The Moon Fades Away

Manned Spaceflight: Tight Money and No Interest — The American Space Program Goes into a Tailspin

The next human being on the moon will most likely not be an American. At the behest of President Obama, NASA will have to scrap its plans for a manned return to the moon to construct a permanent lunar base. Obama, instead, wants to encourage private companies to take over the transport of astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) when the shuttle program ends this year. Details on the new direction of the manned American space program will be specified this week when the White House presents Congress with its budget plan for the coming year.

After the Space Shuttle Columbia accident seven years ago, NASA was initially bothered by self-doubts and on a downhill slide. As a result, in a directive to the agency in 2004, President Bush put an emphasis on the resumption of manned missions to the moon and on the construction of a lunar base by 2020 at the latest. Bush promised to increase the agency’s budget to do this. When everything was added up, NASA calculated that at least $104 billion would be necessary for it to hoist the Stars and Stripes once again on the moon in 2020. The last time astronauts had set out for the moon was on Dec. 11, 1972, when Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt landed there during the Apollo 17 mission.

Bonanza Fails to Materialize

But the bonanza promised by Bush failed to materialize. Instead, there were only small annual increases in the NASA budget. Because of the tight funding for the new “Constellation” program, the planned target date for the lunar landing was pushed back to 2028 at the earliest. Nevertheless, in the past five years, NASA has been able to invest more than $9 billion in the program. This investment led to, among other things, the development of the new “Ares” launch vehicle and its rocket engines, as well as the construction of prototypes of the “Orion” space capsule (for transport of the astronauts to the moon) and a new lunar landing vehicle.

In the new budget plan, absolutely no money is currently being designated for this program. It was abandoned. Nevertheless, the annual NASA budget is expected to increase from $18.5 billion to approximately $20 billion over the next five years. The operation of the ISS should be guaranteed until 2020 with a portion of this money. Up to now, NASA had planned to reduce its involvement in the space station by 2015 or even quit the project altogether. What is more decisive, however, is that Obama wants to use the budget increase to encourage private companies to take over the transportation of astronauts and supplies to the space station and into near earth orbit in the future.

Suborbital Tourist Flights

Soon NASA will no longer be in any position to ferry astronauts into space using its own resources. The last space shuttle flight is planned for September. Afterwards, the three remaining shuttles, “Atlantis,” “Discovery” and “Endeavor,” will be retired. American astronauts will then be able to reach the space station only by flying on board Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The planned “Ares” rocket was to have filled this gap by 2014, but there is no chance of that happening after Obama’s proposals.

Instead, the president wants to push for private space travel. For several years already, a number of companies have been developing space vehicles that are suitable for the transportation of astronauts and supplies into low earth orbit. The California company, Scaled Composites, took the first step in 2004 with its “SpaceShipOne.” Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic company has also gotten involved and wants to take tourists on suborbital flights to the edge of space.

Obama’s Plans Harshly Criticized

Furthest along in private space travel is, without a doubt, the Space Exploration Technologies company. It has developed two unmanned “Falcon” rockets with which it should be able to send supplies to the space station from a launch site in the Marshall Islands sometime in the future. Furthermore, the two large American aerospace companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, have joined forces with their “United Launch Alliance” venture. Their booster rockets have been used for years to launch satellites for the United States Air Force and are now being built to suit NASA’s requirements.

Although the details on NASA’s new direction have yet to be made public, Obama’s plans have already been harshly criticized. Former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said that the United States would, with these proposals, lose its leading position in manned space flight. Congressional representatives from those states that have NASA facilities involved in manned space flight have spoken out against the cancellation of the “Constellation” moon program. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, who flew on a shuttle mission in 1986, said that jobs are going to be lost, and NASA will finally say goodbye to space flights that go beyond the orbit of the space station. Other politicians questioned whether private companies will be able to guarantee the safety of astronauts during their missions.