credit NASA/Lockheed Martin / caption: Will this be seen in 2020?
Acting NASA administrator Christopher Scolese made some interesting remarks on 29 April at the Congressional appropriations hearing that Hyperbola thinks could see another human spaceflight gap for the USA at the end of the next decade
The situation is this, Scolese indicated a scaling back of lunar plans that is probably due to the flat line budget for the next five years that the Congress men referred too at the hearing
Scolese also said that the goal is now a low Earth orbit crew and cargo transportation system with some beyond LEO capability but not necessarily an outpost capability (multiple EELV launches and LEO docking based architecture?)
The Hyperbola theory is that with an International Space Station only-capable Orion crew exploration vehicle launched in 2015, due to a flat budget, NASA will still not have a lunar mission capablity by 2020 with no substantial funding having been committed to an Ares V cargo launch vehicle or similar capability before 2015
The extension of ISS operations, now unavoidable because of the long delay in getting Orion up and running and minimising the Space Shuttle, Orion-Ares gap, will see a drain on NASA resources until 2020
Retiring Shuttle in 2010 and station in 2015 or 2016 would have made it easier, with some budget luck, to deliver a Moon capability come 2020 but now ISS is very likely to continue with the additional costs of Russian transportation and the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, Commercial Resupply Services contracts that, if they deliver, will extend out to 2020
NASA has a situation where budget limitations will see a LEO capable Orion become operational in 2015 but its destination will disappear in 2020 and there will be no significant beyond LEO system in place to reach the Moon. Perhaps at some point in the 2020s but not before 2020 Hyperbola would wager
In 2020 Orion could have no place to go
Scolese mentioned L1 point missions for deep-space space telescope servicing but how often will that be done? Can that justify whatever extra expense is required?
What does a capsule with no human tended microgravity experiment capability do for the years between ISS deorbit in 2020 and a lunar return in, say 2025? Visit the Chinese space station?
on April 30, 2009 9:33 AM | Reply
Robbie, how cynical you are!
It seems to me that these are merely salvos in an un-managed budgetting process.
Pity about 4-crewed Orion.
Pity about the White House suggesting US Astronauts consider flying Chinese!
Pity about the new faith in the (American) Dragon.
However I have not yet heard of any attempt to derail Ares V.
So let's all keep our fingers crossed,
Me.
PS. Let's start a rumour that Obama will bring Griffin back from his Ivory Tower.
on April 30, 2009 6:29 PM | Reply
Hopefully the reality is finally getting through that the Ares V office never existed & Ares V design was really a hobby for those people while they flipped houses for a living. We've been through this before. A low Earth orbit Ares 1 with 3 people in 2020 has always been the most optimistic outcome. Now about Elon Musk launching humans.....
on April 30, 2009 11:06 PM | Reply
Wait a minute here- deorbit the ISS in 2020? We spend a hundred billion and change, take 25 years to build the thing, and totally destroy it after less than a decade of full operation? A huge hunk of pressurised, liveable space thrown away? There's some incredibly wrong-headed thinking going on there, and definately the wrong people in charge of this program!
on May 1, 2009 10:47 PM | Reply
NASA has a huge incentive to de-orbit the ISS, preferably in 2011.
The Reasons are:
1) ISS is already 12 years old, the oldest chunks are past their safe life.
2) ISS eats up a tremendous amount of cash.
3) Destroying ISS will end any annoying science missions sneaking up like AMS.
4) Destroying ISS will prevent any nasty manuevers to manned science to some other agency, which would deplete the NASA brand.
5) Destroying ISS will prevent funds being bled off by COTS 2.
This was the agency that destroyed the Compton just to show the russians that they had some balls.
on May 2, 2009 10:36 PM | Reply
Americans seem to have a "been there done that" attitude. Once you go to the moon, throw that system away. Once you build a reusable Saturn V, throw that away. Once you build the world's largest space station, throw that away. Maybe they'll abandon communism someday.
on May 3, 2009 11:59 PM | Reply
What do you have to say about Scolese's statements about going to an NEO or on to Mars rather than setting up a (my words: ISS-style) moon base?
Scolese's statements to congress were just run of the mill stuff for budget extensions, STS isn't retired, and he has no business setting the direction for NASA.
However, he can have an opinion on where it is going, and he sees it going to an NEO or to Mars.
Isn't this good news rather than the pessimism you're trying to invoke here?
on May 4, 2009 3:24 AM | Reply
The ISS was a huge waste of tax payer dollars. From the beginning, it was a mission to nowhere: just a far more expensive version of Skylab, IMO.
That money should have been used to build a permanently manned facility on the Moon.
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/01/space-frontier.html
on May 5, 2009 2:02 PM | Reply
Seems to be a lot of ISS naysayers on this topic. While I would agree that the road to building the ISS was a expensive and torturous one using the space shuttle system, I would still argue the ISS is not a waste of money. Establishing human outposts in space is crucial to establishing markets on which commercial enterprises can thrive and build a spacefaring society. Commercial companies are not going to build roads and bridges to nowhere unless there are established markets which provide revenue sources. Transportation develop and advance only when markets are established for them. The COTS program has spurred 2 companies to develop cheaper cargo supply transports to the ISS that should be avaliable by 2010. SHould those company become successful just the cost savings for those cheaper launch will pay for the cost of the ISS and then some.
on May 5, 2009 10:39 PM | Reply
In the U.S its looked upon more as "meeting policy requirements" than a particular goal. To whit "Its Mars we're looking at" and a moon base isn't necessary and a waste of money it would seem. But there is no funding thus far for ARES 5 and projections over the next 5 years make it look like downsized Orion/The Stick will chew up money no longer being spent on the Shuttle after next year.
I think they're being foolish: just because other babies get up and walk doesn't mean you can! The dog's dinner they've made with not only The Stick but Orion as well, makes it clear NASA needs to get back its "space legs" before proceeding to Mars:that includes the ins and out of long term exploration settlement on an alien world. What's more alien than the moon? With the moon we don't need to build orbital bases for example to launch Interplanetary Spacecraft. The VASIMIR engine would be ideal for the Mars DeltaV requirement launching from Lunar orbit. Get it built and tested now is my advice.
Also a necessity IMO is a Mars Orbital and return flight for shakedown purposes - especially if they haven't got the VASIMIR engine operational to speed E-M transit times - with a Artificial Gravity capable spacecraft.
on May 6, 2009 5:16 AM | Reply
Gary Miles, it's more that people like to bemoan things that they don't know much about, especially when they have this perception in their single issue circles that "all of those things" are "in the way" of ones slated goals.
Consider that Rob left out in the lunar post that Scolese said he'd like to venture to an NEO or even to Mars, suggesting that they don't want to waste money on a moon base when they can go other places, *outside of the Earth-Moon system*. Having this capablity allows us many options (including, but not limited to, a moon base in the future).
I and a few others on my website see this as a *good thing* but admittedly there is still a contengent of naysayers in the mix. If the reporting was more informative and information wasn't left out to create an issue, we might actually be able to have a middle ground.
on May 8, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply
Maybe right option is to sell american part of ISS to China and invest
these funds in development Constellation programme ?