38 a launch capable vehicle. Now some of the OSP/CEV designs closely resemble the X-38 lifting body. (....hmmm...) I was additionally frustrated by the decision to build ISS to "core complete" where it would offer little improvement over the Russian Mir space station. The ISS has been more newsworthy in it's role as a hotel for the rich and famous than it ever has been as a laboratory. The U.S. has vowed to complete the ISS, but our time to perform serious laboratory work will be extremely limited. Why did the U.S. government bother to spend billions of dollars on a space platform that will be abandoned no sooner than it is finished.

I have little confidence in the Bush administration's cost estimates for the return to the moon. The STS, Hubble, and ISS all cost substantially more to build than their original cost estimates. Inm addition, with the exception of the soon to be defunct Hubble, neither the STS or ISS have ever achieved their original design plan. Why can't the ISS be used as platform to assemble the space ship that would travel to the moon or Mars? Wouldn't that be a much more cost effective solution than building a permanent base on the serface of the moon? I would like to see NASA use the existing infrastructure to expand our horizons. Bush's space vision abandons everything that "works" today in favor of launching the Lunar/Mars program from thin air. My biggest fear is the day that the shuttle stops flying and the U.S. must stand down while finishing the CEV. (If the CEV is finished and launches astronauts on budget and on schedule, I'll buy dinner for all Americans at Long John Silvers!) ...just kidding! :>)

I would love to see NASA receive the proper political support and financial capital that it needs to fulfill Presindent Bush's vision. I truely believe that it is in America's best interest that the human and robotic space programs be integrated into complimentary roles. The astronauts on Mars should be able to use a 2020 version of todays crawler to explore the surface of the planet. There would be no lag time in communications, and the astronaut could simultaneously control more than one crawler to be able to cover much more territory in a short period of time. Once the robotic crawler has identified a target worthy of further investigation, the astronauts depart base camp on a Mars rover to take a closer look.. Thank you for letting me clear my head,

Dear Mr. Cowing,

I started on Shuttle as a co-op in 1980, before Columbia's first flight, and worked my way up to Flight Controller (Deorbit phase) before I left the program in 1998. I'm really sad to see the Shuttle go, but all things must have an end, and it's her time.

The Shuttle was a fine idea when expendable rockets were hideously expensive, but the cost of unmanned expendables long ago dropped to the point where they were cheaper than a Shuttle flight. It seems reasonable to assume that we can get the cost of man-rated vehicles down as well. Plus Shuttle's operational costs have never gotten down to where they should be.

Shuttle is and remains an ideal vehicle for constructing or servicing large satellites in low earth orbit. But satellites in general are getting smaller and cheaper, and they're lasting longer. Plus, with the end of the Cold War (and improved optics) there are fewer military satellites in low-earth orbit, and these were to have been a significant portion of Shuttle's customer base. All that leaves for Shuttle to service are Hubble and Space Station. The former is due to be replaced, and the latter will soon be finished. There's no need to keep Shuttle around much longer, I'm afraid.

For a long time NASA has languished waiting on its next major mission. But with Shuttle and Station to maintain, it could never get the budget authority to embark on such a mission without a major increase in funding. This it has not gotten under either Democratic or Republican administrations, and the American public seems unlikely to demand it. Retiring Shuttle now that it's no longer needed will give NASA the budget authority to pursue a major new project without much increase in budget.

The new manned vehicle seems a good choice for such a program: it can be developed in increments, first as a crew-escape vehicle for station, then as a round-trip vehicle on a man-rated version of an already-developed booster, and finally as the command module of a lunar flight. Since it won't have all the additional capabilities of Shuttle, it should be cheaper to operate. Once the development phase is through, that will, hopefully, free up revenue to start development of lunar transfer vehicles and lunar landers.

(I would hope we could stick to at least part of Von Braun's original plan and use Space Station as a waypoint for Lunar vehicles. It'd be awfully convenient to, say, fuel, supply, and do final systems checks on a lunar bus while it's docked to Station. But Station's orbital inclination may prevent that from happening.)

So I think the Bush plan is far from being audacious in a technical or fiscal sense: rather I see it as extremely prudent, conservative and well-thought-out. The audacity lies in actually promoting a new NASA program, which has not been seriously undertaken in about twenty years.

Will Bush's plan actually get us to the Moon, much less Mars? I can't say for certain: the way is long, difficult and dangerous, and besides, who can predict the future? But I think it does give us a better chance of doing so than any other plan that's been proposed since the Kennedy administration.

Good Morning -

After 35 years working for Aerospace Contractors (RCA,GE, CSC) at NOAA, NASA/Goddard, and NASA HQ I can only say; "What else is new?" The typical pennywise and pound foolish fiscal policies of each administration continue to confound me. The pathetic funding committment and outrageous expectations of Congress and NASA Managers still remains the same. Some things will never change.

Fortunate to have met Neil Armstrong after his return from the Apollo-11 mission it always reminds me of nobler and certainly more effective times. The taxpayer got plenty of bang for his buck. Even the stingiest legislator would have to conclude that the value of the Apollo Program went far beyond what was spent for it.

15 years on the various Hubble Programs leaves me truly disgusted that simple small-minded "politics" would propose to discard such a useful, scientific national asset for planning expediency and still allow billions to be wasted on Iraqi Arabs. The on-going international scientific, political and social return from Hubble is every bit as important as Apollo was in its day. To let Hubble waste away and de-orbit is a criminal act; considering the investment of our money, brains and time that made it all happen.

Maybe we should step back and try to get a grip on where we are and where we really want to go - as a Nation and not an empty, election year, gambit.

A flight controller who worked in the MOCR during the Apollo program said, "Countries that stop exploring become third world countries." There was more to this discussion but the quote is a good one.

I also wonder if spacecraft requirements may unintentionally be influenced by the name, i.e. the OSP (orbital spaceplane). They are considering a capsule type design but because of the name chosen, then the shape will have to be "a plane." Even if a blunt body Apollo type vehicle would best meet mission requirements.

Hopefully, the name CEV will not jeopardize a good design. I think names such as Apollo, Jupiter, Viking, (whatever name from ancient explorers, folklore gods, etc.) are great soundbites but yet engineers are not constrained to certain designs based on the name, i.e. OSP.

Some would argue that the money would be better spent on education. That by adding the $11 billion planned for this new initiative to the $600 billion US department of Education budget over the same time would solve all the problems with the educational system.

How about the story of Homer H. Hickam, Jr, a boy growing up in Coalwood West Virginia in the late 1950's. A company town where you joined your father and grandfather in the coal mines when you grew up. In 1957 Homer greeted the news of Spunik with awe and decided to build his own rocket. He spent weekends and evenings learning engineering, math and physics, his friends joined in, and in 1960 they and their rockets came in first place at a national science fair and won full scholarships. As a result of the space program the US gained 4 engineers and 2 bankers rather than six young boys destined to a life in the mines.

This story was repeated thousands of times throughout U.S. in the 1960's. Convincing children to pursue science, technology, and math, and setting the stage for the computer revolution of the 1970's.

The U.S. is dependant on the knowledge based economy and if we are to remain competitive, we need to have more and more students entering the fields of engineering, technology and science. What better way to contribute to the educational excellence of our nation than to support and contribute to a program that will inspire thousands of children to enter the fields that our modern economy requires. After all study after study shows that children learn most effectively when they are genuinely interested in the topic and want to know the subject for its own sake and not because the teacher tells them to.

Shouldn't our emphasis be on Mining minerals and such on the Moon to begin making a PROFIT from our Space program endeavors? Science could ride along as our expertise evolved. Make space a Commerce first and formost.

Let me explain what the administration just did.

They changed the name of the Orbital Space Plane to the Crew Exploration Vehicle. NASA finally admitted (sort of) that the new crew vehicle will cost at least $12B spread over several years. This number has been floating around the OSP program for months but no one wanted to advertise it because all indications were that Congress would refuse to fund something that amounted to another ISS expenditure. The renaming of OSP and stating that it is the start of manned Mars exploration is intended to save OSP.

To save OSP, the administration came up with a plan that did the following.

First, they gave up on the shuttle. Then despite earlier indications to the contrary they gave up the idea of any significant increase in NASA's budget. They essentially gave up on getting anything out of ISS beyond it serving as an astronaut hotel. They admitted that much of the Space Science budget, the Life and Microgravity Science budget, the Second Generation Launch technology budget, the Space Station budget, the Space Shuttle budget, and quite possibly other budgets such as Earth Science will have to be sacrificed to fund the new crew vehicle.

Saving OSP does not look like a good deal for the agency or the taxpayer. OSP, or if you prefer CEV, will be nothing but a can that contains people. It won't go anywhere on it own. Without large increase in the NASA budget, the CEV will never have a mission outside low earth orbit since NASA will not have launch vehicles or unmanned transfer vehicles capable of supporting any manned mission outside low earth orbit. On top of everything else, the cost of CEV will lead to cutbacks in robotic exploration missions.

The only conceivable reason the administration backs this plan is that the Houston crowd is terrified that the shuttle program could not be saved and they wanted a manned space vehicle to take its place. Otherwise, we might not have a reason for the Johnson Space Center - which despite its name change is still the Manned Space Center.

If you assume that shuttle was a lost cause then this plan gives Houston all it could hope for. Manned spaceflight is given priority within NASA. The ISS program will continue without any pressure on its Houston operators to do anything but support additional manned spaceflight which is a great example of circular logic.

Unfortunately, pleasing the Texas crowd will put virtually all other NASA programs in jeopardy. Considering ISS overruns and the fact that manned missions have provided virtually no useful returns in 30 years it is amazing that the administration is giving manned spaceflight priority within NASA - but of course politics always seems to trump accountability.

(I have little ulterior motive for this assessment of the situation. I am a life long Republican and this plan won't put me out of work since I work at one of the NASA centers that support manned spaceflight.)

Northrop Grumman Space Technologies has been posting articles about a new carbon-fiber tank curing system that requires no autoclave. This means that ultra-large tanks like those required for Sea Dragon will now be much cheaper to build and still be very lightweight and efficient. Truax claimed that his old Sea dragon concept would end up with a launch cost around $200 a pound. Maybe the American Sea Dragon will beat the Chinese Dragon back to the moon?

The US has no hope of ever landing another person on the moon, much less Mars. Some obvious reasons are: with their rapidly escalating national debt, they can't afford it; the average American isn't interested in science - more like in American Idol; the american politicians have become very risk adverse in the last twenty years; the technical elite (engineers, scientists) will lot lie idly by while he sacrifices all space science for a theatrical stunt; and (possibly most importantly) robotic capabilities are commencing a meteoric rise and will soon be able to research the moon and Mars far better and cheaper than any human.

Ottawa, Canada

If the expectation is that only those shuttle missions will be allowed that can seek safety of the ISS until a rescue is made, then our entire space program is gutted. The ISS is not forever. It is unreasonable to assume that every mission must have a safe harbor in space. The ISS itself could not have been built under those conditions. This is a good example of bureaucratic CYA extremism.

The CAIB is a board constituted to make "recommendations". It is not the safety czar. It does not authorize or disallow anything. While it would certainly behoove management to closely follow what the board recommends, management must assume the role of leadership not the hindmost. Management must decide the risks. That's why they make the big bucks and stand beside the project Chief Scientist on TV when a successful landing on Mars is accomplished. You want the glory? Then get your butt out front and lead.

Hubble is worth it. Oh, so worth it. I don't think we should force anyone to go that doesn't want to go. Sincerely. No repercussions. Volunteers only. But I think the volunteers will be easily found. To those who think the manned program cannot stand another disaster, I say this: there are no absolutes in flight safety. It cannot be economically feasible to have absolutes. Nothing will be accomplished under such a program.

I agree that the shuttle is fatally flawed in design. But it's too late now. We have to go with we got and a modicum of common sense for such an awe inspiring project as the Hubble. Nobody is asking for repeated missions outside of the board's recommendations. What we are asking for is a little bit of exceptional leadership.

Thank you once again for a forum which allows the ordinary "punter" (or John Doe as you Yanks would say) to voice an opinion.

I am a Brit, I am not a republican. I do not agree with George Bush on many issues, however on this issue I find myself in agreement.

NASA's budget is about 2% of the entire US GDP. The US is the largest economy in the world, it is a world leader in most areas. Its defence, agricultural and welfare budgets, to name but a few, outstrip the entire economies of some small nations.

A Spirit B2 Bomber cost around $2 billion dollars, the US has squadrons of the beasts. The war in Iraq has cost several tens of billions of $ (if not more) so far.

How in Gods name can anyone say that an extra $200 million a year will bankrupt the US, and is "unaffordable"???

The bang for buck from spaceflight is enormous, just look at the recent interest in Spirit (109 million web hits in the first day).

Many criticise the political policies of the US, with some justification. However, if there is one arena in which the US can truly claim the moral and intellectual high ground it is space exploration.

This is a golden opportunity for the US, hard decisions will be made, but the US must and should lead the manned effort in space. To say it cannot afford it is intellectual cowardice of the first order.

To all the Bush Plan cynics with a retirement plan:

How much of your income do you invest in your "high-risk" fund? I'm sure you, like me, take care of your immediate needs first -- house, food, kid's education, etc. But you have to set a little bit aside, or where would you be in 20 years?

The civilian space program is a high-risk investment in America's future, and is funded accordingly. I'd hate to think where we would be in 20 years without it. And now, we have an investment strategy.

Keith,

Great series of articles for UPI; I look forward to the book. I'd like to be optimistic about the new space policy; it seems like exactly the type of focus NASA has needed for decades. I remember the Apollo missions from childhood and would like humankind to return to the moon and venture outwards before I retire! Yet it's difficult to be optimistic given the ignorance and politics that are flying around in the media.

It's distressing to hear callers on C-SPAN saying that we should take the money that the government spends on NASA and do something "here on earth" with it. As if: a) NASA's paltry budget would make any difference elsewhere; or b) the money we spend on space does not provide value for us on earth in many, many ways (no need to elaborate; many have done so).

This is not President Bush-41's Space Exploration Initiative. The 1989 SEI was a request to NASA to go and make plans for Mars. When NASA came back with a $400B shopping list, SEI died and well it should have. The public simply will not stand for spending that kind of money on space. They do support a NASA budget of roughly the current size. Fast-forward 15 years: the new policy was developed with active input from NASA and actually makes tough choices: retire the shuttle to free up funds for the new vehicle. Scrap some planned ISS science, or have the partners take it up.

And, most painful, say good-bye to Hubble. Folks, remember that the CAIB stipulated some very stringent self-inspection and self-repair abilities that *must* be operation on Shuttle in order for the orbiter to operate in any non-ISS orbit. This means Hubble. The technology is proving difficult. SM-4 was the only non-ISS mission in the books. To the person who said, in effect, to just send a shuttle from ISS over to Hubble: Can't do. It's the physics. The difference in orbital inclinations between ISS and Hubble prevents any transfer between the two, without an enormous orbit correction burn.

I want to save Hubble as much as anyone. No single NASA mission of the last two decades has done more for astronomy, outreach and education. I suspect if NASA got a waiver from the CAIB for this mission alone, there would be volunteers lining up to go on it. But we are now a risk-averse society, thanks to 24x7 media coverage. Management would never allow it. At some point there has to be an analysis of ROI done, and Hubble SM-4 did not make the cut. I too will weep when the final gyro fails.

To those whose contributions on this page contain comments like "this is all to make more money for Halliburton" or "Bush just is doing this to finally kill off human spaceflight" or the ever-popular "Bush isn't the president! I hate him and everything he does!".... Well, besides recommending that perhaps you calm down a bit, here's a question for you: If President Clinton had proposed the exact same thing, how would you respond? I'll tell you how I'd react: I'd support him on this, just as I support President Bush now. If your position is similarly consistent (pro or con), then fine. If not, perhaps some soul-searching is in order. Most people reading this page likely *want* to see humans exploring space. Politics is the opposite of science. Instead of the usual political bashing, let's get on with the future!

Shuttle was going to have to end sometime. This plan hopefully replaces it with something that is more flexible for a wider variety of missions. Yes, it's less capable at LEO than Shuttle; how to replace Shuttle's heavy-lift will be an issue (but this was foreseen long ago, and now we have the EELV launchers). More significant will be the loss of Shuttle's down mass ability: without it, we cannot effectively bring large items back to earth from orbit. The station is designed to require the MPLM's; it will be interesting to see how this is dealt with. I'd love to keep Shuttle flying until CEV goes online, but the money is not there do it. Period.

Yes, this policy may fail just as so many have before. I suspect that if it does fail, there will be no "next" plan. So let's get it right!

Keith,

Are you aware of any efforts by the Administration to apply this re-alignment to other parts of the executive branch? I.e. if there is a desire for a strong commercial presence within the program, will Commerce or the FAA be doing anything to facilitate that?

It's about time we went back to the Moon, it always should have been thought of as a stepping stone. I find it hard to believe that we have to scrap the Hubble, it brings revenue to NASA. I have two reasons for not scrapping it.

We are sending Shuttles into space to work on the ISS. And we can't send it around to the Hubble while it's up there? we don't have the technology for that?

A space craft is going to have to be sent to Hubble to attach equipment, so it can be guided back to earth safely and not crash on Washington (pardon the pun). So where are we saving here? And where is the extra risk?

I will believe it when the new hardware is on the pad. My fear is under-capitalization, that the shuttle will be retired, the President's foray into Iraq and beyond will siphon all the needed $$$ and we will once again be an earthbound species.

Hubble: fix the bipod, use the shuttle and keep Hubble flying. Use the capability that has been proven.

Keith;

Thanks for taking your time with this story. Unfortunately, Americans become fixated on the numbers without being able to understand how they fit into the big picture. Thanks to Marcia Smith for explaining the paltry state of NASA funding at the June 12 hearing.

The increase requested by the President is about $200M per year over five years. Here are some everyday things' cost to put it into perspective:

The New York Yankees' 2003 payroll was $164M. The Powerball, Mega Millions, and Spanish lotteries, like El Gordo, *each* have total yearly payouts in excess of $1B. TV networks pay the NFL $2.2B per year. NASCAR gets $400M, the PGA gets $248M, and the NHL gets $120M. Any five NFL teams' annual payroll exceeds $200M.

Americans don't gripe about these things' cost. Why is that?

I asked Marcia Smith if perhaps lobbying for a checkoff box on our tax forms for NASA would be a good idea. She thought that it would be. "Chuck a Buck for NASA".

I'll bet that pundits raised the exact same gripes 40 years ago. In fact, they did. I remember it.

Yes, lets' spend the paltry .07% that NASA gets every year on "solving" unsolvable human problems. Better still, let's just give the money away on the street corner. Let China or India do these things. It's too expensive!

"If you build it, they will complain about the cost". Yes, complain on their computers and cell phones. Complain at the ATM machine, and at the gas station while using a debit card. Complain while watching satellite TV in the local bar. Complain in the car while the GPS navigation system tells them where to turn.

The seeds of the technology we enjoy today were planted 40 years ago. All that we are planting for our children is a society that values cheapness above everything else. A society that encourages the offshoring of our technological base, while encouraging our children to stake their financial hopes on lotteries and frivolous lawsuits.

If anything, we don't invest nearly enough in science and technology. Think about it. For your $1B, what has Powerball done to advance humanity? Keep playing those lotteries.

Wow! What a waste if you let the hubble telescope go to Bush's Grand plan to do any thing he can to destroy every thing that is American! The" precious resource" (the shuttle) is NOT Bush's to own it belongs to every person in the U.S.A! And it is not to be used for finishing the ISS for the obligations for the other 15 nations! Let's let the others do there part on the ISS. How many" Partners" are getting a "KICK BACKS" from Mr. Anti everything Bush! Please do all you can to block one person (Mr. Bush) from controlling NASA for his Whimsy! PLEASE Be sure this is in every news paper, and NOT in some small corner that no one will not see it letting the world know what is going on! Give the future of the Hubble in to the Peoples hands where the Tax money is coming from!

As you have noticed I did not Call Mr. Bush "President" I don't feel he is living up to the name!!

Signed one very upset Astronomer in Colorado

Bush's "Plan":

1) Kill Hubble (too bad, another program using proven hardware that WORKS!)

2) Kill the shuttle (great, another program using flight-proven hardware that - given one scintilla of intelligent risk management - ie, the shuttle is NOT an all-weather vehicle - also WORKS!)

3) Kill the ISS (yet another program using flight-proven hardware that A) WORKS and B) is a living, breathing international partnership).

4) Kill off everything that isn't HSF-related (Again, proven programs that work and have political and budgetary support).

5) Develop "Son of GE Apollo" and launch it (one hopes) on a HLV version of an EELV (Delta IV or Atlas V);

Brilliance, sheer brilliance.

Here's an idea - bring the troops home from the current analogue of SE Asia, circa-1965, and spend one-tenth of the taxpayers' money diverted to Halliburton and Burn & Loot to NASA, as it currently is, with someone with a scientific/operational background as NASA DIRECTOR, not "administrator" and do things right - manned and unmanned, scientific and operational research, aeronautics and astronautics.

I would like to thank the men and woman of NASA that sacrifice so much of their time and work slavishly knowing there is a good chance that their hard work will go unrecognized if the mission is a failure.

About Bush's comments: No matter how much I or anyone else is curious about our solar system and wants to find the truth to who we are as human beings, it's impossible to ignore the truths of the world we live in. In the United States schools and public services have been in as bad of shape as they are now.

Where do you think the minds behind the fantastic science we are unraveling now come from? Good schools make smart people, I think Americans are missing the point. If we are to further not only our knowledge of who we are and where we can go we must first deal with the mess on our own planet. Knowledge is not the same as Wisdom. Our technology and knowledge speed ahead while wisdom is abandoned for profits and glory.

Let us find a way to feed our children and teach our kids first, so that they may grow up and lead this nation and the world too. If we are whilling to explore distant planets and spend large amounts of money on planet exploration why can't we spend money on Human Exploration?

I want to go to Mars and understand the mysteries of this universe but does knowing everything about our Solar system gurantee we have clean drinking water? or nantions not whilling to goto nuculear war with eachother?

All knowledge and no wisdom does nothing for us in the long run. If we are to further our existence we must wake up!

I can't think of a better way to turn off the public on the new space plan than to abruptly stop Hubble telescope maintenance. Poor Hubble, born in controversy and now, likely to die in controversy. The problem with government agencies is that they swing to extremes in their solutions. I refuse to believe that the shuttle is so unsafe that it cannot be used to maintain the Hubble one last time. I agree that the Hubble has to stop sometime but surely better psychology could be used than what they have just surprised the public with. The Hubble is still producing scientific breakthroughs. The bonus is that the public is enraptured everytime we send the astronauts up to maintain it. I am not a professional astronomer nor do I have any connection with the space program but I can see a winner, and this project clearly deserves our support one last time. What was once declared bad science is now a shining example of the American civilization.

Kudos to president Bush for finally giving NASA a mission. It is going someplace, and that helps capture the mind and interest of taxpayers and the public at large.

I hate reading all this stuff from people in Florida who automatically think about job loss in 2010 when shuttle is retired. it indicates in fact one of the major problems at NASA...it is occupied by people who think the space program is about jobs instead of results-oriented missions. This is precisely how NASA is different than the Apollo days. In Apollo, the concern and focus was on getting to the moon and home again. Now, it is more about "how does this affect jobs". Bull!

I've always thought NASA needed to be gutted from top to bottom and re-started with fresh blood and fresh attitudes. Don't give me brain-drain excuses...NASA had no brains to drain when it really got its act together in the early and mid-60's and five years later they were on the moon.

President Bush realistically laid out a timetable that matches funding availability and squarely puts the pressure on NASA to perform by hitting milestone objectives over five years before any hope of getting bigger money. I'm sure that bothers a lot of folks inside NASA. Good. That will help show the rest of us who is really working and dedicated on results and who is just there to collect a check...their "entitled" check. Good riddance.

Now we get to see what NASA is made of.

Will it succeed, or will it be more Dan Goldin-type stuff? All hype and no results?

Yes, it's great. Promises instead of result - the politicians way of doing things.

Thank you for cancelling SM4 - a big "stop!" in astronomical researches. Is the ISS a priority, or just the aerospace industries prefer the ISS to Hubble because they make much more money?

"Safety" reasons? Do you know that there are a lot of US soldiers dying in Iraq daily? Are they "safe"? Is you president so concerned about their lifes? I'd prefer to risk my life for mankind progress in space instead of making Bush and Cheney richer than they are now.

The old NASA is dead long time ago. Welcome to the new one. The bureocrats' one. The pioneers are dead, it's lawyers time.

Unless Mr. Bush takes he money it takes to make his vision come true, I don't believe this will bring us closer to the moon or mars. And we're not talking about 1 billion dollars fresh money over five years, this is only a fraction of what is needed. Even 12 billion dollars total are simply not enough. This is the amount it costs to develop a new passenger airplane like the Airbus A 380, flying 10 kilometers, not million of miles, high.

Where do the other 11 billion come from? Answer: From successful science projects. HST was and is NASA's most successful science program. And the final shuttle mission to service this asset is now canceled, with new instruments already built and ready to fly and the onboard gyros slowly degrading. The reason is safety? Sorry, most of the past shuttle missons did not go the ISS, but were solo flights. Money is the point, and a degree of risk aversion that will never bring us out of low earth orbit. You are throwing things away. This reminds me of 1970/1971. Apollo hardware already built remained on earth to save a handful of dollars and finance the future, the shuttle at this time.

If a vision first destroys yours current achievements and is not backed with the nessecary money it is only a election year vision, nothing more. Sorry, I want to believe, but I can't after this speech and the decisions made afterwards.

If America wants to inspire students, President Bush just took step number one. This vision, (if moves forward) will inspire more students than any of the soon to be "Astronaut Educators". By the way, over 600 billion dollars are spent in education in a single year here in America. Those who complain about the extra "fiscal crumbs" given to NASA ...are basically algebraically challenged!

It seems Bush has set a very specific goal concerning the moon, and a very vague one concerning Mars. While this is definitely a step forward for space exploration, I can't help wonder how the huge media interest in a manned Mars mission didn't get across to the president. Even the BBC and CNN had great computer generated images of future human to Mars missions, aired immediately after Bush's speech, as well as the latest Spirit panoramas. The press was really expecting more Mars goals, and failed to predict the rather vague reference from Bush. The BBC even had a 'Should we send Humans to Mars' poll set up on their website. Why did the President fail to hear the call of Mars? We've been to the moon. Lets move on. I have to say I expected at least a Mars by 2020 goal, to bring new urgency to his fathers words back in 1989. And what is this Crew Exploration Vehicle? Does Bush really expect a craft that can both ferry astronauts to the space station, and to the moon? We cannot have a 'Jack of all Trades' space craft; The shuttle was designed from this logic, and the shuttle is an incredibly inefficient vehicle which got us into this mess. Forgive my pessimism on this issue, I guess my expectations were too high. I'm just disappointed the goal wasn't Mars. I can now only hope that in the future we will not be stuck on the surface of an inhospitable vacuum (the moon), in the same way as we have been stuck in low earth orbit. The moon is nothing less than a distraction, a detour, if you will, on our way to Mars. The Moon is dead, Long live Mars!

The goal is a worthy one for a great nation. It should inspire a new generation of American youth to pursue careers in science and engineering. If we don't begin to produce this cadre of professionals we will not be able to compete in a world economy were wages for piece work runs less than a dollar an hour. Only through RDT&E and the development of high tech consumer products, that will spin off of the advances that this program will produce, can we hope to sustain our economic place in the world - we must work smarter' not just harder'... (However, I feel that the role of manned space exploration will take a lesser role in the future than most are dreaming of. If teleoperated system technologies advance as much in the next 20 years as they have in the last 20 years manned' missions will be run by humans operating safely on earth.)

Hey folks,

I watched the President's speech yesterday with a mixture of "OK, less speech sir; more substance" and "Yowza!". I could go on for days about the points and counterpoints this speech brought out in me, but I will try to distill it down to my core beliefs:

- There is NO way that NASA *in its current form*, can pull this off. The bloated bureaucracies that make up the various NASA centers and their respective fiefdoms (KSC=assembly and launch; MSC=propulsion technology; and so forth) must be purged, bled, slash-and-burned, stripped-down-to-the-frame-and-rebuilt before they should be given another cent. The "not invented here" mindset must be excised. Open up to some of the ideas private industry has, and if they play out, reimburse their development costs plus 15%. Seems to me that is a better plan than just throwing megabucks at the problem. And knock off the 'ethnic sensitivity training' and ISO certifications that plague industry these days. Your job is to fly rockets. Period.

- No more 'what happens to the human body in space?' stuff. We have Skylab, 7 Salyuts, Mir, and ISS worth of data on that. That is how many years worth? We know what happens. Your bones lose calcium, your muscles atrophy. Where is the technology we will really need? Where's the closed-loop life support, the advanced propulsion engines, the aerobraking techniques?

- The point in the plan where we have no manned spaceflight capability for a while is a mistake. We made that error after Apollo. Keep the Shuttle going until CEV is built, tested, and operational. And why completely shut off the Shuttle after that time? Strip the airframes down and shoot 'em off as interim HLVs. Beats the hell out of three new lawn ornaments. The president likes to say "we can do this alone" in everything else; why not the space plan?

- Stop saying this is about technology spinoffs, or opening new scientific frontiers, or satisfying our questing spirit. While these are valid reasons to fly, the overriding reason is much simpler. This is about the U S of A, buddy!!

We want to show the world that we are the best.

We want to plant the Stars and Stripes in new soil and say "My country came here, and our beliefs, ideals, and know-how made this possible. And we intend to keep those beliefs and ideals as we build here." We want a little piece of the United States on other worlds. We want to look up at the moon with our kids and say, "You know, son, there is some AMERICA up there." And this is a GOOD thing.

As was one of the very rare unanimous consensus on theMcLaughlin Group, even rarer my agreeing with them, Bush's Space Policy is an election year stunt. This was conceived by Karl Rove to show that George W. Bush has vision and to give him his "Kennedy Moment". Furthermore, most of the media is, as usual, are lauding the president, without questioning anything. Again, he makes these wonderful proposals and fails to back it up with any money.

$12 Billion probably will not be enough to replace the Shuttle!

He intends to pass it on to the future where we will have too much of deficit to spend on these "Big Government Programs". Take off your Rose color glasses" because it's not going to happen by being "Cheaper,Better,Faster"! BTW, Haliburton, for some reason I don't know, already has contracts with NASA!

Please, don't be so biased by what you( and I) want. You've lost you're objectivity on this one.

Dear Keith,

Let me first say that your website is a breath of fresh air in a media and public devoid of facts about space exploration.

I find it amazing that so much of the general public thinks that this country spends a lot of money on space exploration, and that somehow we have to make a choice between space and domestic social programs. In the public's mind it's an either / or choice.

A simple Google search using the words "federal budget" quickly shows the truth. Total space spending is less than 1% of our federal budget. This is compared to about 23% for social security, 12% for Medicare, 7% for Medicaid, 16% for defense, and 6% for other entitlements. If we add up entitlements spending alone the U.S. is spending half of it's money on entitlement programs already!!!

Will somebody please explain how canceling the space program and spending that money on entitlements will make a significant difference to these domestic programs? Oh wow!!!, now we can spend 51% of federal money on social programs!!! That should put us over the edge and well on the way to solving Earth's problems. Give me a break!!

What frustrates me to no end is that NASA and other proponents of space exploration are not making these facts widely know to the general public. Why is this?

Signed,Frustrated Space Enthusiast.

I was 7 years old when President Kennedy said we were going to the moon - I was in high school when we landed - My children are in college - President Bush's "bold" plan will take us back to the moon when they are almost my age. 8 years to get there and 16 years to get back...hmmm

The real purpose of this grand announcement is to get the space shuttle and space station shut down as quickly and quietly as possible and ensure that we are bound to one planet forever......sad

Some of you offering opinions about this policy should READ YOUR HISTORY! (As if JFK's Apollo mandate wasn't a political ploy--sheesh!) Frankly, I'm sick and tired of people bemoaning NASA's lack of vision for 'going around in circles for 30 years.'

The space shuttle and space station were PART of the original grand vision (thank you Mr. Mueller, etc) for moving out into the solar system:

earth surface-to-orbit transportation: Shuttle (hence its original STS designation);
orbital assembly base: Space Station;
cislunar transport vehicle, adaptable to lunar landing (sound familiar?)):space tug;
lunar staging base: lunar orbit station;
support of lunar exploration and Mars test-bedding: lunar surface base;
deep-space propulsion:nuclear space tug built on NERVA research;
manned Mars landing and base buildup: utilizing all the above.

The shuttle and station we have today came about because good engineers were forced to stretch this strategy out over decades (to minimize annual funding) AND had to compromise on fundamental design rationales to keep the programs alive amidst horribly short-sighted meddling by numerous presidents and congresses. (Considering the environment in which they were created, our current shuttle and station are REMARKABLY capable. While they could still serve their roles as envisioned by the original strategy, it would likely cost too much to employ them that way today (given all their design compromises)--newer technologies will likely step in.)

And therein lies the heart of the freshness of the Bush proposal: while it borrows its technical core from the original late-sixties planning and reestablishes the same long-term vision, it was recrafted within the reality of a 1/2%-1% federal budget allocation for NASA (this is why the shuttle & station are to be phased out--to control total annual cost). In that sense, it probably has the best possible chance of surviving in the petty political landscape still thriving in Washington.

So let's get on with it!

I bet more money will be spent on breast augmentation this year than we spend on NASA. We need a heavy lift launch capability and I believe it is a national security interest that we keep it American. The Shuttle put 25 tonnes into LEO. Shuttle C would triple that, but a Saturn V was already 4 times that. We ought to look at Truax's Seadragon again. No KSC needed, just launch and land in the ocean, and use a nuke aircraft carrier to refuel with hydrogen and oxygen from the ocean. (That will keep the Navy occupied Sean!) The Seadragon would launch 22 shuttle loads at once, and you could have a fleet of 20 of them and launch them every hour or so. That would make for a hell of a base on the moon.

I agree with previous messages posted here that the Earth remote sensing and space science telescope missions are highly valuable and should continue. But they are now incongruent with the President's NASA Directives. I agree they should be moved (along with their funding!!) out of NASA to other agencies such as NOAA and NSF.

Perhaps now is finally the time to consolidate ALL civilian environmental Earth remote sensing data collection activities under one Agency. It would be conceivable and advantageous to adminstratively move all existing NASA Earth remote sensing activities (funding, facilities, archives, people, contracts) at GSFC, JPL and LaRC to NOAA/Dept. of Commerce.

Case-in-point, NOAA has desired for years to build a large, state-of-the-art operations building at GSFC and move their POES/GOES/DMSP activities out of Suitland and ocean archives out of Silver Spring. Adequate funding for NOAA NESDIS has been a serious problem for many years which is why this building has never been built.

In this scenario the Suitland NESDIS Control Center could finally move to GSFC and GSFC Earth remote sensing funding would fall under the auspices of the Secretary of Commerce and it would probably also be fiercely defended by Senator Mikulski who is passionate about keeping those jobs and keeping them in Maryland. The people would not have to move physically, just switch badges and still reside at GSFC. It is very common for NASA Centers to host other agencies.

This arrangement should benefit everyone concerned by bringing NASA's activities in line with the Jan 14 2004 Presidential Directive, consolidating all civilain Earth sciences activities, including several key Earth sensing programs, such as LANDSAT, under a much larger umbrella of DOC funding, enhancing long-term planning and data continuity, which are currently lacking in those programs.

In regards to President Bush's announcement yesterday, all I have to say is it's about time.

As a member of what I like to call the space shuttle generation, since I was born a year after Columbia's first flight, I've been waiting for a new direction. The ISS is nice and all, but having humans stuck in LEO for the past few years is like building a F-1 car and then only driving it around the block a few times a year. While the shuttle has had a direct impact on my goals in life, it needs finish it's original purpose of shuttling to and from a space station and then be retired.

Many of my peers in my aerospace engineering classes don't really care about the human side of the space program. Most of them want to work on aircraft and then out of the third or so that want to do spacecraft only about a third of that group wants to work on human spaceflight mission. Those that do care, are pissed that we aren't going directly to Mars, but they don't realize that a direct to Mars program as neat as it would be would be political suicide for the program. This new program has the correct incremental steps to work.

I forone amglad that NASA finally has been given a direction. If I can achieve my life time goal of becoming an astronaut (and I do me lifetime, I've wanted to do this since I was 3), I will now have the chance to go explore terrain that has never been seen up close with human eyes and the remote possibility to have set foot on three different celestial object, Earth, the Moon, and Mars.

The reason I want to go is for pure exploration, because when you find yourself in the wilderness, in the wilderness you can find yourself. This goes for me personally, for theUnited States, and for all of mankind. The greatest human accomplishments have occurred in the most remote places we've been.

We're human, we're curious, we need to look around the next corner, go beyond the next ridge, push the button labeled "do not push". Inquisitiveness is part of our very being, and to turn our backs on that will signal the beginning of the end.

And for those who believe this to be impossible, just remember the words of Wernher Von Braun, "Always use the word impossible with the greatest of caution".

In order to utilize funding in the best way, NASA must be willing to get rid of activities like the Earth Science Enterprise that take money away from the new focus.

EOSDIS is a huge failure and waste of money, give data management to the USGS who know how to do it.
Stop giving millions to Universities to do what industry does for thousands
Let NSF, NOAA and USGS manage and fund the science piece
Stop job program contracts out at GSFC and get the civil servants there re-focused on the new goals

I will be surprised if they can do this.

I support the initiative to move man outward. In the case of a major calamity, such as a large meteor strike or genetically engineered plague in the next few hundred years, those elements of mankind that are out exploring may be the only hope for continuance of our species. Perhaps my comment should be dismissed as science fiction but isn't that what this is all about in terms of a vision.

The key issue is, "Is NASA up to the job?". Are we going to be an agency which brings together the most qualified scientific minds or will it continue to be Dan Golden's experiment in social engineering. The events of the last two weeks tell us a great deal about NASA and its current culture. I am speaking of the leak experienced by the ISS. Consider the following:

1. The delay in informing the crew of the leak which does not seem consistent with a new culture at NASA.

2. The reported crew"s response to the management team's instruction to sit tight does not indicate a level of trust and respect between the crew and team nor does it indicate a well developed discipline.

3. The discovery that the on board oxygen candles are out of certification date and failing when added to the reported initial failure to trend atmosphere pressure in the vehicle would indicate a failure to have a fully operational systems engineering program.

4. NASA is advertising for a contractor to develop a plan to reinvent the NASA culture apparently without knowing what its culture should be.

If one looks at the above as independent events they may not impact mankind's trip outward. If you look at the events in the context of a pattern or from a systems engineering perspective there is a potential problem. The NASA culture of today is not the same as that which built the Saturn vehicle and in so doing launched mankind outward. A push outward will require bold men and women willing to take risk and a team of great technical minds who also have the vision and management skills to identify the real risks and either reduce them or place them in a context that the crews fully understand and find acceptable. There can be no more room for any but the truly best. We used the German team in Huntsville without regard to their politics because they were the best. We should use the Russians not because of politics or previous affiliation but because some of them are the best and provide a critical element of the engineering staff we need to move outward. We and the Russians have the same stake in this great pursuit--survival. I wish NASA the best in this great adventure but I am concerned about the need to swiftly return to the "old" NASA culture. This will not happen unless the Golden "element" that preached the need to dump the "old, white, males" who had taken the agency outward is purged and the most senior management actively solicits the advice of the grey beards and commits the new NASA to pursuit of the best regardless of age, sex, race. A new team is needed that does not recognize the word "can't" but is smart enough and with enough ego control to benefit from knowledge generated in the past.

As a former NASA employee, I am guardedly excited by President Bush s announcement. If what he outlined comes to pass, it will breathe needed new life into manned space exploration. Maybe I d go back to the mothership. But the fiscal and organizational politics will be major hurdles.

The plan cleverly faces the fundamental political reality that there will not be huge amounts of new money added to NASA s budget. Period. We may not like it, but fulminating about it will not change it. It hasn t for 30 years. Far better to figure out how to deal with it and stop wasting time on plans that assume otherwise or waiting around for the great golden day.

But, in light of this hard constraint, Bush s announcement has now given the Congress, NASA, NASA s contractors, and the space community an opportunity to choose. The good new is we didn t have this opportunity before. The bad new is we will have to choose. Here are the basic choices:

1) Continue on the current LEO centric plan, with the Station and the Shuttle, or a Shuttle replacement, as the key platforms.

2) Move out of LEO, letting go of the Shuttle and moving away from the Station, to go back to the Moon and beyond.

I choose 2. Why? I believe the LEO-centric strategy (#1) has failed and is going nowhere, in circles. Manned space is slowly dying of arteriosclerosis. The Shuttle has failed to provide safe, affordable, frequent, reliable access to space. The Space Station has become a white elephant, with the 2 people on board today primarily devoted to maintaining it. Skylab had 3 people. This is after 20 years. I do not think this strategy is fixable, certainly not using the Shuttle.

The leave LEO strategy the President has offered up will move us outwards, which is the goal, right? NASA s budget is around the average is was in Apollo days. We should be able to do great thing within that budget. In fact, we should be able to do greater things within that budget, given the technological advances of the last 30 years. We never intended to stay in LEO forever anyway. So, since that is not working, time to cut our losses. I m convinced that if we stay on the LEO strategy, the next time something bad happens to the Shuttle -- and it will -- manned spaceflight will be dead for years and years. Better to move out, accepting the admittedly high risks of doing something new, than have the whole thing slowly strangle for certain. We're risk takers, right?

The problem here is it will be hard to give up the Shuttle and gracefully ease away from the Station. Careers, organizations, contracts etc have all grown up around those platforms. They will resist letting go. There will be many arguments about how we need the Shuttle to keep the Station going, how the Station is the key to preparing for Mars, how we shouldn t give up after all the money we ve spent on LEO (the false sunk cost argument). But the real motivation will be to keep the existing LEO centric strategy going.

But, since there won t be enough money to do both, we will have to choose.

Change is hard. Get out the axe.

Perhaps Bush plans to minimize the cost of his space initiative by hiring 10 million cheap illegal immigrants to work on it.

I think the republicans just lost Florida in the upcomming election. Laying off over 10,000 employees here in Florida in 2010 doesnt make anybody I know feel very good. As for transitioning them to the new CEV project, very doubtful that program will absorb those people by 2010. This will probably leave a 5 or 6 year period (2010 to 2015) where we have unemployed Americans yet are paying Russians to fly to the space station.

Dear NasaWatch, et al

My reaction to the "SEI,JR" Bush's space initiative is that it is certainly better than nothing which is what we have right now! Also, despite the obvious election year gambit, (i.e. Bush looks good for thinking it, keeping it within a "reasonable" budget, but Congress gets to be the bad guys when the axe falls), there is an incredible opportunity for the space community to galvanize itself if it so chooses. What I mean is this. Bush is not going to be the one to decide what gets cut and how to distribute that $11 billion of reprogrammed funds. Nasa is. Who is going to tell Nasa how to do this. If we are smart, the entire space community, academics, professionals, amatuers. We could actually get our act together and quit fighting over "men vs. robots" and come up with some ideas to float around like Zubrin did after "SEI,Sr." Ideas that get the job done safely and more efficiently. Ideas like Shuttle-C. The computer industry doesn't fret over new opportunities, they just tell their engineers "come up with some ways to make this work", and they do.

The new intiative sounds great, but retiring the shuttle is a bad idea. It finally got to perform the job that it was designed for late in its lifespan - visiting and contructing space stations.

We have 23 years of experience with the system - Shuttle Version II should be a part of the new plan.

Redesign the External Tank so it can function as a common core, replace the SRBs with Liquid flyback boosters, use a redesigned/upgraded Shuttle for ISS construction/lifting Lunar or Martian vehicles into orbit that require human assembly, and finally produce Shuttle C or a similar cargo container for heavy lifting of bulk cargo. I never hear anyone mention that the fact that the Shuttle can bring large stuff back as well as the large stuff up.

ISS should fully completed, not just core complete, and design started for the spacedock facility it should eventually become.

Don't forget zero prebreathe spacesuits for astronaut orbital construction crews and Lunar/Martian explorers.

From someone@nasa.gov

In order to accomplish Bush's lofty goals, and worthier ones I have never seen in my lifetime, there will have to be a sea-change in NASA management's attitude and approach.

For the past decade, we NASA employees have been drowning in safety training. Sounds good, eh? Well, let's see, I'm an engineer, and in the few years my records show I've had: Office Ergonomics training, Ehtics training, EEO training, ladder safety training, fire extinguisher training, ITAR training, Time keeping training, hearing conservation training, CPR training, ISO audit training, contract evaluation training, etc etc. How these will help NASA reach the moon is beyond me.

To the present NASA management, technical research and innovation have taken a back seat to budget reports, training, safety meetings, and the latest quality scheme, called the "Ames Management System," just a re-hash of ISO 9000 with new document titles. Managers above division chief never meet with, ask questions of, or, to my knowledge, fully understand the work that is going on. Our center has been instructed not to hire new technician level employees. Our branch is expected to continue to operate facilities, perform facility maintenance and upgrades, and do the necessary and vital work without replacing those lost to attrition. Neither have the retirees been replaced by contract workers. "More with less" seems to be the unspoken mantra.

Now, "Full Cost Accounting" has a choke hold on managment. No one knows how to make it work, of it it can be made to work, but it's already been rammed down our throats. Not to say accountability is a bad thing, no, to the contrary, it was necessary. But full cost accounting has been subtley tranformed into "Full Cost Recovery" in which facility operations are expected to "pay their own way." Customers are now charged a rate that is literally 10 times the cost of facility testing as of two years ago, this rate set so as to reimburse the full cost of operating the facilities and also much of the center's overhead costs. Guess what? Fewer tests are being conducted, so after applying the higher charges the revenue stream is going down. Great plan, eh?

Well, as I said, after a sea-change in attitude, and only after the sea-change, NASA will be in good shape for launching the boldest initiative in 40 years. Let's hope management at Headquarters and the centers gets the message.

G'day Keith,

We live in interesting times. Before looking to the future lets look at the past significant "big project" announcements by former Presidents.

1961 Kennedy, Democrat, non-election year. Manned Lunar landing by 1970. First flight of hardware in 4 years. Mission accomplished in 8 years. Termination in 11 years. Two partial failures (Apollo 6 and 13) and one fatal ground accident (Apollo 1) in 17 flights.

1972 Nixon, Republican, election year. Space Shuttle. First flight in 9 years. Two fatal failures (STS-51L and 107) in 113 flights over 22 years so far.

1984, Reagan, Republican, election year. Space Station. First flight in 14 years. 6 years in operation. 38 flights (including international) so far, all successful.

1992, Bush Sr., Republican, election year. Manned Mars landing. Failed to proceed due to excessive cost estimate of $400B.

2004, Bush Jr., Republican, election year. Manned Lunar landing by 2020.

A common theme for the last three announcements were that they were all by Republican presidents in an election year. This is probably a mixture of timing and opportunity. A disturbing trend is the increasing time to first flight of hardware. If the current trend continues, first flight would be in 20 years in 2024! Bush Jr. is aiming for a return to Apollo style first flight time of 4 years. This will be NASA's first challenge.

Bush is planning the first manned flight of the crew exploration vehicle (CEV) by 2014. This is a bit disturbing, as it means the US will not have human access to Space (other than by the Russians) until after the Shuttle is retired in 2010 for four years (similar to when Apollo was retired in 1975 with a six year gap to when Shuttle becoming available). Apollo had their first manned flight in 7 years, Bush is planning on 10 years. I think that NASA should plan to have the first manned flight in 6 years (in 2010) so that the CEV is available, _before_ the Shuttle is retired. In any case, I think the Shuttle should not be retired until _after_ the CEV is operational.

Lunar landing is planned between 2015 to 2020, 11 to 16 years from project start. Considering NASA's recent experience with "big projects" I think this is reasonable. Six years to develop the CEV and with the money freed up from retiring the shuttle ($3.5B per year) the money could be used to develop the Lunar lander and launch vehicle with first landing in another 5 to 10 years. I think NASA should be able to have the hardware ready in 6 years with a landing in 2016 (another election year :-).

Not mentioned in the speach was the Launch vehicle. The most sensible solution is to replace the Orbiter of the Space Shuttle with just the three main engines and add a liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen stage on top of the External Tank. The lander and CEV are added on top, the same as in Apollo. For the CEV, I personally would stear away from a large Apollo type capsule. The Soyuz/Shenzhou system with a small capsule (large enough for four people) and orbital module gives more internal volume for the same mass, or a smaller mass for the same volume.

I don't think launching Mars missions from the Moon is a good idea. It takes propellant to go into orbit and land on the Moon, which needs to be generated(Lunar oxygen or lunox)/carried(liquid Hydrogen) on top of the propellant needed to get to Mars. Just putting the Mars spacecraft in Lunar orbit is more efficient, but it will still take a significant amount of infrastructure and spacecraft to produce the lunox and get it to the orbiting Mars spacecraft. This is good if you want a $400B Mars mission which will have a predictable outcome of not proceeding. If you really want to get to Mars I think doing it from Earth orbit is more cost effective and faster than trying to do it from the Moon.

I think an important priority for NASA is to minimise the use of new technology. This was the philosophy for Apollo which I think worked extremely well. If NASA starts to dabble in new technolgies for this and new technogies for that, this will only increase the cost and delay the mission. For a Mars mission, the one technology it should develop is in-situ propellant production as it greatly reduces mission cost.

Steven S. Pietrobon
steven@sworld.com.au

The actual plan is less than it seems. In several key areas, it represents no change or an actual retreat on what NASA's doing:

a. Station completion is now scheduled for 2010. In other words, it is once again 6 years from completion, where it's been on and off for 15 years. This, in fairness, may be unavoidable, but it represents no real change of policy.

b. We're going to use station for less now because of reductions in materials research work, despite two decades of promises to justify the facility's construction. This work will be done by other countries instead.

It seems like a poor leveraging of a $100 billion investment. And it raises questions about how strong the commitment to a moon/Mars program will be once the program turns out to be more complicated, expensive, and less popular than it seemed when they approved it.

c. Shuttle is still being retired in 2010-11, but the replacement vehicle is delayed again. This leaves us with no independent access to space for at least three or four years. A ten-year development schedule for an Apollo-style vehicle seems long.

d. To pay for this initiative, they want to reallocate $11 billion for other programs, probably cutting most of it from environmental and space science budgets. This fits in well with the neo-con belief that the environmental efforts are a waste of money.

e. Moon/Mars. This is the new part of the program. I would guess that the 2015 moon flights would be moved back a couple of years due to program delays. Which would put it near 2019, the same date set by Bush the First 15 years ago. Although I think the elder Bush also talked about getting to Mars by then.

We'll have to see. I think there may be enough vested interests to prevent a large-scale restructuring that impacts on the environmental programs. If this occurs, then Congress could be hard pressed to come up with money to fund the Moon initiative.

Today President Bush has finally given NASA a new initiative and a broad goal, something past presidents have failed to or would be brave enough to do.

This is just what NASA needed, an agenda to base itself on. No one has ventured outside the Earth's orbit since Apollo 17 on December 1972, 30 years ago.

Since then we've been content to remain earthbound. No one ,until now, has taken the challenge to resume space exploration and to make dreams become reality again.

The effort will not be cheap but the benefits will be rewarding.

Let's hope we live up to the challenge put before us and never look back again.

Keith,

Great website. If you should post this, please do so anonymously.

It looks like an expendable booster with a capsule CEV system is the current planned workhorse for the post-Shuttle era. And there is some commentary about the loss of forward progress by not pursuing an RLV solutoin. Additionally, I have heard a lot of grumbling the past 18 months or so regarding OSP about what a big step "backwards" we would be taking by considering capsules and expendables to replace the Shuttle for the US space transportation system rather than RLVs. The argument is always that RLVs will provide cheaper and more ready access to space. But I question whether the physics and engineering really back this viewpoint. From any of the sources I have access to, it seems that the Saturn V had more capacity and was cheaper per pound to put payload into orbit than the Shuttle....the only reusable heavy lifter ever. The Shuttle would have been more efficient if each orbiter were flown 20 times a year...but they aren't and probably can't be.

Why are RLVs difficult? Ascent propulsion and re-entry thermal protection are the main challenges.

Thanks to the rocket equation we put ascent propulsion devices through their paces at near maximum performance to get out of the gravity well in a hurry...thereby maximizing payload to orbit. Powerful and efficient ascent engines are typically very complex. Running complex machinery at or near its redline typically calls for intense maintenance between operations....and this is what we have with the Shuttle. I doubt a comparable replacement would be much different.

As for thermal protection systems, consider that the reusable tiles and RCC on the Shuttle tend to be a maintenance challenge, they also can't provide the thermal protection you need for a re-entry from a hyperbolic or very high elliptical orbit. If you want to explore beyond LEO you either need to carry a lot of deceleration fuel around to minimize entry velocity or have a thermal protection system that can handle higher heats. Ablative materials are often the only way to go in the latter system. Unfortunately, ablaters are often not reusable.

I will grant you that capsules are ugly compared to the sleek delta wings of RLVs. I will grant you that tossing away expendable boosters consisting of precision crafted high technology is contrary to the recycling mentality of many (especially those of use who are mindful of recycling as a philosophy). While I would love to have a winged fly it, land it, fuel it, and fly it again RLV space vehicle as much as the next person our propulsion, power generation, and thermal material technologies just don't support that as the clear choice for access to space. I am therefore very wary of proclaiming that RLVs are a step forward without seeing how the propulsion and thermal protection issues are addressed in a manner that is more efficient than single use expendables and capsules designed with high precision manufacturing tolerances.

Just don't assume that RLVs are a step forward at this point because the 'R' stands for reusable.

Here is my two cent's worth before the President's actual speech and O'Keefe's clarifications.

The Shuttle needs to be permanently grounded for both safety and cost purposes. This plan puts an end-date to Shuttle operations. It also provides for the development of an alternative vehicle (OSP --> CEV).

This is a political move. Politics is about compromise. We may not get a permanent base on the Moon or a crewed Mars Mission. We will get a fleet of orbiters that can functionally replace the Shuttle. The crewed orbiter will also be capable of leaving LEO.

Not bad...not bad at all.

Dear NASA Watch--

It appears, like a little Deja Vu, what No. 43 will be announcing. Remember the SEI under No. 41? All the technocrats from the NASA Manned Spaceflight and Technology Centers, LANL, LLNL, et al were running over each other in the Halls of Washington, D. C., for their chance at the Pig Trough. Is Karl Rowe, a part of this Photo Opportunity?

I have strong doubts that something useful will come out of all this small media coverage. It is much ado, about nothing.

E Pluribus Unum

Thank you Nasawatch for the best up to the minute coverage of what's happening in space.

Everyone seems to be reading into this vision thing every pet peeve they have about the space program. If you like your robots you think it means more robots. If you like manned space you think it means more manned missions.

If you like Hubble you think it means Hubbles on the moon. If you like nukes in space, you think it means a two week transit time to Mars.

What I hope it means is that solar power sats get built on the moon and power starts to get beamed back to our planet, and eventually we abandon nukes and fossil fuel power plants here, and turn the earth back into a park. That would be a tangible profitable benefit that no anti-space kook could argue with!

I know what this all means it means, NASA's budget MIGHT increase by 5% for the next three years IF Bush gets elected again and Congress agrees. That means 1 billion more next year, one and a half more billion in year two, and two and a third more billions in year three. That is a total of 4.8 billion, or the equivalent of ten more shuttle flights over the next three years. Whoop de do! He can spend 100 billion on a war, and 87 billion in reconstruction of Iraq. This increase is a pittance!

Put simply, exploration is about extending our senses into the universe. Burgeoning technologies are about to let us to do this in some pretty spectacular and unexpected ways. I'd hate to think that 19th- and 20th-century notions of what constitutes "human exploration" would get in the way of implementing the tools of 21st- and 22nd-century exploration.

Keep up the good work Keith,

I would certainly like to see this country make a sustained effort to truly develop space. If the nay-sayers today were around in the 1800's, we would still be living east of the Mississippi with all that unkown territory out west unexplored. Those pioneers had no idea of the impact on this country of their efforts to settle the West, they just did it because it was the obvious thing to do. If they had waited until the there was some obvious return on investment to justify their exploration, it would never have happened and all that gold would still be buried in the hills of California and elsewhere.

Those who say the money to explore and develop space would be better spent here on Earth to improve the plight of the poor or to educate our children obviously have no clue of what is going on. This country spends 60% of it's annual budget on social security, medicare, welfare and other social programs which tranlates into $1,320 billion in 2002 alone (see page 76 of your 1040 instruction book). NASA's $15.5 billion-per-year budget would make no difference AT ALL if spent on these programs. If you think NASA wastes money, you ought to consider these behemoth programs. The state of Florida alone spends twice as much money on education than is spent on NASA's manned space programs. NASA currently gets about 0.7% of the budget, however, at the peak of the Apollo program it was 5%. If the US had sustained that spending rate on space ($110 billion per year in today's dollars), we would all be living on the Moon and Mars right now just as Heinlein had envisioned.

As for scrapping the Shuttle, I would like to point out that the Shuttle would have a 100% launch success rate if it weren't for two criminally negligent decisions by management to continue launching when they should have stood down and fixed the problems (SRB O-rings and ET foam shedding). With all of it's problems, the Shuttle is still a safe and reliable vehicle when compared to all other rockets, but it is getting old. I would prefer NASA not throw out 22 years of experience and knowledge on the Shuttle, but instead redesign the Shuttle from on a blank sheet, keeping only the basic mold line and interfaces to minimize impact to infrastructure where it makes sense. We have all that knowledge gained from 100+ missions and we know what we would like to do differently. But we choose to scrap it all and start from scratch with an unknown system that we know nothing about. A redesigned Shuttle could benefit from new electronics, fiber optics, composite structure (or aluminum-lithium alloy) in non-critical areas, electro-mechanical actuators instead of hydraulics, advance thermal protection system, monolithic SRB's, and a host of other improvements to streamline operations and improve reliability by eliminating scores of critical single failure points. The weight savings would be tremendous and could be used to make the crew cabin survivable in an accident during launch or reentry and still increase payload capacity. An unmanned cargo version (i.e., Shuttle-C) would give us the heavy lift capacity we need to go to the Moon. It may even be possible to take up a lunar payload in the redesigned Shuttle and rendezvous with a lunar tranfer vehicle and take the Shuttle to the Moon and back. This would give the astronauts a decent living space instead of being cramped in a tin can for weeks and would allow for the return of huge quantities of what ever it is that we need to bring back.

As for the rumored plans for the future, I have my reservations. The use of unmanned expendable launch vehicles (Delta IV and Atlas V) as the foundation for the future of manned space flight sounds like the kind of bonehead decisions NASA has made in the past, sacrificing safety for cost and schedule in order to gain program approval.

President Bush and many others do not get it. The younger people of today who have taken on a great enthusiasm for the Martian robotic missions understand that you do not need astronauts planting flags in order to explore space. The cost of the hardware necessary to safely transport and sustain humans in space is simply not realistic given today's economic situation. The future, not just when it comes to space, but in every aspect of our lives, will involve separating what we do from the physical aspects of our bodies. When we build a robot that lands on Mars, it isn't just a couple of guys that were lucky enough to get picked for that mission, it's all of us, looking through that camera lens for the first time at a new world. Bush's plan will draw money away from such missions and leave us with a fraction of the science they could have provided. If he really wanted to make a JFK-like leap, he would announce that we are embarking a new era of exploration. We are leaving our fragile biological bodies behind and evolving into the new life we have created.

If the budget and plan were real I'd dance in the streets, but I can't help but be cycnical.

Bush gets to announce a grand plan, a budget increase for NASA, get some aero industry votes, ride the enthusiasm generated by "Spirit", and get a photo op.

Fast forward to a year from now, whether he's in office or not, he's not the bad guy when Congress debates fiscal responsibility and priority of more Earth-bound programs. Budget gets slashed, program lumbers along with a few studies, and dies an apathetic death. Bush gets to say, "I tried to enact my vision, but the partisan votes took it down", when after all he never really cared.

Think about it, Bush didn't even name a NASA administrator until nearly two years into office. He didn't care about space until Columbia got the nation's attention. And he didn't announce anything until the public is all hyped over "Spirit".

Like I said, if it were real, great, but I doubt it.