Why Obama is missing out on a chance to correct a Bush era error in not keeping the shuttle fleet alive.
Multiple news outlets are reporting that President Obama will essentially announce the end of American manned space flight tomorrow at the Kennedy Space Center for at least the next eight years..
The New York Times writes:
NASA’s budget — $18.7 billion this year — consumes a 0.5 percent sliver of the federal budget. Under Mr. Obama’s plans, NASA would receive slightly more next year — $19 billion next year — but, in canceling Constellation, much of the money would be moved away from human spaceflight to other programs like Earth science and aeronautics.
According to the reports Obama will spend increase NASA's budget by $5 billion over the next couple of years, but most of it will stop NASA from pursuing the next generation of shuttle technology and shift NASA's outlook to more of an observatory and aircraft R&D center to create green jets. Basically the only organizations capable of lifting men into space after Obama gets his way will be Russia, China and Richard Branson, which to me is totally and completely unacceptable.
I'm not entirely sure how this will work but Obama wants to cancel Project Constellation, a Bush proposal to return to the moon by 2020, and replace it with a new project that will somehow get us airborne two years earlier. Basically what it means that the government will choose a new heavy lifter booster in 2015 that would be built by 2018, and would begin carrying the Orion capsule to space. Originally Obama proposed killing this program completely but after a good amount of outrage has apparently back tracked.
The problem for me is we we won't have capacity to launch men into orbit for at least 8 years, probably longer. This doesn't make any sense to me when at least one shuttle has a decade left of service in it.
Endeavour was built in 1998 and has flown 24 missions. Discovery was built in 1984 and has flown 37 missions, is currently aloft and orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes or so.
Since Discovery is still fit to fly despite being 14 years older than Endeavour its is logical to conclude that Endeavour could continue to fly at least another five years and safely perform at least 10 more missions, if not 15 or more. The shuttles were originally designed to make 100 flights, so they are in no way nearing the end of their operational life.
Under Obama's plans we would stop at the end of the year and not have the capacity to launch men into space until 2018 at the earliest, which makes no sense when you consider Endeavour has at least 10 more years of operational life left in her, plenty of time to build some of the next-gen designs we have been developing for the last 20 years.
Without shuttles we won't have the capacity to pull off Hubble-like fixes, or loft major payloads to the space station. Yes with the advent of the ISS we don't need a heavy-duty shuttle as much anymore, but we still need man-carry spacecraft, even if we do use the Russians for most of the ferrying to the space station.
There are existing plans that use the latest off-the shelf technology that could build a new shuttle fleet in under five years. According to Kenysian economics we have to spend money, so why not spend money on this.
I get that for Obama destroying Constellation is another way of pissing on President Bush's legacy, but to step away from maned space exploration is a step in the wrong direction. Space travel can inspire a nation in ways little else can, and who knows what kind of new technology will be found as we press towards Mars and Jupiter.
I think he's doing it in large part to continue his war on Republican strong holds. Obama hasn't cut much from the budget but what he has disproportionally hits red states and counties. The F-22 was centered in Cobb County, one of the larges, most active and highest contributing Republican counties in Georgia. Kennedy Space Center, which would effected the most is in strongly Republican Brevard County, the Marshall Space Flight Center is in Huntsville, another Republican stronghold and the Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas. All three of those facilities stand to take a hit, its almost if Obama is specifically targeting programs that support Republican communities.