WASHINGTON (AP)—NASA will test the powerful first stage of
its new Ares moon rocket Thursday, a milestone in a program that has already
spent $7 billion for a rocket that astronauts may never use.
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In this Aug. 14, 2009 photo, a new space vehicle stands ready in NASA Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida. The final segments of the Ares I-X rocket, including the simulated crew module and launch abort system, were stacked on Aug. 13 on a mobile launcher platform, completing the 327-foot launch vehicle and providing the first entire look of Ares I-X's distinctive shape. The Ares I-X flight test is targeted for Oct. 31. (AP Photo/ NASA)
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When that first stage is tested, it will be mounted
horizontally. The engine will fire, shake and make lots of noise. But by
design, it will not leave the ground. The same could be said for NASA's plans
to go to the moon, Mars or beyond Earth orbit. It's not so much a physical
challenge for engineers as it is a financial challenge for budgeteers.
The $108 billion program to return to the moon by 2020 was
started five years ago by then-President George W. Bush. But a special independent
panel commissioned by President Barack Obama concluded that the plan cannot
work on the existing budget schedule because it's likely to cost at least an
extra $30 billion through 2020.
Even NASA's soon-to-be-retired space shuttle fleet has
proved that getting off the ground isn't a given, with two launch scrubs this
week of a mission to the international space station.
The space station is finally finished. Yet NASA's
long-standing plans call for junking the outpost in about seven years. If the
agency keeps that schedule, it would mean that in the next decade NASA's
astronauts could be going nowhere if there's no moon mission.
Obama's special panel looked at other options available for
the space program—such as skipping the moon and going directly to Mars or an
asteroid, or just cruising in the solar system. But they kept using words like
"least worst scenario" during their final public deliberations
earlier this month. In their report due Monday, they will also give advice
about the end of the shuttle and space station programs.
The White House told the panel to aim to stay within current
budget estimates.
"If you want to do something, you have to have the
money to do it," said panel member and former astronaut Sally Ride.
"This budget is very, very, very hard to fit and still have an exploration
program."
The options that face the White House come down to
variations and combinations of these themes: Pay more, do less or radically
change American space policy. The most radical idea would be to hand much of
NASA's duties to private companies.
"The problem is the size 14 foot in the size 10
shoe," said AmericanUniversity public policy
professor Howard McCurdy, author of several books about the American space
program. "It's just really hard to fit it all in. A lot of the assumptions
made in 2004 (for the Bush plan) have just not materialized."
The panel will not tell the president which choice to make.
That will be up to Obama. Until NASA is told to change course, it will continue
with the Bush plan.
Thus, the first big test of moon program hardware is the
rocket stage firing Thursday in Promontory, Utah. That test is of the main
get-off-the-ground engine in the Ares I rocket. The full test rocket, complete
with a dummy crew capsule and escape system, Ares I-X, is supposed to get a
launch test at KennedySpace Center
on Oct. 31.
That rocket will be taller than the space shuttle,
illustrating an agency eager to launch something new.
"NASA has been like a star athlete that's broken world
records back in the 1960s and is stuck in the bleachers ever since, unable to
suit up for what it does best," said space scientist Alan Stern, who quit
last year as NASA's associate administrator for science.
But, as has been the case since about 1971, money is holding
engineers back, Stern said.
"Bush never delivered on his promise to up NASA's
funding," Stern said. He added that the previous NASA administrator
"tried cannibalizing NASA (to pay for exploration) but that wasn't
enough."
While the Bush administration cut some spending, the
"real killer" came in Obama's first budget, which starts in October,
said Scott Pace, the No. 3 at NASA during the Bush administration. Obama cut $3
billion from projections for future spending on exploration, with even more cut
when inflation is factored in, said Pace, director of space policy at George WashingtonUniversity.
The administration gave the agency an extra $400 million,
however, as part of the stimulus package.
Former NASA associate administrator Scott Hubbard said if
the United States invited
other countries, including Russia
and perhaps China, on the
next space journey, it would keep America's costs lower. It's an idea
the panel and some in the Obama administration have discussed.
Some kind of change is needed in NASA plans, said Hubbard, a
professor at StanfordUniversity: "What we
ended up with now is clearly unsustainable."
NASA's
moon program
The
outside panel looking at human spaceflight
SOURCE: The Associated Press
