NASA deserves financial, public support for endeavors

By Joe Dwyer     9/17/09 7:00pm

It's been 40 years since we went to the moon. And if we want to go back, NASA needs your help. Last week, NASA released a 12-page summary report detailing the space administration's current state of affairs. The 11-member Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, which was comprised of current and former aerospace executives, astronauts, professors and retired military personnel, outlined the fate of the space shuttle, the projected lifespan of the International Space Station and our nation's options for the future of human spaceflight over the next few decades. Ultimately, the committee found that without an infusion of $3 billion annually beginning with the 2010 fiscal year, few, if any, of these goals will be possible for NASA.

At the time of this writing, President Obama has yet to respond to the findings of the committee, but his decision should be swift and obvious: Give NASA the requested funding.

Compared to the budgets of other federal agencies, NASA operates on a pittance. The proposed 2010 federal budget will allot $18.7 billion for the space agency, putting it between the Department of Commerce ($13.8 billion) and the Department of Justice ($23.9 billion) on the Discretionary Spending pecking order. Given the current economic situation, pocketbooks are understandably tight, but $3 billion is chump change compared to other federal expenditures.

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It should be noted that the European Space Agency, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, China National Space Administration and Russian Federal Space Agency all operate on significantly smaller budgets than does NASA - less than $5 billion apiece in 2008. This figure understandably raises the question as to why NASA would need a $3 billion increase when it operates with significantly greater funding in the first place.

The answer is simple. If NASA is to stay relevant and retain its "first among equals" position with the other space-going nations of the world, it cannot be hamstrung by a skimpy budget. NASA enjoys a much wider focus than the other agencies: Houston's own Johnson Space Center employs over 15,000 contractors working on projects that range from studying the effects of long-term spaceflight on the human body, to building more efficient Earth- and space-bound communications antennae, to astronaut training and robotics research.

And JSC is just one of over 24 NASA-affiliated facilities across the nation, each committed to equally diverse and exciting work. By comparison, the European Space Agency's Web site says their largest facility, the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), employs only 2,000 specialists working on "dozens of space projects." As such, NASA's budget compared to the other nations' space agencies is understandably larger.

The committee acknowledged that without this additional annual funding, plans for returning to the moon by 2020 and then venturing to Mars - as set forth by President George W. Bush in a January 2004 speech - would be severely hampered. Pending President Obama's approval, the report detailed five different paths to eventually fulfill this plan, allowing NASA a certain amount of flexibility.

The first path is simply the continuation of the current operations of NASA, utilizing the current budget to extend the life of the shuttle to 2011, but de-orbiting the ISS in 2016 and delaying the construction of the Ares V heavy-lift vehicle past 2020. The plan lacks sufficient funds to develop the lunar lander and associated systems by 2030, probably delaying them indefinitely.

Among the four remaining paths, there is only one that necessitates further pursuing. Dubbed "Flexible Path Variant 5A," it would retire the shuttle by 2011, extend the life of the ISS to 2020, use the new Ares Lite heavy lift vehicle to return America to the moon by the mid-to-late 2020s and turn over low-Earth orbit responsibilities to commercial organizations.

The positive aspects of this plan are many. Not only would NASA be getting another decade's worth of return on its investment in the ISS, but the Flexible Path would put the agency on a track similar to the one it was on in the 1960s, where it worked through a series of progressively more complex flight programs and missions, beginning with Mercury, followed by Gemini and concluding with Apollo. This stepping-stone approach was extremely effective and allowed NASA to learn, iterate and then leapfrog its technology and newly-acquired know-how into the next program.

According to the report, the Flexible Path would enable humans to progress from lunar orbit to the Lagrange points - gravitationally stationary points important for scientific observation - to visiting near-Earth objects and ultimately orbiting around Mars. Interestingly, the report also suggests humans could rendezvous with a moon of Mars before "coordinat[ing] with or control[ling] robots on the Martian surface."

In addition, the committee recognized the growing interest and support in commercial spaceflight, and suggested holding another competition similar to 2004's Ansari X Prize for the purposes of finding a company or two that could handle low-Earth orbit responsibilities, including ISS upkeep and maintenance, freeing up NASA and its money to focus on the bigger picture of lunar and Martian exploration.

Clearly, there are risks and quality control concerns that would need to be addressed, but few organizations on the planet are as safety-oriented as NASA, and in this age of crowdsourcing and Wikipedia, it makes perfect sense for NASA to turn to the nation to collectively come up with new ideas and solutions.

In the 1960s, the U.S. space program enjoyed feverish public support from the American people - so much so that the Apollo 8 Christmas Eve television broadcast even won an Emmy - but declining popular interest led to decreased funding, and NASA was forced to adapt a more scaled-back stance, stuck exploring low-Earth orbit from the space shuttle.

Now, the pendulum has finally swung back in the other direction. Like the waning days of Apollo, shuttle travel has become boring, commonplace news and people are itching for NASA to do something ... different. And as evidenced by the committee's report, the folks at NASA are trying their best to do so.

The additional funding will help the space agency get on the right track, but ultimately it's up to people just like you and me to support these exciting new Endeavours.

Joe Dwyer is a Wiess College junior and Thresher A&E editor.

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