Wed, Nov 26, 2008
Agency Already Planning What To Do With Extra $2 Billion
President-elect Barack Obama put a scare into residents of
Florida's Space Coast early in his presidential campaign, when he
talked of a five-year delay in NASA's Constellation project to
allow increased federal funding for education. By the end of the
campaign, he'd done a 180-degree turn, and promised an extra $2
billion to shorten the gap between the retirement of the US shuttle
fleet and mission-readiness for the Ares I rocket and Orion crew
capsule.
Now -- while the Obama transition team faces a seemingly
impossible balancing act between declining tax revenues on one
side, and the costs of new programs and industry bailouts on the
other -- NASA appears to be planning based on Obama's campaign
promise.
Florida Today quotes sources at NASA in reporting the extra
money would allow an extra Ares 1 test flight and accelerate a
crucial engine-development project, enabling NASA to debut
Constellation in early 2014 -- a year ahead of schedule. That would
help calm strategic concerns of many in Congress who are
uncomfortable with relying on the Russians for all transportation
of crews and supplies to the International Space Station, a $100
billion outpost paid for largely by the US.
"We are ready to tackle head-on the task of narrowing the gap
between shuttle retirement and Ares-Orion deployment -- if the
newly elected nation's policymakers want us to do that, NASA
Administrator Mike Griffin told the paper.
Among the mileposts NASA projects during an accelerated
development program could be adding an Ares I high-altitude abort
test in 2012, combined with a test of a five-segment solid rocket
booster in the first stage; and a quicker development pace for the
J2X engine, which will power the second stage of the Ares I.
NASA could also start earlier procurement of long lead-time
parts.
At least one program supplier says it's ready for the
fast-track. ATK builds the primary rocket motor for the Orion
escape system. Company VP and former astronaut Charlie Precourt
notes, "It's going to be funding-dependent, but it's a reasonable
approach."
"Funding dependent." Be prepared to hear that phrase a bunch
during 2009.
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