Mr. President, here’s my NASA to-do list

15 Apr Mr. President, here’s my NASA to-do list

Since the release of President Obama’s NASA budget for the next fiscal year, the debate over America’s future course in space has become unusually heated, resulting in a polarization of views that has divided Congress and many members of the space community. All want what is best for our nation, but few see a chance at a consensus that can bring us all together.
We’ll get that chance today.

The president will visit the Kennedy Space Center to air these views in a conference on America’s future in space. This meeting offers the administration, Congress and the American people our best — and possibly our only — chance to reach such a consensus. This is a reasonable way forward that builds on the president’s budget proposal while extending our reach ever deeper into space.

As I have said before, I agree broadly with the president’s plan because it contains many elements that I have advocated for years. These include a flexible path for exploration with a robust technology development program enabling the extension of the human presence to Mars. His plan avoids rerunning the moon race that America won 40 years ago and opens a new era for commercial space transportation after years of government dominance of access to low-Earth orbit.

We need specifics

These are good principles, to be sure. But the budget lacks key details. First, I think that the president needs to be clear that Mars is the ultimate goal. The stepping stones to the Red Planet might include missions such as flybys of comets, approaches to near-Earth objects, and finally a manned mission to the Martian moon Phobos. This flexible path would create the infrastructure and transportation systems that would enable commercial and international development near Earth.

NASA also should be clearer about the purpose behind investments in technology. For example, we can utilize the investments made in the Orion spacecraft to jump-start the development of a human deep-space exploration capability. And using the spare hardware left over from the assembly of the International Space Station, I propose we develop a prototype deep-space exploration vehicle that can be docked to and tested at the station.

Over time, astronauts at the station could then outfit the ship, making it capable of forays beyond low-Earth orbit, around the moon, then deeper into space — to near-Earth orbit crossing asteroids, and on to Mars. I also encourage the president to set a clear goal to develop the heavy lift capability needed for our journey to Mars. There are, in effect, placeholders for these programs in the $19 billion devoted to NASA in the president’s budget, but I think we deserve a greater level of clarity.

Restore America’s place

While transitioning the operation of crew delivery to private industry, it is important that the system we develop is capable of enabling broader commercial markets. To do this, the future plan should include the development of a reusable, space plane-like runway lander as the next generation of crew carrying space transport.

Other astronauts might have different views, and I respect them, but I believe that working with this president toward a consensus on how America can lead human exploration, commercialize that effort in a timely way as possible, and set our collective sites on Mars is more likely to create the kind of sustained effort, commitment and legacy that we all want to see. This seems more productive than simply opposing a change of course.

I also differ with the president’s plan in a few critical ways, one being that we should keep the space shuttle in flight while we develop a heavy-lift launch vehicle. This should be a national priority. These investments will give us a solid basis for the civil space program for decades to come.

These additions offer us the chance at a middle ground that preserves our highly specialized workforce, maintains critical access to space, and will enable us to maintain and service the International Space Station. Most important, we can re-establish American space leadership by reaching for this manned mission to Mars.

America’s future in space is worth the modest, additional investment that will be required by this flexible path. I hope that, as passions cool, we can all come together at this important meeting to bring our nation fully into a 21st century space program, one that is, as my friend Norm Augustine put it, “worthy of a great nation.”

Buzz Aldrin was an astronaut on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in 1969.
You can read the original article at USA Today