Re: NASA Rushing To Mars As Per Bush's Policy
From: A Brick in the Wall (NoSpam_at_NoThanks.com)
Date: 02/22/05
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Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2005 17:53:09 -0500
"Steven L." <sdlitvin@earthlinkNOSPAM.net> wrote in message
news:ccKSd.8705$x53.1467@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> NASA rushes plan to send humans to moon, Mars, despite doubts
>
> By ROBERT S. BOYD
> Knight Ridder Newspapers
>
> WASHINGTON - NASA is racing to carry out President Bush's costly vision of
> sending humans back to the moon and then on to Mars - despite the federal
> budget squeeze and doubts in Congress and the scientific community about
> the plan's wisdom.
>
> Even some of the project's allies are balking at its price tag and
> headlong pace.
>
> NASA is "trying to do too much at once," said Rep. Sherwood Boehlert,
> R-N.Y., chairman of the House Science Committee, a strong supporter of the
> space agency. He protested that NASA is "barreling ahead" even though
> Congress "has never endorsed - in fact, never even discussed - the
> vision."
>
> "I think NASA is headed for a potential train wreck," warned Rep. Bart
> Gordon, D-Tenn., the committee's senior Democrat, who worried that the
> Moon-Mars plan is gobbling up funds for other scientific ventures.
>
> Even some space agency officials are expressing concern. The cost and
> complexities of the Moon-Mars project make this "a time for sobering up,"
> Michael Meyer, NASA's lead scientist for Mars exploration, told a
> committee of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this month.
>
> It's been a little over a year since Bush announced "The President's
> Vision for U.S. Space Exploration," but the space agency has already
> awarded 118 preliminary contracts for the project. It's requesting fresh
> ideas from industry and universities in order to launch a large new
> spaceship, called the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), three years from
> now.
>
> The $15 billion CEV is supposed to take over from today's aging fleet of
> space shuttles and carry astronauts "to the moon, Mars and beyond," as
> NASA officials like to say.
>
> By this summer, two aerospace teams will be chosen to construct competing
> prototypes of the CEV. A final version will by chosen by the end of 2006,
> and the first unmanned flight is scheduled for 2008.
>
> "To meet the president's timeline, we need to start technology development
> now," said Craig Steidle, a retired admiral who heads the agency's
> Exploration Systems Directorate. "There is urgency in the president's
> agenda."
>
> The administration has asked Congress for $3.2 billion for the second year
> of the Moon-Mars project. That's a 23 percent increase from its first-year
> kitty of $2.6 billion. Bush wants total NASA spending to grow just 2
> percent to $16.5 billion for the 2006 fiscal year, so other NASA programs
> are getting cut.
>
> The project enjoys a White House promise of increasing funds, totaling
> $20.3 billion over the next five years (through fiscal year 2010). Outlays
> surge thereafter, and NASA estimates that it will spend $100 billion on
> the project through 2020.
>
> "This is an absolute priority on the part of the president," White House
> Budget Director Joshua Bolten told congressional budgeteers last year. The
> project also enjoys the powerful support of House Majority Leader Tom
> DeLay, R-Texas, whose Houston district houses NASA's Johnson Space Flight
> Center.
>
> Meanwhile, scientists worry about the impact of the huge enterprise on
> other endeavors, such as astronomy, physics and climate change.
>
> The exploration project has already doomed plans to prolong the life of
> the successful Hubble Space Telescope. A mission to detect Earth-like
> planets around other stars has been postponed for two years, until 2012.
>
> Some space science missions have been delayed indefinitely, such as one to
> explore Jupiter's moon, Europa, which might support life beneath its icy
> surface, and another to study the mysterious "dark energy," a sort of
> anti-gravity, which is forcing the universe to expand.
>
> The National Academy of Sciences has called dark energy the most important
> question in physics and astronomy today. The Europa mission was the top
> priority of the astronomical community's 10-year plan adopted in 2001.
>
> A panel of academy experts, headed by Yale University astronomer Megan
> Urry, sent a letter to NASA, dated Feb. 14, stating that "the long-term
> impact (of the Moon-Mars project) on astronomy and astrophysics is not
> entirely clear, but short-term changes are already having an effect, and
> there are community concerns that serious problems lie ahead."
>
> In an analysis of Bush's science budget, the American Association for the
> Advancement of Science said the president's vision will "require steep
> cuts in aeronautics and earth science funding and the cancellation of a
> proposed Hubble servicing mission to pay for NASA's ambitious space
> exploration plans."
>
> "The goal of sending humans to Mars needs more definition," Meyer, NASA's
> Mars scientist, told the National Academy committee. "What are humans
> going to do on Mars? We have to protect Mars. Do we want to send
> astronauts with all their dead skin cells and bacteria? We don't want to
> contaminate the planet and replace possible extant life."
>
> On the Web:
>
> For more information, go to:
> http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/explore_main.html
>
> http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/nation/10956100.htm
>
> --
> Steven D. Litvintchouk
> Email: sdlitvin@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
>
> Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
>
Except the missiles fired for our "Star Wars" defense can't even get off the
ground ----
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