The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that a fight between then Congress and the Obama administration is brewing over the future of human space exploration. The Obama administration is looking at changing the direction of the program, scrapping the Ares 1, fostering commercial launch systems, and bringing in more international partners, including the Chinese, as partners. Congress, which has passed a budget for FY 2010 essentially funding the current program, is not disposed to allow any changes.
Senator Richard Shelby, a Republican, with the support of Congressman Alan Mollohan, a Democrat, among others, is leading the charge against any Obama administration changes. The reasons are many and varied.
The reasons cited include the loss of jobs, doubts about the ability of commercial companies to fill the space flight gap after the retirement of the shuttle, and doubts about the advisability of taking on China, a totalitarian regime, as a space partner.
The Obama administration is said to want to push ahead with whatever changes it decides anyway. But with President Obama’s poll numbers plummeting, fights over health care reform and cap and trade grinding on, and an election year looming, the administration’s ability to impose its will on the Congress is likely to erode.
One sticking point seems to be money. NASA’s exploration program has been underfunded since its inception and, lacking leadership from the White House, may remain that way. The slim hope is that money from the stimulus package and/or unused TARP money could be used to fill the funding gap.
One irony is that Republican supporters of NASA, who opposed both TARP and the stimulus package, may be willing to help push to use money from both programs to fund the exploration program.
Comments
One of the bigger problems NASA has faced the past twenty years is delays and the lack of will of past administrations to promote and fund the vision of space travel and exploration. We let the shuttle drag on for too long and wasted money on the international space station.
Completing Ares 1 and a command module should be a priority. The United States needs a reliable service vehicle to replace the shuttle as soon as possible while we continue to do research on new propulsion systems. Spending 9 billion to develop the program and then turn around and blow 2.5 billion to kill it is irresponsible, but that's Obama's style.
Obama does not want manned space travel because that would create jobs, new technologies and advances in science in the private sector for America. A moon base was to be developed because it is far easier to launch from the moon to other parts of the solar system and beyond then from earth requiring the development and use of new propulsion systems. The key was
to develop a self sustaining operation using reusable manned and unmanned space craft. A process to actually support true space survival.
Space exploration is about human exploration and discovery of the unknown and all the risks associated with it, but Obama continues to convince the American people everyday that he fears that challenge and that of human evolution. Welcome to the Obama cage.
Obama will spend billions on a climate hoax, a speedy train to nowhere or on "green energy gimmicks" (wind power) but nothing that would advance human kind and science that would sustain our economy for generations. I personally believe that NASA should complete Ares 1 and Ares V and put a docking station in permanent Lunar orbit within 5 years and begin to test advanced propulsion systems. That's right, 5 years not ten. We need to stop dragging our feet people.
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