Augustine Committee presents Obama with space exploration options

NASA Concept for Future Lunar Explorers

The AugU.S.tine Committee, examining the future of the U.S. space program, has nearly completed its report. The committee has come to a number of troubling conclU.S.ions.

The AugU.S.tine Committee has concluded that not only is the current plan to send astronauts beyond low Earth orbit not viable under the current, projected NASA budget, but no conceivable exploration plan is doable without more funding. This is another headache for President Obama, already wrestling with a continuing economic crisis and a health care reform plan that is on the verge of collapse.

The AugU.S.tine Committee has come up with a serioU.S. of scenarios for exploration, divided by funding levels and the U.S.e of varioU.S. hardware. These can be divided into returning to the Moon or something the committee calls “Deep Space.” Deep Space would involve visiting small, celestial bodies such as asteroids and the Moons of Mars or orbiting the Moon. Deep Space would not involve landing on worlds with “large gravity fields” such as the Moon and Mars.

A direct expedition to Mars, bypassing the Moon or any other destination, was rejected due to cost and technical difficulty.

Besides cost, the second troubling aspect of the AugU.S.tine Committee’s recommendations is that most milestones will be pU.S.hed out to the farther future. Instead of a return of astronauts to the Moon in 2020, the recommendations suggest that no American will walk on the Moon before 2030 or beyond. Even the Deep Space options pU.S.h back significant milestones, such as an encounter with an Earth approaching asteroid, to well over a decade or more in the future.

Matt Wronkiewicz, who blogs about space, has published a list of the likely options that will go into the final report of the AugU.S.tine Committee that is due at the end of the month. Wronkiewicz has also published an analysis of each of the options:

• 2.     The Program of Record
• 3b.   ISS FocU.S.ed (Constrained Budget)
• 3b$. ISS FocU.S.ed (Increased Budget)
• 5$,   ISS/Shuttle Extension
• 6$.   Deep Space (Ares V “Light”)
• 7$.   Deep Space (Commercial HLV)
• 7S$. Deep Space (Shuttle Derived)

Option 3b$ contemplates a first lunar landing in 2030. Option 5$ has a first lunar landing sometime in the 2030s. 6$, 7$, and 7S$ would bypass large worlds such as the Moon and Mars in favor of visiting smaller bodies such as asteroids. Options 2 and 3b imply no viable exploration program whatsoever. Option 2 could be done for about fifty billion dollars more than is currently projected by the Obama administration.

President Obama is scheduled to choose a future course for the U.S. space program sometime in September, though that decision could be pU.S.hed back. The White HoU.S.e is under no obligation to choose any of the options presented by the AugU.S.tine Committee. The President could choose to continue with the current program with an adequate budget, a course that seems to be favored by some space supporters in the Congress, or any variation that he and his advisors can come up with. The President could choose to do no exploration program, concluding that it is not affordable.

In the meantime, NASA is in something of a limbo concerning future exploration goals, proceeding with the current program as outlined by President BU.S.h without knowing whether a change of direction will be ordered or in what direction NASA will be ordered to go. A subscale version of the Ares 1, the Ares 1-X, is scheduled to launch this Fall, even though the development of the Ares 1 may well be cancelled.

There are a number of reasons for this state of affairs. New administrations are often tempted to revisit and review the initiatives undertaken by previoU.S. Presidencies. President BU.S.h, while starting the space exploration program, never called for adequate funding of it. President Obama’s attitude toward the space exploration program has been somewhat ambiguoU.S., at turns supporting it and promising to delay or cancel it during the campaign.

Can President Obama find an extra thirty to fifty billion dollars that will be needed to continue the space exploration program? One thought along those lines is that most of the eight hundred billion dollar stimulU.S. package is still unspent. The amount of money needed to continue the space exploration program is a small fraction of the money that is available. What can be more stimulating to the economy, not to mention the human spirit, than exploring space, with all of the technological development and scientific breakthroughs that implies?