Lunar News Network

U.S. To End Moon Program

It's all over. The U.S. is getting out of the manned space exploration business. The Obama Administration has decided not to fund the Constellation program. NASA will not return to the Moon and go on to Mars and beyond. The dream is dead. From the AP:

The money in the president's budget is not enough to follow through with NASA's Constellation moon landing plan initiated by President George W. Bush. An aide to an elected official who was told of Obama's plans, but who asked that his name not be used because of the sensitivity of the discussions, said Obama is effectively ending the return-to-the-moon effort, something that has already cost $9.1 billion. [...] Obama is adopting the preferred option of a White House-appointed outside panel of experts last year. That concept includes reliance on a commercial spaceship, a space station that functions for five more years than planned, and a "flexible path" for human space exploration. That might mean trips to a nearby asteroid, a Martian moon or a brief visit to the moon, instead of the Bush plan for a moon base by the end of the decade. [...] So far NASA has spent $3.5 billion on Ares I and $3.7 billion on Orion and nearly $2 billion on other moon mission work.

I'm deeply disappointed that a president who finds billions of dollars for trains in California, Illinois and Florida (trains!) can't find billions for the U.S. space program, a proven investment. At a time when other countries have announced (and funded) ambitious manned space programs (and Moon programs) the U.S. is leaving the field. Quitting the game. Didn't Obama just say yesterday that he wasn't a quitter? What a difference a day makes.

Water Discovered on the Moon

NASA announced today that analysis of the LCROSS mission data has revealed the presence of large amounts of water on the Moon. The New York Times headline read "Satellite Found Water on Moon, Researchers Say" and an avalanche of positive news coverage followed. By the end of the day even Google got into the act with a special image on their search page celebrating the discovery. Since the Augustine Committee's gloomy assessment last month of the prospects for a continued manned space program it has seemed that all the momentum for the Vision for Space Exploration had dissipated. Now, thanks to LCROSS and this amazing discovery, I hope that the vision to return to the Moon and stay there will again gain support in political circles. We find money in our national budget for all kinds of things and we spend more on them than we do on NASA, and yet NASA can make sure that humanity isn't just a one-planet wonder. With the world under threat from climate change, asteroid impacts, and the vagaries of Mayan calendar, isn't that worth investing in?

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Ares Soars

Finally some good news from NASA:

For first time since 1981, the rocket that took off Wednesday from a launching pad at the Kennedy Space Center here was not a space shuttle. With a clearing in a partly cloudy sky, the Ares I-X rocket — a prototype of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s next-generation Ares I rocket — zipped off at 11:30 a.m., heading east over the Atlantic Ocean. [...] For the NASA team working on the Constellation program to send astronauts to the Moon and beyond, the flight was a moment of smiles and joy, if not quite vindication. Critics have described the Ares I, which would be the first Constellation rocket to fly, as too expensive and technically flawed.

A successful launch is great news, but this comes at a time when the entire manned space program is under review. I'd like to feel good about this launch but I don't. The political winds are turning against NASA. Where are NASA's supporters in Congress? Who is speaking out for the U.S. space program? It's all about to be shut down, thousands thrown out of work, and expertise and skills lost that can't be quickly recovered. The U.S. is on the verge of sitting out the next stage of the space race just as other countries are starting to ramp up their efforts. I'm at a loss to explain it.

Photo Credit: The New York Times

NASA Succeeds & Fails With Lunar Probes

I hope that someone at NASA realizes that no matter how successful the data analysis portion of the LCROSS experiment proves to be, they really dropped the ball here. NASA finally engaged the public in a meaningful way, built up expectations, and then failed to deliver. When you promise the people a spectacle, you should first deliver a spectacle, and then do the science in the background. I know there seems to be no good answer. If NASA doesn't promote the missions, the public loses interest and politicians sense they can cut funding without repercussions. But if NASA oversells a mission and then fails to deliver on the promise of spectacular imagery, then the public is disappointed and the overall program loses credibility. Let's hope that significant amounts of water vapor will be discovered in the invisible plume to make it all worthwhile.

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Slamming Into The Moon

NASA's LCROSS impactor will slam into a crater on the moon's south pole Friday morning in search of signs of water and this MSNBC video is providing some background for the viewing public:

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Water on the Moon!

What an amazing week this was for lunar news, the headlines screamed: Water on the Moon!! Ok, no, they didn't. I know that reporters really wanted to use that headline, it's catchy, after all, but their editors had to pull them back into more restrained (or worse) headlines, like this one from the AP: It's not lunacy, probes find water in moon dirt. This is a perfect example of how the mainstream news media is challenged by science reporting. They want the short sensational headline and more often than not, science does not fit the required format. Yes, water has been discovered on the Moon. No, it's not pools of standing water, it's not even chunks of ice. The story required a bit of background, some science facts, some explanation, maybe lots of explanation, all before you get to the punch line: this is very good news for the human development of lunar bases. But even there, once we get to that point in the story, we have to provide the usual scientific disclaimer: more study is needed. We don't know how much water is on the moon, exactly where it is, or how concentrated or dispersed it is, and the answers to those questions will take more time, more study, and hopefully some hand-on investigation. So even if we didn't get Water on the Moon!! as a headline, we did get the following:

• MSNBC - Back to the lunar future?
• MSNBC - Moon water findings are a game-changer
• MSNBC - Prospect of moon ice spurs excitement
• New York Times - In Surprise, Moon Shows Signs of Water
  
• Time - Water on the Moon Buoys India's Space Program
• ABC News - Big Splash: How Water on the Moon Was Found
• Space - Moon Water: A Game-Changing Discovery
  

Photo Credit: ABC News

Signs the Vision is Doomed?

This MSNBC video continues the pessimistic note I sounded in my last post, suggesting that the committee reviewing the space program is on the verge of abandoning the Vision for Space Exploration (Moon, Mars & Beyond) due to budget cuts:

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Post-Apollo Blues

 

I've been doing a bit of traveling, so I apologize for the lack of posts. It's not due to a lack of interest, just a lack of time. I was actually out of the country last month during the anniversary of the Apollo landing and I really regretted that at the time. I say "at the time" because I'm not really sure I would have wanted to witness the media overload on all things Apollo when we are apparently at a moment when our country is about to turn against the ambitious plan George W. Bush put into place to return us to the Moon and then go on to Mars. Instead of signing on to this plan and providing for it in the budget (which would have been by far the easiest thing to do in political terms), President Obama created a non-partisan committee to provide recommendations on how NASA should go forward. Early indications are that this panel is charting a course away from the Moon, Mars and Beyond vision, at least according to this report in The New York Times:

A panel examining the future of the United States' human spaceflight program will suggest that the Obama administration may want to skip the part about landing on other worlds. That could, panel members said Thursday, enable the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to send astronauts to more corners of the solar system more quickly while keeping within a limited budget. But it would also eliminate the possibility of astronauts leaving new iconic footprints on the Moon or Mars for a couple of decades.

I can't deny that it makes sense for a new president to ask for an impartial assessment and to carefully examine options before going forward, but students of politics and history know that presidents create special committes and commissions when they need political cover to make unpopular decisions. And since there was little need for political cover to continue with the Vision as originally outlined, I can only conclude that massive changes are afoot and that Change Has Come to NASA, but it won't be anything like we expected. Do I sound pessimistic? I am. I think the writing is on the wall, and the likelihood of Americans standing on the Moon or Mars in the next 20 years has greatly diminished. I'd like very much to be wrong and for the committee to conclude that an ambitious and vigorous human space exploration program is warranted, but I don't see that as the likely outcome. Why can't we just fund the Vision for Space Exploration and call it a bailout? After all, it's worth far more to us in the long-term than cash-for-clunkers.

Apollo 11 Anniversary

As the anniversary of the moon landing approaches, I recommend Space.Com's coverage in which they ponder THE MOON: Then, Now, Next:

Forty years after Apollo 11 astronauts first set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, SPACE.com examines what we've done since and whether America has the right stuff to get back to the moon by 2020 and reach beyond. In a series of never-before-seen video and interviews, you'll hear from the brave men who went and the people who shape the space industry today.

I like that the coverage is balanced between looking back at the amazing achievement of the lunar landings and looking forward to going back to the Moon and the future of the U.S. space program.

Alternative Lunar Plan Proposed

The panel reviewing NASA's plans to return us to the Moon and then go on to Mars recently heard a proposal from within NASA that would dramatically change the plan. The alternative plan is based on the space shuttle hardware, infrastructure and personnel, and promises a cheaper and faster path to the Moon than the present Constellation program. This AP report provides all the details, but check out the amazingly negative way the report is introduced:

Like a car salesman pushing a luxury vehicle that the customer no longer can afford, NASA has pulled out of its back pocket a deal for a cheaper ride to the moon. It won't be as powerful, and its design is a little dated. Think of it as a base-model Ford station wagon instead of a tricked-out Cadillac Escalade. Officially, the space agency is still on track with a 4-year-old plan to spend $35 billion to build new rockets and return astronauts to the moon in several years. However, a top NASA manager is floating a cut-rate alternative that costs around $6.6 billion. This cheaper option is not as powerful as NASA's current design with its fancy new rockets, the people-carrying Ares I and cargo-lifting Ares V. But the cut-rate plan would still get to the moon.

From what I've read, the alternative plan (the Shannon plan, formally called the Shuttle-Derived Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle) has merit, but making the plan sound like a used car (that could be a lemon) hardly does NASA any favors. At any rate, you can learn more about the alternative plan in this YouTube video:

Introducing the Constellation Program

NASA provides an overview of the Constellation program in this video:

Obama Nominates NASA Chief

I've been trying to catch up on news and events after being away for the Memorial Day holiday weekend, and it appears that President Obama has nominated former astronaut Charles Bolden to be the next NASA administrator. I'm glad that Obama as finally moved to fill this important position, but I'm dismayed that they waited to announce this over the holiday weekend. It has long been the practice of governments (any administration really) to announce bad news late in the day on a Friday or over a weekend, so as to minimize the impact on public opinion, on the assumption that weekends will call the public away from the news, the internet, the TV, etc. As this is not bad news, I'm a bit confused about why the Obama team would announce this over a holiday weekend. Why not wait a few days and announce it during the week when the usual news cycle can fully explore the issue?

The CNET news report can be found here, and CBS News has a report here. This MSNBC video has additional details on the background of the nominee:

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NASA Budget Announced

The budget news out of Washington is not good. President Obama's budget proposal has put the entire Constellation program and the Vision for Space Exploration - Moon, Mars & Beyond - on hold. They plan to fund current operations and the development costs for Ares and Orion, but the project review suggests that the future of the program may be in doubt. According to CNET News:

The Obama administration's fiscal 2010 NASA budget request includes $630 million in additional near-term funding for development of follow-on rockets and spacecraft needed for the agency's post-shuttle moon program, officials said Thursday. But most of the increase is from the administration's economic stimulus package, and projections through 2013 show a $3.1 billion reduction in overall funding for the program compared with 2009 projections. Unveiling NASA's $18.7 billion 2010 budget on Thursday, acting Administrator Chris Scolese said the Obama administration had ordered an independent review of NASA's plans to replace the space shuttle with a combination of manned and unmanned Ares rockets, Apollo-style Orion capsules, and lunar landers needed to establish research stations on the moon by the early 2020s. The new rockets are the central elements of what NASA calls the Constellation program.

This suggests to me that President Obama has not prioritized space exploration and that the ambitious program to return to the Moon and go on to Mars may be dramatically scaled back or even eliminated. Is it possible that the U.S. will no longer have a shuttle program or a next generation spacecraft ready to follow the shuttle? In this budgetary environment, I guess anything is possible.

Obama Ignoring NASA?

This report from the Orlando Sentinel details fears that the plans to return to the Moon are in danger:

NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are quietly being revised and are in danger of slipping past 2020. In meetings over the last few weeks at Kennedy Space Center, agency managers have told employees and contractors that they are delaying the first lunar launch of the Ares V rocket -- a cargo hauler slated to be the most powerful rocket ever built -- by two years. NASA's internal plans had called for Ares V to go to the moon in 2018, though the agency had announced a public goal of 2020. Internal deadlines are used by NASA to keep programs on track and to provide a margin of error for developmental problems. But because of growing budget woes, the agency is resetting its internal date to 2020. And privately, engineers say that means the public 2020 date to send humans back to the moon is in deepening trouble.

Ok, so quick recap: President Obama has not yet named the new NASA Administrator, who will have to make important decisions soon on whether to continue the shuttle program or move along with the Constellation program as planned, and lacking any direction, NASA will proceed on autopilot based on the Bush plan. I think that is an accurate recap of what is shaping up to be a very suspenseful, and no doubt stressful, time at NASA.

Orion Makes a Splash on the Mall

Many Americans who are not in the space community are getting their first look at the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle. NASA displayed a full-scale model of the vehicle on the National Mall yesterday so people could get up close and personal with the craft that will take us back to the Moon in 2020. Here is a roundup of national media coverage of the event:

CNN - Orion space capsule previewed on National Mall

Reuters - US unveils Orion spacecraft to take crew to Mars

Chicago Tribune - Preview of the Orion crew exploration vehicle

DVICE - Orion spacecraft mockup shows up in Washington

Aviation Week - NASA Prepares Orion Test

io9 - First Look at the Spacecraft That Will Take Humans to Mars

Wall Street Journal - Hard Times on Earth Inspire Some to Look to the Stars

Photo: Straits Times