Later this month, NASA will reveal the formal plans for the next generation of space vehicles.
At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s about damn time. The shuttles are frankly decrepit – the NYT reporter cites the figure of 100 launches, but that’s the theoretical ideal, not the reality (the Discovery is currently on her 31st flight, and holds the record for most launches). Endeavour, the youngest shuttle, first launched in 1992. I simply do not know if they shuttle program actually saves money at a billion dollars per launch, but I believe strongly that the potential for failure (a piece of foam, for fuck’s sake) does not justify keeping the program around. The article suggests that the shuttle will be retired in 2010, at which point the new vessels will be put into use.
The one thing that bothers me is the political purpose of the new design:
“The goal is not how good the stuff looks,” said John M. Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. “It’s results. The goal is to get people back to the Moon and eventually onto Mars. And this system, given the budget constraints, is a reasonable way to go.”
I certainly can’t argue with the substance-over-style mentality, but it seems unwise that NASA is taking the Mars bait like this. While the idea of a Mars landing appeals to the space Romantic in me, I can’t help but feel that it’s a cheap PR grab, to remind people why they fell in love with the space program in the first place. But surely – especially given NASA’s recent setbacks – it would be reasonable to focus – temporarily – on something a bit more, well, earthbound? I find it loathsome that NASA has to resort to attention-grabbing tricks to justify its existence.