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January 27, 2010
NASA to Review Human Spaceflight
By KENNETH CHANG
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is preparing for a major evaluation of its human spaceflight program, even as many who will conduct the survey have yet to be informed of the agency’s revised mission.
The expansive, multimonth technical study, still in the preliminary stages, might be similar to the Exploration Systems Architecture Study that in 2005 settled on the design of the agency’s program to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020.
Given a possible shift in goals and budgets — President Obama will reveal his space plans on Monday in his 2011 budget request — the study is to survey the variety of available rockets and spacecraft, consider different strategies for reaching future destinations and recommend a framework of how to proceed.
“They’re going to be putting meat on the bones” of options proposed last fall by a blue-ribbon panel that reviewed NASA’s human spaceflight program, said a person involved with the preparations, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the study.
But the people who will be working on the study had not, at least as of Friday, been told what the destination, budget and timeline would be.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the Obama administration had decided to start a competition for commercial companies to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, following a suggestion of the blue-ribbon panel, which was led by Norman R. Augustine, a former Lockheed Martin chief executive.
Mr. Obama will propose increasing NASA’s budget, now $18.7 billion, by less than $1 billion, an administration official said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/sc...20plans&st=cse
Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.
JFK
The expansive, multimonth technical study, still in the preliminary stages, might be similar to the Exploration Systems Architecture Study that in 2005 settled on the design of the agency’s program to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020.
Given a possible shift in goals and budgets — President Obama will reveal his space plans on Monday in his 2011 budget request — the study is to survey the variety of available rockets and spacecraft, consider different strategies for reaching future destinations and recommend a framework of how to proceed.
“They’re going to be putting meat on the bones” of options proposed last fall by a blue-ribbon panel that reviewed NASA’s human spaceflight program, said a person involved with the preparations, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the study.
But the people who will be working on the study had not, at least as of Friday, been told what the destination, budget and timeline would be.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the Obama administration had decided to start a competition for commercial companies to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, following a suggestion of the blue-ribbon panel, which was led by Norman R. Augustine, a former Lockheed Martin chief executive.
Mr. Obama will propose increasing NASA’s budget, now $18.7 billion, by less than $1 billion, an administration official said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/sc...20plans&st=cse
Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.
JFK
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