Obama announces new timetable and goals for NASA

US President Obama announced in Florida yesterday at the Kennedy Space Center, that the US will not be sending humans back to the Moon, but will instead send them to near-Earth astroids by 2025 and onto Mars by 2035 “and bring them back safely.” Obama also committed more forcefully his administration to pushing NASA to do more research in Earth sciences, space science and in technology innovation, and to keep the international space station going to beyond 2020.

The change in NASA’s long-term strategy did not come as a surprise, as a number of space policy experts, including members of the Augustine committee—which made recommendations to cancel the Constellation space program that was to replace the space shuttle with a medium-, and heavy-lift, launch vehicles—have talked about changing NASA’s mission to a near-Earth astroid for months.

A summary of the plan can be found on the White House web site .

“We will actually reach space faster and more often under this new plan,” said Obama, “in ways that will help us improve our technological capacity and lower our costs, which are both essential for the long-term sustainability of space flight.”

A lobbying campaign

The cancelation of both the Moon missions and the constellation program have caused outcry from former astronauts, such as Neil Armstrong, who called it ‘devastating’ in an open letter to the President, and from executives at Lockheed Martin and Boeing that manage NASA’s existing launch vehicles and see billions of dollars going to smaller, more nimble, competitors such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX . Representatives from districts that have large NASA workforce have also complained about the thousands of jobs that will go when the space shuttle retires.

“The president’s announcement today, unfortunately, still will do nothing to ensure America’s superiority in human space exploration or to decrease our reliance on Russia in the interim,” said Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), ranking member of the House Science and Technology Committee, in a statement after Obama’s speech .

In a statement released by the White House, former astronaut Buzz Aldrin said, “The steps we will be taking in following the president’s direction will best position NASA and other space agencies to ultimately send humans to Mars and other exciting destinations as quickly as possible.”

Musk also supported the President’s move. “The President quite reasonably concluded that spending $50 billion to develop a vehicle that would cost 50% more to operate, but carry 50% less payload [compared to the space shuttle] was perhaps not the best possible use of funds,” he said.

“Some of the controversy about what were about to do—I think a lot of it comes from people who are nervous about doing new things,” said NASA administrator Charles Bolden after the speech. “I would say, as we are about to do something that a lot of people don’t think we can do, take a deep breath and help us figure out a way to make these things work. Because I’m convinced we can do it.”

A new challenge

“The challenges facing our space program are different,” said Obama, “and our imperatives for this program are different, than in decades past. We’re no longer racing against an adversary. We’re no longer competing to achieve a singular goal like reaching the Moon. In fact, what was once a global competition has long since become a global collaboration. But while the measure of our achievements has changed a great deal over the past 50 years, what we do—or fail to do—in seeking new frontiers is no less consequential for our future in space and here on Earth.”

Obama said, “the bottom line is: Nobody is more committed to manned space flight, the human exploration of space, than I am. But we’ve got to do it in a smart way; we can’t keep doing the same old things as before.”

The speech herald the first time Obama and NASA have provided a revised and realistic timetable to head back to Mars, months after assessing that the constellation program was significantly over budget and running into technical difficulties, and wiping the program from the 20111 budget. The constellation program, and NASA’s strategy to return to the Moon and Mars was mismanaged by NASA leaders, and by the previous White House staff, said Obama, the first sitting president in 12 years to visit Kennedy Space Center.

Minor concessions

There were some minor concessions to those critics who are concerned that NASA’s ability to get humans into Earth orbit relies solely with private industry or Russia.

Constellation’s Orion crew capsule , managed by Lockheed Martin, will be kept on as a stripped-down version to use as a lifeboat for the space station.

This Orion effort will be part of the technological foundation for advanced spacecraft to be used in future deep space missions,” Obama said.

Obama also re-committed to NASA building a heavy-lift vehicle, starting now in 2015 two years earlier than under the old schedule. This was part of the original constellation program, and was one of the few parts of the program that was kept when NASA’s budget came out earlier this year.

In fact, the new strategy is good news for the science community as a whole, as a large chunk of the $3.5 billion from the canceled Constellation program went towards research in Earth and space sciences, and aeronautics, and decreases the likelihood that the science program will be raided to provide additional funds to counteract shortfalls in the human spaceflight budget, as happened in the past.

Obama ended his speech on this note:

Paul Guinnessy