March 16 News Items

A Look at NASA's Future Beyond the Shuttle (Source: Houston Chronicle)
Last week, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin sat down with the Houston Chronicle's editorial board and science writer Eric Berger. The NASA chief discussed the space agency's plans for the future as well as his views on competition with other spacefaring nations. Q: The shuttle will stop flying in 2010 so NASA can spend more money on the Constellation program, the next generation of spacecraft. If money were not a concern, would it be safe to continue flying the shuttle until 2015, when the first new vehicles should be ready? Visit http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/space/5621617.html to view the Q&A article.

China (and India) Outpacing NASA on Human Capital for Space (Source: Houston Chronicle)
"When I [Mike Griffin] talk to senior Chinese officials, I don't ask them how much they are spending. I ask how many people are involved in their program. And they have told me on three occasions that their total effort is about 200,000 people. NASA's budget buys 80,000 people. Now they've got some catch-up ball to play, but they've got more people, and it's a significant effort. By the way, everything that we've just said about China, you could say about India. India is making enormous strides in upgrading its space program.

Infinite Quandaries Ahead (Source: Houston Chronicle)
NASA is hobbled by a serious lack of federal funds, upcoming layoffs and a debate on whether to shoot for the moon or Mars. As President Bush's term draws to an end, NASA faces one of the greatest challenges in its 50-year history. As it prepares to retire the space shuttle in two years and launch a new moonship by 2015, the space agency finds itself hobbled by chronic underfunding, presidential politics and a new debate in the scientific community over whether explorers should aim for Mars instead of the moon. "There is value in going back to the moon as an outpost, as a research area," said a former astronaut. But "we ought to move on (to Mars) and not get bogged down (on the moon) for all eternity."

The cost of the Bush venture is steep: an estimated $230 billion over the next two decades. And the space agency faces a personnel shake-up as well when the last of a dozen remaining shuttle missions concludes and the program's $3.2 billion annual budget is shifted to the development of the Orion crew capsule and its Ares 1 and Ares V rockets. About 17,200 workers employed in the shuttle program in Houston, Huntsville, Ala., and Cape Canaveral, Fla., or about 20 percent of NASA's entire federal and contractor work force, will see their jobs come to an end, forcing layoffs or retirements for those unable to move on to the moonship project, now in its infancy. Just over 25 percent of the shuttle's force, or about 4,700 people, are employed at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Visit http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/space/5621679.html to view the article.

Bush Would Veto NASA Budget Increase (Source: Houston Chronicle)
If Congress approves an additional $2 billion over the next two years, NASA has a chance of making the Orion moonship ready to carry astronauts to the international space station by September 2013. Though there is some bipartisan support in Congress for the additional funds, the Bush White House has threatened to veto such a spending increase as the economy teeters on the verge of a recession. Mike Griffin said that by the time Bush leaves office in January, it will be too late to accelerate work on the moonship, even if Congress and the next president approve the additional billions of dollars.