Nasa has begun to wind down construction of the rockets and spacecraft that were to have taken astronauts back to the Moon — effectively dismantling the US human spaceflight programme despite a congressional ban on its doing so.Right now I'm reading Michael Collins' book about his days in the Gemini and Apollo programs. Collins flew on Gemini 10 and was the Command Module Pilot on the first moon landing mission, Apollo 11. It's a fascinating insight to what life was like in the 1960's space program, and I highly recommend the book for anyone with an interest in the space program. You can order yours at the link above.
Legislators have accused President Obama’s Administration of contriving to slip the termination of the Constellation programme through the back door to avoid a battle on Capitol Hill.
Constellation aimed to build upon what was arguably America’s greatest technological achievement, the first lunar landing of 1969, by launching new expeditions to the Moon and to Mars and worlds beyond. Mr Obama proposed in February that it should be scrapped because it was “over budget, behind schedule and lacking in innovation”, but he has met opposition in Congress, which has yet to approve his plan.The head of Nasa, Major-General Charlie Bolden — an Obama appointee — has now written to aerospace contractors telling them to cut back immediately on Constellation-related projects costing almost $1 billion (£690 million), to comply with regulations requiring them to budget for possible contract termination costs.
The move has been branded a “disingenuous legal manoeuvre” and referred to Nasa’s inspector-general for investigation. “It’s bordering on arrogance by the Administration to boldly and brazenly go forward with this approach. It shows a blatant disregard for Congress,” said the Republican Congressman Rob Bishop, of Utah, whose constituency stands to lose thousands of jobs. Two weeks ago the Senate passed legislation that compels Nasa to continue work on Constellation unless Congress directs otherwise. That legislation is due to be signed into law by Mr Obama this month while Congress continues its deliberations over his proposal to cancel the current space space progamme.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican and member of the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said: “The timing of Nasa’s decision to push forward with these actions now, before this becomes law, is highly questionable.” Nasa is “willfully subverting the repeatedly expressed will of Congress”, she added.
Scott Pace, a former Nasa executive and now the Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, said: “The effect will be to stop work on Constellation and lay off or transfer people to other jobs. If Congress then says it wants to continue going ahead with Constellation, those people will be difficult to re-hire. It’s already a difficult situation, but this will introduce more instability.”
Constellation was born in 2004 from President George W. Bush’s vision for returning Americans to the Moon by 2020 and using it as a base to build the knowledge and technologies for a manned mission to Mars by 2030. Since then, more than $9 billion has been spent on designing and building the necessary space vehicles.
An independent review panel appointed by Mr Obama last year concluded, however, that without an extra $3 billion a year Constellation was on an “unsustainable trajectory”. In his proposed budget for the 2011 fiscal year, unveiled in February, Mr Obama made it clear that there would be no extra money for its continuation. The proposal has yet to clear Congress.
Distinguished space veterans, including the first and last men to walk on the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan, have complained that the abandonment of Constellation will set America’s space capabilities on a “downhill slide to mediocrity”. They say that, while Mr Obama has outlined a vision for Nasa that includes sending people to Mars at some point, it lacks a concise plan for developing the rockets and spacecraft to get them there.
It's hard to believe that the things we could do in the 60's, with technology that has a fraction of the capability we have today, can't be done today. The difference, I think, is the will to do it. In the 60's we had it. Today we don't.
In honor of Flag Day, I leave you with a sight we probably will never see again:
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1 comment:
The one thing Obama is moving government out of, it's space jobs. The space and missile industry is already laying off thousands of workers, and there's no hope on the horizon. These people won't stand around waiting, and will find other things to do. Our vast frontier of space may be reduced to cranking out entertainment satellites.
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