Launch It Quick, Before Obama Cancels It

NASA’s Ares 1-X Rocket: Space Shuttle Replacement?
Or Rocket to Nowhere? NASA Preps for Test, Though Obama Could Cancel Program

This isn’t your daddy’s space ship — but it is something your grandfather might recognize. The Ares 1-X rocket sitting on the launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center is ready to go, scheduled for launch Tuesday morning, if the weather holds.

It won’t go far on this trip, but NASA hopes it will eventually take astronauts beyond low Earth orbit and — someday — on to Mars.

This launch follows a less-than-wholehearted endorsement by the Augustine Commission, the presidential panel that spent this past year reviewing the future of the U.S. space program.

The Ares is supposed to replace the 30-year-old space shuttle, which is scheduled to quit flying by the end of 2011 after six more missions. Ares, the commission concluded, will cost too much and take too long to really be a practical replacement. The plan was to have it ready to fly by 2015, but 2017 is more realistic. NASA’s only option, meanwhile, to get astronauts to the space station is to buy seats on the Russian Soyuz.

Augustine Commission: NASA’s Plans ‘Unsustainable’

To get to the moon and then eventually go on to Mars will take much more money and technology than the U.S. space program has now, according to a report released today by an independent panel convened, at White House request, under former aerospace executive Norman Augustine.

The Augustine Commission made several recommendations today for NASA:

. . .

The panel said it might be an option to scrap the Ares 1 booster, and use other rockets instead.

See also:
Ares I-X Liftoff Set for Tomorrow Morning
Ares 1-X test flight cleared for launch Tuesday morning
NASA Unveils Ares 1-X Rocket for Historic Test Flight
The NASA Ares 1-X rocket is set for launch — but watch those clouds!
Will Weather Ground Ares 1-X Rocket Test Launch?
Nasa unveils Ares 1-X rocket amid doubts over future funding
Ares 1-X Rocket Scheduled To Launch
Obama Considering Ares Cancellation, Orion Scale Back
Obama May Cancel Space Shuttle Replacement
Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee
Ares I-X

So, we’ve got six more shuttle flights to go and Obama’s thinking of cancelling the replacement program. Priorities, Obama can spend a trillion dollars on Democrat pet projects and call it “stimulus”, but he can’t seem to finde a few billion dollars for NASA.

/be sure and watch tomorrow’s launch, future American space flight could become a rarity

Obama Says, No Moon For You!

NASA’s moon plan too ambitious, Obama panel says

NASA doesn’t have nearly enough money to meet its goal of putting astronauts back on the moon by 2020 — and it might be the wrong place to go, anyway. That’s one of the harsh messages emerging from a sweeping review of NASA’s human space flight program.

The Human Space Flight Plans Committee, appointed by President Barack Obama and headed by retired aerospace executive Norman Augustine, has been trying to stitch together some kind of plausible strategy for America’s manned space program. The panel has struggled to find options that stay under the current budget and include missions worthy of the cost and effort.

The committee members will meet with administration officials Friday and will report that there is no realistic way to get Americans back on the moon by the target date of 2020, which has been the agency’s goal since President George W. Bush signed off on the “Vision for Space Exploration” in 2004. Landing on the moon by 2020 would require such drastic budgetary maneuvers as de-orbiting the International Space Station — crashing it into the South Pacific — in 2016.

. . .

The “program of record” — NASA’s current strategy — has not fared well in the committee’s review. Former astronaut Sally Ride, a member of the panel, said the gap between NASA’s goals and its current budget totals roughly $50 billion by 2020. If the space station’s life is extended for five years, she said, the current budget would allow for the completion of a heavy-boost moon rocket only in 2028, and that would be without spending money on developing the components of a lunar base.

See also:
Panel Says NASA’s Moon Plans Unlikely
Panel: NASA Moon Mission Plan Unrealistic
Presidential panel concludes NASA can’t afford return to moon by 2020
Presidential panel downplays NASA’s moon options
Reduced budget threatens manned space options
NASA Budget Threatens Manned Missions, Group Says

$50 billion, these assholes can spend a trillion dollars on Democrat pet projects and call it “stimulus”, but they can’t come up with a comparatively paltry $50 billion to go back to the moon? What a crock of [expletive deleted]!

/OBAMA SPENT MORE THAN $50 BILLION BAILING OUT HIS UAW BUDDIES AT GM AND CHRYSLER!