AAS Public Policy Blog

Various news outlets cover the final public meeting of the NASA Human space flight review. The general theme of the meeting – there’s not enough money to properly do exploration. From CNET:

A presidential panel wrapping up a review of future U.S. manned space flight options delivered a grim assessment Wednesday, showing NASA’s current plan to retire the shuttle, finish the space station and return to the moon by the early 2020s is not remotely feasible without a significant restoration of previously cut funding. In the absence of a major spending increase, “our view is that it will be difficult with the current budget to do anything that’s terribly inspiring in the human spaceflight area,” said Norman Augustine, chairman of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee.

And the NY Times:

The United States cannot afford to send humans anywhere beyond the space station — especially Mars — unless it wants to spend more money. “You just can’t get there,” Sally Ride, the former astronaut, said over and over again on Wednesday as she presented calculations of the costs and timetables of various proposed space missions, ranging from establishing a base on the Moon to touring asteroids to landing on Mars.

Here in Washington, the Norm Augustine-led human spaceflight review panel has a public meeting on Aug 12 at the Ronald Reagan Building.

1:00 to 5:00 p.m. Committee public deliberations: Discussion of final options Discussion of final report Discussion of close-out activities NASA Television will carry both meetings live on the agency’s media channel. The events may also be viewed on NASA’s Web site. Following the Aug. 12 meeting, committee chairman Norman Augustine will be available to answer questions from news media for approximately 30 minutes.

Further information is available at the NASA HQ website

Yesterday, NASA officially announced the members of human space flight review led by Norm Augustine. From the release:

• Norman Augustine (chair), retired chairman and CEO, Lockheed Martin Corp., and former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush
• Dr. Wanda Austin, president and CEO, The Aerospace Corp.
• Bohdan Bejmuk, chair, Constellation program Standing Review Board, and former manager of the Boeing Space Shuttle and Sea Launch programs
• Dr. Leroy Chiao, former astronaut, former International Space Station commander and engineering consultant
• Dr. Christopher Chyba, professor of Astrophysical Sciences and International Affairs, Princeton University, and member, President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
• Dr. Edward Crawley, Ford Professor of Engineering at MIT and co-chair, NASA Exploration Technology Development Program Review Committee
• Jeffrey Greason, co-founder and CEO, XCOR Aerospace, and vice-chair, Personal Spaceflight Federation
• Dr. Charles Kennel, chair, National Academies Space Studies Board, and director and professor emeritus, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
• Retired Air Force Gen. Lester Lyles, chair, National Academies Committee on the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program, former Air Force vice chief of staff and former commander of the Air Force Materiel Command
• Dr. Sally Ride, former astronaut, first American woman in space, CEO of Sally Ride Science and professor emerita at the University of California, San Diego

Norm Augustine has an editorial in this month’s Science (free registration required) in which he cites the Academies study Rising above the Gathering Storm and the need to properly fund science research. He has harsh words for the lack of funding for science:

After the U.S. Congress authorized funding to implement many of The Gathering Storm’s recommendations, the needed funds were lost in an impasse over the Appropriations Act. As a result, one leading national laboratory began to impose mandatory 2-day-per-month “unpaid holidays” on its science staff, several laboratories began laying off researchers, the U.S. portion of the international program to develop plentiful energy through nuclear fusion was reduced to “survival mode,” America’s firms continued to spend three times more on litigation than research, and many young would-be scientists presumably began reconsidering their careers. Meanwhile, a $3 trillion dollar federal budget was approved and a $152 billion dollar economic stimulus package (much of which is likely to be spent on products made in China) whisked through Congress along with 12,000 earmarks that found their way into the Appropriations Act.

The entire editorial can be read online here, but you must register with the AAAS to receive free online access to Science Magazine.