President Obama's $3.8 trillion budget cuts back on a lot of things...including the Ares and Orion rockets that were supposed to return America to the Moon.
President Obama’s proposed $3.8 billion federal budget is a massive, complicated document, but according to administration officials the budget contains no funding for NASA’s Ares I, Ares 5, and Orion space vehicles, which had been intended to replace the soon-to-be-completely retired Space Shuttle fleet and return America to the Moon by 2020.
The last manned mission to the Moon was Apollo 17 in 1972. A return to the Moon with an eye towards establishing a permanent base was part of former president George W. Bush’s plan for expanded space exploration.
Under the Constellation program, astronauts would make it to the moon in the Orion space vehicle, which uses that can loosely be describes as a larger version of the original Apollo vehicles. Orion would be powered by the Ares 5 launch vehicle, which would be a rocket on a scale of the famous Saturn 5s that powered the Apollo program; the smaller Ares 1 are intended for smaller payloads and orbital insertions, such as missions to support the International Space Station (ISS).
Instead of manned lunar missions, President Obama wants NASA to concentrate on supporting the ISS and other earth-orbit projets; Obama’s plan also calls on NASA to outsource launches and other systems and operations to private space contractors to save money. Key players in such outsourcing plans would likely be aerospace and defense giants like Boeing.
The cancellation of the Constellation program is not yet a done deal; after all, Congress must first approve the proposed federal budget. A good deal of engineering and design effort has already been expended on the Constellation program, and representatives from states that would be impacted by the budgets cuts are sure to put up a fight to keep high-paid engineering jobs in their districts. The decision to end Constellation funding may also turn into a political hot potato: with the retirement of the shuttle fleet and no replacement launch vehicle ready to go, Russian Soyuz craft will be the only launch vehicles capable of reaching the ISS.
Image credits: NASA
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RSSAfter reading today's headlines, it seems pretty official: The guillotine's blade is falling and Ares' neck is in its path. I cannot fathom the lack of foresight in this decision by our President and his advisers. Outsourcing launches?!! We're in the middle of a global financial crisis, and they expect constant up-and-down companies like Boeing to be capable of bailing us out and fund the launches? Hey, why not ask Chrysler, Circuit City and Washington Mutual to chip in too? Maybe a NASA bake sale?
This proposed cancellation will affect us all on many levels, none of which will be positive. On a personal note, if this goes through congress my uncle, my brother in law, as well as a number of close friends of mine will be out of jobs within the month. My state's economy will also take a HUGE hit for this, as ATK employs thousands of people in Utah alone. Our legislators are generally too disconnected with reality to be of any help to us in this regard. Thanks Obama administration. Way to think it through. Jobs for all, eh? I guess your new American Dream model should include job search websites and unemployment lines. And a 6B parting gift is such a pathetic way to cut off the livelihood of tens of thousands of people. it won't even begin cover the debts you owe them for all the work they have done for you. That's such a low blow to offer little more than a severance package and say they should feel happy.
I agree that we shouldn't be wasting money right now. I really do. My family and I have cut back in many ways, and I'm now grateful for the less indulgent life we lead. I also don't think it to be of excessive benefit to spend billions of dollars to go to Mars, for example. I don't see the need to spend that when there are so many problems closer to home. But there are many important things upon which we should be spending the money, and NASA and the space programs are the key to them. These paltry low-orbit rockets simply cannot do the entire job for us. That leads me to ask myself what benefits are there to funding the space program? Is the space program really is such a waste of money? NO, it is not. We owe a LOT to the space program. It does SO much for us behind the scenes, and NASA, ATK , Boeing and the lot of them never get thanked for it.
Example:
How will millions of US citizens view their most-sacred Super Bowl game this Sunday? NASA's 'waste of money' satellites! People said that it was a waste to send up satellites back then. They didn't see the point in what they could only see as 'poking around out there,' but now they're pretty glad it came out the way it did, aren't they? So are the grocery stores that will stuff them with beer and bean dip during the game. So are the gas stations that see an increase in revenue as they fill the tanks of those that go to friends' houses to watch the game. So will the power companies for powering our flat screen TVs to watch the game. The list goes on and on.
See? The space program affects literally EVERY ASPECT of what we do today, but we stop it short. We don't make the connection to what they do and what we do. We say that they're just wasting money, floating around up there, doing somersaults and eating strange, chalky ice cream. A little narrow-minded, don't you think?
On a more serious note, let's say we need to repair one of our nation's many defense satellites. We depend on these things on a minute-to-minute basis for the safety of our favorite silvery-tongued President Obama, as well as every one of us U.S. citizens. Pretty important things, right? You bet they are. With the current shuttle program canned, and now Ares too, what's next? How will we get up there if we need to repair them? How much will China or Russia charge us to 'hitch a ride' into space on their sketchy spacecraft? If we have to work on our top-secret orbiting security systems, will we just tell the Russian or Chinese astronauts that gave us a ride up there to 'um, look the other way' for a few days while we tinker with our equipment? How about if we need to launch a new system altogether? Will we ask them ever so politely not to open the large package, and to please send it into space without looking at it, touching it or asking questions? I'm not being paranoid at all with this. I don't subscribe the Red/Yellow Scare pandemics of the past. I want a peaceful world where we could all give our complete trust to others. But we all must admit that we are in rather perilous times in regard to world relationships. We're not too popular at the moment, if you haven't noticed. This isn't a political soapbox. I'm just stating the facts.
Just wait and see; It will be far more costly in the long run for us to cut this program out. But hey, as long as we're good for the moment, everything's great, right? Recycling, Gerry Garcia and the Toyota Prius will save the world for our childrens' childrens' children, right? By cutting this program, you are doing all that stuff for nothing. You are screwing the future generations you purport to care about so deeply. On this track, we'll all have a beautiful green, eco-friendly, Avatar nation where we all sit around, read Chomsky, listen to Radiohead and get beat on and conquered by all the more technologically advanced countries that didn't cut the funding to their future.
Bravo.