Nasa Lunar mission cancelled

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Expensive lunar missions will be scrapped in a US budget plan that instead places emphasis on scientific missions and the commercialisation of space transportation.

The Constellation programme endeavoured to develop new rockets and a new crew ship called Orion that would see astronauts on the lunar surface by 2020.

The announcement has been met with a mixed reaction.

One legislator, Richard Shelby, described the decision as a 'death march' for human space flight.

Others welcomed the news, with Nasa experts describing the programme, set up under former President George W. Bush as slow and wasteful.

"What this does is open up (space) for more people to be going more places in a way that is not on the back of the taxpayers," Nasa's deputy administrator, Lori Garver, told reporters.

"While we're cancelling Constellation, we're not cancelling our ambitions," said Jim Kohlenberger, chief of staff at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

"This isn't a step backwards. I think the step backwards was trying to recreate the Moon landings of 40 years ago using largely yesterday's technology, instead of game-changing new technology that can take us further, faster and more affordably into space."

In addition to the $9bn spent on the programme to date, Nasa will have to spend a further $2.5bn to close it completely.

But the president's proposals represent a change in direction, rather than budget cuts. Plans include an investment of an additional $6bn in Nasa over the next five years - an overall $100bn commitment to the agency (its budget for 2011 would be $19bn).

Obama wants some of the extra funding ($500m in 2011) to be used to incentivise private companies, to help them bring forward a new generation of launch systems to carry humans to and from space.

"Nasa will accelerate and enhance its support for the commercial spaceflight industry to make travel to low-Earth orbit and beyond more accessible and more affordable," said Nasa chief Charlie Bolden.

"Imagine enabling hundreds, even thousands of people to visit or live in low-Earth orbit, while Nasa firmly focuses its gaze on the cosmic horizon beyond Earth."