The NASA report, Part 1: Problems

You know you are not off to a good start when the first sentence of the executive summary reads: "The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory."

The problem with blog readers is I can probably only keep you interested for about a minute and a half, and the first couple times I sat down to write this, it quickly became over 5,000 words. Good for a 3-turn Newsweek spread, bad for blogging. So I tragically have hashed out everything for this post except 3 key points. Please read them and disseminate the information to your friends.

1. The report succinctly states that NASA is planning to spend $99 billion in the next ten years on human space flight. Based on an annual budget around $18 billion, then about 55% of NASA's budget goes to humans in space. Where does the other $8.1 billion go? Some of it goes to fund research, some of it pays to keep telescopes discovering things. Some of it goes to fund youth programs, like "Space Camp", and some goes into the pockets of lobbyists who work diligently to keep NASA's budget inflated. But here's the kicker: the report suggests that, at that spending level, NASA must retire the shuttle fleet next year (as planned), but won't be able to afford its replacement. NASA will have to "deorbit" the International Space Station in 2015 (as planned), unable to pay for resupply missions. It will be unable to fund its highly-touted return to the Moon, and will definitely be unable to fund any manned Mars missions. Essentially, NASA will spend $10 billion dollars a year doing nothing. Of course, this assumes they don't increase their budget.

2. The committee goes on to make two recommendations: more money for NASA and scuttle Moon missions and concentrate on Mars. Here I've been criticizing NASA for not having a bold vision, and someone comes up with one, and I think it is an infernal mistake. Mars missions would take nearly 2 years round trip, the astronauts, if Russian research is to be believed, would go insane after a mere 105 days...not to mention the amount of supplies required, the bone desorption the astronauts would face, etc. etc. In any case, trips to Mars don't really have a purpose. The technology to do it already exists. One of the primary purposes of the Apollo space program was to develop technology to enable manned spaceflight. This goal was accomplished. What is the purpose of a Mars trip? There really is none, other than the "gee whiz, look how great America is" aspect. Better dollar utilization could come from terraforming Venus, but that is a topic for another time.

3. I hate arguing bias here, but where were the committee members who are opposed to human spaceflight? Am I really the only one that thinks America could better spend its dollars if less human spaceflight occurred in the present (and instead we thought long-term)? The committee contained two former astronauts, the former CEO of Lockheed-Martin, a former Boeing exec, the President of XCOR, a private company working on space-tourism, and Wanda Austin, the CEO of The Aerospace Corporation, a company that provides program management to many of NASA's projects and helped design the space shuttle. Is it any wonder these people think NASA needs more money, and should invest in Mars missions? Where is the cynic, who argues loudly for complete abandonment of manned space missions?

One final thought: putting that picture of John Kennedy on page 3 was tremendously galling to me. It suggests the romantic idea that we are still in the 60's, battling the Russians for space supremacy in a larger, democracy v. communism clash. It makes me think we'll hear the "Nation X is planning a moon mission, we must beat them there" argument rehashed again and again into eternity, when in fact we did beat them there, 40 years ago. The Chinese are sending people into space? WHO CARES?! We have been doing that since the early 60's. Stop trying to make space exploration an international competition, and instead start viewing it objectively, as a method by which the human race (not the American race) may ensure the survival of the species by colonizing other planets. Do that, and the moon and Mars seem like an abject waste of time and money.

Stay tuned, my new, bold vision for extra-terrestrial human colonization is coming up!


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