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VIRTUALISATION U.S. civilian, military space programs may work together
VIRTUALISATION U.S. civilian, military space programs may work together | U.S. civilian, military space programs may work together |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Monday, 05 January 2009 | |
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Obstructions currently exist that prevent NASA and the DOD from working together on many important space-based projects. If these political walls are removed, then the two federal agencies will be able to work together more efficiently. Such a cooperative effort could very likely speed up the time necessary to transition from the retiring Space Transportation System (STS)—the space shuttle fleet—and the new Project Constellation—the Orion space capsule and Ares rocket. Currently, there is a five-year gap from the retirement year of the space shuttle (2010) and the start of operations of the manned Orion (2015). Consideration for such a joint effort has been motivated due to the expensive cost and length of time to build new rockets to lift people and cargo into space. The Obama transition team have cited the possibility of eliminating further development of the Ares rocket being built by NASA and, instead, replace them with the U.S. Pentagon’s Delta IV or Atlas V rockets. Both DOD rockets are much further along in their development and less expensive to develop. According to the January 2, 2009 Bloomberg article “Obama Moves to Counter China With Pentagon-NASA Link (Update1),” John Logsdon, who has discussed the joint effort with the Obama transition team, stated, “No one really has a firm idea what NASA’s cost savings might be, but the military’s launch vehicles are basically developed. You don’t have to build them from scratch.” Page two contains another concern by the United States with respect to the defense of the nation. |
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