December 2, 2008. Copyright 2008, Graphic News. All rights reserved

NASA’s new moonship decision in Obama’s hands


LONDON, December 2, Graphic News:  When President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January, he will need to decide whether to stick to the countdown to retire the ageing space shuttle in 2010 or extend its life. 

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has flagged shuttle replacement as one of the 13 most pressing issues the new administration must address -- a decision that will have major implications for the future of U.S. space exploration.

Deciding the fate of the shuttle is particularly time-sensitive. “NASA has already begun the process of shutting down production and transitioning people, equipment and resources to new endeavours,” says GAO director of acquisition and sourcing management Cristina Chaplain. If the White House decides to fly more shuttle missions, it could impact how quickly NASA can move forward with a shuttle replacement, set to be ready to fly by March 2015.

Assuming a 2010 shuttle phaseout, this will mean a five-year gap before its Constellation replacement is ready for manned flights. During the interim, astronauts will have to hitch rides to the International Space Station on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

The Constellation programme is a system of rockets and capsules which, according to GAO officials, could ultimately cost $230 billion over the next two decades, 10 times more than NASA has budgeted.

Constellation’s twin Ares launchers, Orion crew and service modules and Altair lunar lander were the centrepiece of President George W. Bush’s 2004 Vision for Space Exploration, announced in the aftermath of the 2003 shuttle Columbia disaster. Bush called on NASA to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 and target more distant destinations such as Mars.

To keep costs to acceptable levels the moonship and its Ares launchers will rely on components of the space shuttle, Apollo-era Saturn V rocket and existing Delta IV launcher.

Coupled with extended versions of the shuttle’s solid fuel boosters, the Ares V cargo launch vehicle will use a modified shuttle external tank to power five Rocketdyne RS-68 heavy-lift engines.

Its second stage will utilise a Rocketdyne J-2X engine, fuelled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, developed from the 1960s Saturn V’s J-2.

Boosted to low-Earth orbit by an Ares I launcher -- again utilizing an extended shuttle solid fuel engine and J-2X -- Orion will be similar in shape to the Apollo spacecraft, but significantly larger, accommodating four crew members on missions to the moon, and six on missions to the International Space Station.

During the election campaign Obama promised an extra $2 billion to shorten the gap between the retirement of the shuttle fleet and readiness of the Ares I rocket and Orion crew capsule.

Now the Obama transition team faces a seemingly impossible balancing act between the financial crisis America is now facing, and the costs of a comprehensive national strategy on space that many see as a vital investment in the future of the United States.
/ENDS