NASA's future

Next Friday was due to see the final shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, until a systems failure on the telescope made the astronaut’s repair job much more difficult, and put the shuttle launch off until early next year. Problems in the telescope -- and in the ageing space shuttle sent to fix it -– have once again highlighted the future path of the organization, which turned 50 on October 1. As one article notes, NASA is acting like humans of a similar age: it is questioning its place in the world and its choice of partners, and is thinking hard about acquiring new forms of transport.

The Shuttle’s replacement, the Orion capsule and the Ares rocket it sits on, are not likely to become operational until 2014 -– and may be delayed, despite their comparatively low-tech design based on Saturn rockets. The Shuttle, meanwhile, is due to retire in 2010, leaving the United States dependent on Russian Soyuz launches in the mean time to resupply the International Space Station (ISS). The shuttle’s lifespan could be extended (beating the nationalist drum, both US Presidential candidates have supported such a course of action) but this will be costly, and despite candidates suggesting extra funds other programmes might have to be cannibalised.

Given the scale and complexity of the programmes whose budget might be cut -- nothing less than a return to the moon and exploration of other planets, the centrepiece of plans for the organization -- NASA is not pleased with developments. In an –email leaked to a Florida newspaper, NASA chief Mike Griffin complained of the ‘jihad’ by White House budget drafters against the Shuttle programme, jeopardising a continued US presence on the ISS.

A decision on the shuttle has to be taken soon -- despite a bill passed by Congress forbidding NASA to take action which would prevent a future president from extending the shuttle’s lifespan, contractors are already readying themselves for a shutdown -- one factory which builds fuel tanks for the space shuttle in New Orleans has already begun laying off staff. Orbiters from rival nations and even private firms are under development which challenge the rational for the Ares rocket, just as the Federal government faces immense extra demands on its spending power (the Bill on NASA’s future specifies a greater role for private contractors in moon efforts). In the end, it might be rival efforts by nations such as China in the decades to come that motivates extra space spending. It takes a space race to get space explored.