[FPSPACE] US may ground space missions due to financial upheaval

[Peter Pesavento]

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/recession-may-ground-space-flights-2009-
01-13.html

 

 

Leading The News

 


Recession may ground space flights 

 


By Roxana Tiron 


Posted: 01/13/09 07:58 PM [ET] 


President-elect Obama will have to decide the fate of the costly U.S. space
program amid a global recession and skyrocketing deficits.

Obama faces a decision at the end of April on whether to continue the Space
Shuttle initiative, which NASA otherwise plans to shut down. Congress last
fall set a deadline for the new administration to decide this spring on
whether to reverse course and continue the program, still the only way NASA
has to transport Americans into space. 

 

Extending the program would come at a high cost; two shuttle flights a year
cost $3 billion, according to outgoing NASA administrator Michael Griffin.
That's even more expensive with a $1.2 trillion fiscal-year deficit as a
backdrop.

Those who wanted to end the shuttle program said its continuation is
shifting money from the Constellation program, the Bush administration's
plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 with an eye toward eventually
sending them to Mars and other planets. 

Constellation's estimated price tag is $100 billion, and it has been
repeatedly delayed due to inadequate funding. As a consequence, the United
States now faces a gap of five years between the planned retirement of the
shuttle and Constellation, which will not be ready to fly earlier than 2015.


In the meantime, American astronauts and cargo will have to ride on other
nations' rockets, particularly Russia's.

Obama must also make a decision on whether to provide funding for the
Constellation program this spring. 

On the campaign trail, Obama stirred up criticism when he suggested that he
would delay the Constellation program by five years. But later Obama
backtracked and offered some support for the program, calling it a "vital
new program" in a space-policy white paper.

It's unclear how the widening budget deficit and continued economic crisis
will affect his views on the space program, which has often been a source of
deep national pride for Americans. 

At the same time, NASA and the space program have always had their critics,
who question spending public money to send rockets to the moon and Mars
while the nation faces other needs. Criticism intensified earlier this
decade after the 2003 Columbia shuttle accident killed seven astronauts.

"Space exploration is very important and has great scientific and practical
results, but sending human beings to Mars and back will cost hundreds of
billions of dollars for very little scientific worth," Rep. Barney Frank
(D-Mass.) said last fall, according to PolitickerMA. 

Frank's comments are particularly interesting given the integral role he'll
play in the country's economic recovery as chairman of the House Financial
Services Committee. 

Frank for years has pushed measures to slash NASA funding for the
Constellation program. In 2006 he said, "Sending human beings to Mars is, in
my judgment, at best, a luxury this country cannot afford."

NASA's fate will not only challenge Obama, but will set up a tug-of-war in
Congress between critics and those who have constituents who depend on NASA
contracts. That includes members representing Texas, Florida, Ohio and
California. 

Space advocates see Obama's decision on the Space Shuttle program as the
first real indication of his vision for NASA. But it's far from the only
one. 

Griffin said that another decision that Obama faces is whether to speed the
delivery of the Constellation project by one year at an estimated cost of $4
billion. 

Another immediate decision that Obama will have to make is whether to spend
money to fly the extra shuttle mission required to ferry the Alpha Magnetic
Spectrometer to the orbiting International Space Station. Congress considers
that mission a priority, and Obama pointed it out on the campaign trail as
well.

"If they want to fly the flight, someone has to send the money and someone
would have to send a specific direction to do so because right now it is not
on the books," Griffin said at a breakfast sponsored by the Space
Foundation.

Griffin stressed that this year is also crucial for determining the United
States' continued partnership in the International Space Station beyond
2015. That decision will have to be reflected in the budget outlay for the
next five years, which is being prepared this year.

The budget for fiscal 2010, which is being deliberated this year, must
include projected spending on the International Space Station beyond 2015 if
Obama decides to keep the U.S. involved. Those budgets are prepared in
five-year increments.

The Bush administration has left those decisions to the new president. 

"We worked very hard to have language in last year's budget that we will
take no action to preclude continuing the station past 2015," Griffin said.
"Taking no action to preclude is not the same as positively supporting it.
Whichever decision needs to be made, the incoming president needs to make
it."

Supporters of the space program can note that while it costs billions,
NASA's share of the budget is at a low. During the 1960s, 4 percent of the
entire national budget was spent on space; today, one-sixth of 1 percent
goes to NASA. 

Obama may also decide to remove barriers once he takes office between the
U.S. civilian and military space programs to get the next-generation
spacecraft into orbit before 2015. The reasoning behind a decision that
would be regarded as a controversial by some space advocates is that
military rockets are cheaper and more readily available than the
technologies NASA is developing. 

Obama has publicly pledged to revive the National Aeronautics and Space
Council, a White House office, which coordinated military and space policy
from the Eisenhower through the Nixon administrations. It also coordinated
he policies during George H.W. Bush's administration.

Griffin is widely expected to leave his post under the Obama administration.
Obama will likely make his own pick for a new NASA administrator. The names
that have surfaced as candidates are scientist Charles Kennel;  Charles
Bolden a former space shuttle commander; and Alan Stern, a former NASA
official.

 

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