Or seems to, anyway:
At his third Capitol Hill appearance since the Aug. 26 release of a highly critical investigators’ report on NASA’s role in the fatal Columbia accident, O’Keefe told the House of Representatives Science Committee there had been no clear vision for human space flight since the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and 1970s.
“But we have no goals,” said Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican. “We’re not going to the Moon, we’re not going to Mars. … We have no goals, isn’t that true?”
“I beg to differ, sir,” O’Keefe replied. “The strategic plan … is a stepping-stone approach and will achieve (human missions) beyond low-Earth orbit to achieve any exploration.”
Rep. Nick Lampson, a Texas Democrat, took issue with O’Keefe’s approach: “I happen to have the philosophy that you can achieve more technologically if you have someplace to go.”
Hmm. Nick Lampson is to be expected, but I’m impressed that Joe Barton is coming around, and is no longer demanding that humans be grounded until some mythical “safe” spacecraft can be designed and built.
While Barton’s initial comments about grounding the shuttle were way off, most of what I’ve heard from him lately makes sense. So I am hopeful.
We met with Kay Bailey Hutchison’s staff yesterday. Tomorrow it’s John Cornyn’s, and Monday it’s Lampson’s. We hope to meet with the congresspersons themselves during the Ocotber recess. How you boys doin’ in Louisiana?
I don’t know about Craig, but I’m a bit distracted at the moment.
The ‘problem’ with Congress wanting NASA to establish a ‘vision’ is that it’s CONGRESS’ job to do so.
They have been foisting the responsibility off on NASA since the end of Apollo.
… and then killing any such ‘visions’ NASA presents.
Instead of ‘blaming’ NASA for a lack of vision, perhaps they should work WITH NASA to form a ‘vision’ (long-term plan actually) of where and what NASA and the government should do in the future.
One would hope they would take in public opinion, and the Space Advocacy groups views. But for a GOVERNMENT program, the government, (in the form of Congress) needs to accept the responsibility (and not direct the blame) and be willing to back up the program with the money to accomplish the goals set before NASA.
Randy
Ditch the Shuttles and build an all new Saturn V style SHLLV capable of sending at least 75 metric tons to the Moon or Mars! The new SHLLV would be a clean sheet design using the latest technology.
Dominic – I like your enthusiasm, but we have an adequate heavy lift vehicle in the Shuttle stack. It’s one that can be easily reassigned as the Shuttle is phased out. This makes so much more sense than starting from scratch. Plus, where are we going to find the funds for such a program? Perhaps the same place you get all those extra exclamation points for your posts?
Carl Carlsson,
The Shuttle stack is totally inadequate for humans to set up large permanent bases on the Moon or Mars.
NASA needs a lesson from SpaceX. They could get together and build an all new clean sheet Saturn V style SHLLV with at least twice the payload capability of the Shuttle stack to the Moon or Mars. It could be built at a cost that is palatable to the US taxpayer. Its operational and maintenance costs would be substantially lower than the Shuttle stack if the first and second stages are fully reuseable and only need a major overhaul after every 50 flights. There are substantial costs in the retrieval and rebuilding the SRB’s after each flight.
Please feel free to email Elon Musk at elon.musk@spacex.com or elonmusk@yahoo.com regarding possible SHLLV’s for future manned missions to the Moon and Mars.