Washington: A US decision to scrap plans to return to the moon does not mean it is abandoning its space ambitions, NASA's chief told Congress Tuesday.
"We must invest in fundamentally new innovations for space technology and new ways of doing business if we are to develop a space exploration and development program that is truly sustainable over the long term," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said at the National Press Club the day after President Barack Obama outlined new space priorities in the 2011 budget.
On Monday, Obama proposed dropping the massively over-budget Constellation program launched by former president George W. Bush to develop a new-generation rocket aimed at returning Americans to the moon by 2020.
The White House said it wanted to ground Constellation because it was too costly, used outdated technology, and would not be ready to ferry humans to the moon before 2028.
In its place, "a bold and ambitious new space initiative that invests in American ingenuity to propel us on a new journey of innovation and discovery" was being launched, he said.
The President called for spending six billion dollars over five years for NASA to develop commercial spacecraft that could carry astronauts into low Earth orbit.
That was a far smaller increase than the three billion a year a presidentially-appointed panel has said would be necessary for a viable human flight program.
"We are not abandoning human space flight," Bolden said repeatedly, responding to questions. Democratic and Republican senators as well as Bolden's predecessor Michael Griffin, have criticized dropping Constellation saying it would spell an end to US leadership in space.
But with the Constellation program, "we essentially were trying to recreate the glories of the past with the technologies of the past," John Holdren, director of Obama's Office of Science and Technology Policy said.
"Put simply, the Constellation program threatened other important parts of NASA's endeavors and mission while failing to achieve the trajectory of a program that was not sustainable," Holdren added.
Bolden also acknowledged that "tough budget decisions in the past have led to decades of under-investment in space technology development."
One way to renew NASA and have it play a key role in innovation as well as manned space flight is to get the private sector fully on board, Bolden stressed. He was joined at the Press Club event by representatives of seven businesses that already work with NASA on developing launchers and other space systems, such as SpaceX.
Bolden, a former astronaut, said Obama's plan was aimed at having goals that could be reached.
Asked about a destination and timetable for manned missions, Bolden said: "It's more than a couple of weeks but less than a year. "If you ask me about destinations... some places come naturally to mind, moon, Mars, asteroids," he said.
Obama's NASA plan sees the agency receiving 19 billion dollars in 2011, around 300 million more than the 2010 budget, with small annual increases to follow. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon in 1969, said earlier that where Constellation was stuck in the past, Obama's plan was forward-looking.
"We've already been to the moon -- some 40 years ago," he said in a statement. "A near-term focus on lowering the cost of access to space and on developing key, cutting-edge technologies to take us further, faster, is just what our nation needs to maintain its position as the leader in space exploration."
Bureau Report
First Published: Wednesday, February 03, 2010, 14:00