On March 15, 2007, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told members of the House Committee on Science and Technology that the Chinese space program could land a person on the Moon's surface within a decade. Under current projections, a NASA mission to land on the Moon would not take place until 2019 at the earliest.

With that said, there seems to be serious conflicts between NASA and the White House, and with the House Committee on Science and Technology (HCST) stuck in the middle. Will these conflicts be resolved so that manned and unmanned space exploration can safety and effectively continue into the future?

According to a press release from HCST chairman Bart Gordon there has been a “mismatch” between resources (that is, money provided by the federal government) and tasks (programs to be carried out by NASA) in the 2008 Budget.

As quoted from the HCST news release titled “NASA’s “Lean” Budgetary Outlook Will Have Wide-Ranging Impact on Agency Programs” (http://science.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=1724), Gordon sites these major problems:

1. A continued failure by the Administration to seek the level of funding that they said NASA would need to carry out the exploration initiative and its other core activities. In the three years since the President announced his exploration initiative, the White House has cut

2. NASA’s five-year budget plan by a total of $2.26 billion.
An estimated shortfall of $924 million in International Space Station (ISS) crew and cargo services funding— a shortfall that will have to be made up.

3. Failure to include funds to address Space Shuttle program termination and retirement costs past FY 2010—although NASA concedes there will be additional costs.

4. No funding for the required upgrade of the aging Deep Space Network—though NASA says it will need to start funding it in FY 2009.

5. A reduction in the amount of Space Shuttle reserves available to address remaining Shuttle program threats during the remaining missions.

6. Almost no funding to initiate the series of new missions recommended by the National Academies’ Earth Science Decadal Survey.

7. Deferring a significant amount of research due to be done on the ISS and providing no grounds for optimism that the research will be adequately funded prior to NASA’s planned withdrawal from the ISS program.

8. An underfunding of NASA’s aeronautics program.

9. Cuts to NASA’s long-term exploration technology program. (Elimination of NASA’s lunar robotic program – the precursor program for its human lunar initiative after just one mission has flown.)

Griffin responds to HCST members by saying [with BOLDS to highlight]: “NASA has many challenges ahead of us, but we are on track and making progress in managing these challenges.”

Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee Chairman Mark Udall responds: “I don’t fault you [Dr. Griffin] for attempting to prioritize within a hopelessly inadequate budget. But we in Congress have to step back and consider whether the Administration’s approach to the nation’s civil space and aeronautics R&D enterprise is credible and supported by the needed resources.”

Chairman Gordon states: “I think it’s clear we have a budgetary situation that bears little resemblance to the rosy projections offered by the Administration when the President announced his ‘Vision for Space Exploration’ three years ago – a vision that is now growing increasingly blurred. I will not kid you that it’s going to be easy to get the funding you are asking for in this year’s request, especially if the White House remains disengaged.”

To conclude, here is a quote from NASA Administrator Griffin at a March 30, 2006 Hearing of the Science, The Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee (http://www.boulder.swri.edu/frs/House%20SSJC%20Approps%20NASA%20FY07%20Budget%2003-30-06%20Transcript.doc):

Put simply, human space flight is today one of those strategic capabilities that define a nation as a superpower. Other great nations aspire to this capability and have achieved it or will. Our once surpassing command of this arena has vanished. Other nations will go to the moon and beyond. They will not go because we did, nor will they remain at home if we do. They will go to the moon because it is a necessary first step in becoming a true space faring nation.

International cooperation leavened by a healthy dose of competition is what makes America the greatest country in the world. The ultimate goal of this vision is not to impress others or even merely to explore the moon, but rather to advance U.S. scientific, security and economic interests through leadership in the grandest expression of human imagination of which we can conceive. And as we do so, I believe we will find that NASA's greatest contribution to American competitiveness is to motivate students to study mathematics, science and engineering as they aspire to work with us on the toughest technical challenge our nation can undertake. At NASA, technical competence is not optional.

Will we as a nation (whether that country be the United States, England, Australia, or any other democratic nation in the world) work together to accomplish important goals to assure our freedoms and the freedoms of all peoples around the world? Will we put aside personal biases and individual aspirations and learn that the good of the country should also be for the good of all of the people all of the time? We will learn that steady “turtle” progress will usually win the race over “rabbit-like” stop-and-go techniques? Will we ever learn that the future of any country is grounded in basic education, health, and safety and that all endeavors and challenges and discoveries need to be made honestly, effectively, accurately, logically, and with a vision of both the near and far? Will we?

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NASA  Research  Science  Space  Space Shuttle  Space Station  William Atkins