Space

Speaking to students in Wenatchee, Wash. -- Newberry Elementary School

I joined the Association of Space Explorers after my third shuttle flight in 1996. This past week in Seattle, astronauts and cosmonauts from around the world met in Seattle to discuss space exploration, education, and planetary stewardship. Our technical sessions dealt with human space exploration, astronaut observations of Earth and its geological links to our neighboring worlds, health for long-duration spaceflight, fundamental research on the space station, and the latest developments in world space programs, including the NASA effort to return to the Moon with Ares and Orion. My talks dealt with how astronauts contribute to the science of Planetology with their Earth-orbital observations, and opportunities to journey deep into space with astronaut voyages to nearby asteroids.

Our community day activities brought 50 space fliers to schools all over the State of Washington, reaching 42,000 students, all of whom had a chance to meet and ask questions of a space traveler. My visits took me to four elementary schools in Wenatchee, where I addressed 1,800 future explorers, aged 5 to 11.

The week of September 22 brings a few of those space travelers together with our ASE Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation, for final edits to our decision-making document, “Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response.” We will complete our document, sign it, and submit our work to the United Nations for debate and adoption of an international program to prevent future asteroid impacts on Earth. The Association of Space Explorers’ theme of planetary stewardship is the impetus behind this effort to use our space technology and international cooperation in space to prepare for a future threat from a Near Earth Object.

Of course, while in Seattle I didn’t miss the opportunity to sign copies of “Hell Hawks!“, at the Seattle Museum of Flight, a great venue for this aerial band of brothers story about a heroic group of Thunderbolt pilots.

NASA finds itself in a terrible dilemma. It has cash enough only to fund shuttle ops through 2010. The administration and Congress have flatlined NASA’s budget and so the new Orion cannot appear sooner than 2015. We will rely totally on Russian Soyuz transport to the ISS after 2011, and Congress has not even granted authority for NASA to purchase those services. Russia now seems a shaky partner to entrust with the key to the space station for 4+ years. Yet that is the prospect.

Mike Griffin’s latest interview is technically astute: we need to retire shuttle to free up funds to build and test Orion. There seems little prospect Congress will bump up the budget top line. A new administration will have a stark choice: surrender US access to ISS by relying solely on Russia, or keep flying the shuttle, which is risky to crews and will eat up the funds for Orion and other major NASA programs. A new administration may decide to choose the short term expedient of keeping shuttle flying, and not increase the NASA budget. Result — long-term disaster. We would squeeze Orion and delay its debut, defer the heavy Ares V cargo rocket and the Altair lander, and essentially delete the deep-space goals set for NASA by the administration and Congress in 2004.

Such a move would guarantee that the US will surrender leadership in human spaceflight, expressing a lack of will to keep Americans on the exploration frontier. The only solution I see is to educate a new administration that maintaining US leadership in space will now be expensive, the result of four years of fiscal neglect. The NASA budget will have to be increased if we are to maintain Americans on the station, and yet accelerate Orion to minimize our reliance on a risky Russian monopoly.

The question: will our leaders care?

Association of Space Explorers — Exploration and Planetary Stewardship

Extending the Space Shuttle