NASA Budget - Manned Space program is OVER!!!

[Rooster Cruiser]

I am stunned.  Read it and weep.  After nearly 50 years of manned space exploration by NASA, the Obama Administration has completely killed the follow on Constellation program.  This means no return to the Moon, and no manned expeditions to Mars.  US astronauts are going to be bumming rides on Russian Soyez spaceships from now on once the Space Shuttle is retired.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2010/02/notes-observations-and-insight-into-barack-obamas-nasa-budget.html

President Barack Obama rolls out his 2011 budget request on Monday, giving NASA at total of $19 billion. That’s roughly $300 million over what the agency received this fiscal year.

But there are major changes — the elimination of the Constellation moon program and the reliance on commercial rockets to fly men and cargo to the International Space Station. It also appears that the commercial rocket industry will take the lead in developing future heavy-lift rockets to venture beyond lower Earth orbit and into the solar system.

That’s a significant change in national space policy. For the last 50 years, NASA has been responsible for designing, developing and operating the rockets and spacecraft flown by U.S. astronauts. Now, if the president gets his way, that responsibility will shift to the private sector, with NASA limited to researching new rocket and propulsion technologies.

“Today we are launching a bold and ambitious new space initiative to enable us to explore new worlds, develop more innovative technologies, foster new industries, increase our understanding of the earth, expand our presence in the solar system, and inspire the next-generation of explorers,” NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden wrote in the budget overview.

There’s also new money to “accelerat[e] the next wave of climate-change and observations spacecraft.

Several groups have been briefed by NASA officials last night and early today. Here are some highlights.

Notes, Observations and Insight into the NASA budget:

NASA officials stress that this is not a strategic or tactical move. Those at the top believe this needs to be done. The mantra is that this represents NASA going back to its roots, recreating the agency as an engine of technology development and innovation. The aim is to move away from a program pursuing incremental advancement in heavy lift to real game changers.

The budget shows these are the big programs:

–  ISS –operations, research and extensions

–   Space Shuttle, flying out the manifest

–  Technology Development

– Exploration precursor program (robotic flights)

Spending Highlights:

–  $300 million plus up to current $18.7 billion budget in FY11

– $2 billion for Earth Science  over five years

–  $7.8 billion for Technology Development programs over five years.

The flagship enterprise will be developing on-orbit refueling and automated approaches and docking technologies. They will also spend lots on new approaches in first stage advancement and advances in space engines which the USA has lost (look at dependence on Russian engines.

– $6 billion for development of commercial crew capability over five years.

Lots of parallels are being drawn with how the federal government used mail contracts to develop the aviation industry.

– $3 billion for robotic “precursor missions” over five years.

– $3.1 billion for Heavy Lift Vehicle Research and advancement over five years

– $3 billion for Space Operations over five years.

Embe dded in this sum is money for Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to upgrade facilities to support commercial lift.

– $2.5 billion in Constellation termination costs.

All of the Constellation moon program is dead — ALL OF IT —  including the Orion space capsule, which means there are really no plans for NASA to develop a big rocket that could go anywhere in the near future. The conclusion was that Constellation was “not executable” and therefore had to be killed.  There will be instead a shift to heavy lift research and “technological advancement.”

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I'm OK with getting rid of it, so long as they stay out of the way of Private space efforts.

[undatc]

I think this "shift" of NASA could be potentially a good thing depending on how it's developed.

If NASA is going to be doing the research end of things from now on, what happens to their results?  Does the new material they invent become public domain, or does it become property of the US Government.  If the latter, how then does it translate to public companies getting their hands on it to further space missions.  Who trains our new astronauts?  Lots of questions to have answered.

I see more potential for good than bad here.

With that said, I have already made plans to see the last shuttle launch in Sept.  Anyone else planning on gong?

[croatian judge]

Here's a good response to the budget that I read:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/02/01/president-obamas-nasa-budget-unveiled/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BadAstronomyBlog+%28Bad+Astronomy%29

It doesn't necessarily mean that we're not going to the moon or mars again, but with the way the programs were running we weren't going to get there on time.

[G-man]

This was started by the Bush administration-----I have a house outside of Cape Canaveral for sale..It has lost thousands in value since this was foirst announced back in early 06---long before Obama.

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The original mission for NACA (their predecessor) was to pursue research in order to ensure that private aviation
firms would be able to use said research without fear of lawsuits, etc. For instance, their airfoil information would be
made available to the general public and you wouldn't have to go through a lot of effort and expense to design it
into your airplane. Of course, the taxpayer does get stuck with the bill, and oughta have some say in it anyway.

Eventually, they became NASA, and rather than continue their tradition of using their efforts to *prevent* monopolistic
practices, they became a monopoly in and of themselves. For decades, it has been accepted that anyone interested in
space science pretty much HAD to go to NASA or maybe one of the smaller military groups to meet their full potential... or perhaps
a large corporation in existence to provide hardware to the agency.
and this robbed a couple generations of private industry of the brainpower needed to pursue a real, profitable (i.e. sustainable)
space effort.
I'm hoping, seriously hoping, that they'll get a shot, as I'm one of the nutjobs who sees space travel as the only way the human
race is going to be able to survive as time passes.

I think this "shift" of NASA could be potentially a good thing depending on how it's developed.

If NASA is going to be doing the research end of things from now on, what happens to their results?  Does the new material they invent become public domain, or does it become property of the US Government.  If the latter, how then does it translate to public companies getting their hands on it to further space missions.  Who trains our new astronauts?  Lots of questions to have answered.

I see more potential for good than bad here.

With that said, I have already made plans to see the last shuttle launch in Sept.  Anyone else planning on gong?