On April 15, 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama, in a speech at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, proclaimed that "By 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the moon into deep space. We'll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history."
A manned mission to a near-earth asteroid is a bold endeavor, and proponents believe that it may represent a more viable deep space target for exploration than a return to the moon. However, the capabilities for sustaining a crew for such a mission are many-fold more complex than caring for astronauts in low earth orbit, which is the bulk of our recent experience with spaceflight.
What issues and hurdles are likely for astronauts to be successfully launched-- and returned!-- from a near-earth asteroid mission? How is crew selection, training and the need for enabling technologies going to evolve to make this all possible? How does a near-earth asteroid mission prepare astronauts for an eventual sojourn to Mars, which President Obama hopes to also see in his lifetime?
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We can't accomplish lofty goals if the funding is pulled routinely away from projects before they are completed. NASA is full of never completed projects that would have saved tons of money now if they had been completed years ago. Prices usually rise over the years.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, how does the president plan to go to the near-earth astroid if he cancells the projects that are needed to build the crafts and develope the tools to get there?
What we should do is decide on goals and then commit the long term funding to complete the project. NASA should not have to go to the Congress every year for funding. By the time they get the approval for the year they start and the approvals for the next year...never ending. Each Congress has different ideas on what is important. The project should have clear goals and set reasons for termination of the program if necessary from the onset.
We should expand our vision beyond 12 months.
NASA's inability to complete a project on time and within budget is entirely its own fault. The years I spent working there convinced me of its unecessary management complexity, stove piping, and grindingly slow decision making process. It should not be involved with hardware manufacture, but should be contracting all that out. FedEx doesnt manufacture airplanes and trucks.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree 5 year budgets would make sense. However we live in financially tight times ( although Congress will wake up to this FAR TOO LATE) and NASA will have to live with less $.
As a Physician I have difficulty with the notion that there are pediatric patients for example with no health care while we fund NASA. I know this is a complex issue but NASA can no longer stick its head in the sand and blame everyone else for its problems.