Washington Matters
NASA's Next Big Steps May Be Unmanned
The price of a putting human feet on the moon again is beyond sky-high.
By Richard Sammon, Senior Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter
November 2, 2009
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The national space agency's biggest dreamers and best engineers are still aiming for a return manned mission to the moon by 2020 followed by a pioneering mission to Mars a decade or so later. That's their official goal in theory and one sanctioned by Congress. But the cost estimates are simply crushing, and mounting federal deficits will require the agency to rein in its biggest plans by a galactic scale or two. Look for lots more attention to be lavished on unmanned space science in the next decade.
Early cost estimates of about $1 trillion over 25 years to return to the moon and later plant a flag on Mars are causing more than a few budget migraines, and the technological challenges of the ambitious project are myriad and steep.
The cost alone will prompt the Obama administration, under pressure to show spending restraint in an era of towering deficits, to reassess and sharply curb back the entire Moon-Mars space travel program while the program is still in its early stages, although several billion dollars have already been poured into it in research, testing and development of rockets.
NASA's fiscal 2010 budget is about $18.7 billion, and space science experts say another $3 billion to $5 billion in each of the next few years -- followed by many more billions in 5-10 years -- will be needed to meet the 2020 moon return goal. Then literally hundreds of billions more would be needed to go to Mars and back in the following 15 or so years, and commitments on spending that money would need to be made in advance. That's becoming a huge red flag in Congress.
Look for the debate over manned vs. unmanned space exploration to get more fuel this week as NASA flight-tests its Ares 1-X rocket, the developmental rocket that is part of the agency's Constellation program intended to replace the aging space shuttles and keep alive U.S. manned space exploration. The space shuttles will be retired in the next three to five years, well past their original retirement date at the end of 2010.
The manned space program, as envisioned by Constellation, won't be scrapped entirely by Congress. Much work has already been done, and support is spread fairly broadly throughout Congress. A good deal of the work is done in states with large congressional influence: Texas, California, New York, Virginia and others.
The manned space program will be curtailed, though, and probably sharply. The Moon-Mars project will probably remain a stated goal for the agency, but only a goal. That will allow some research to continue but without full-scale funding to go with it.
Manned space missions in the next couple decades, via the Constellation program, may not involve the moon or Mars at all, but perhaps near-earth objects, such as asteroids and comet flybys and space station and satellite servicing -- not as ambitious as a Moon-Mars mission, but far more cost conscious.
About one-half of NASA's budget is spent on human space endeavor work, from the rockets and the engineers to the astronauts and the space centers, the Constellation program and work with dozens of contractors.
In comparison, about one-fifth of the agency budget is spent on unmanned or robotic space exploration missions - far smaller in proportion. But the unmanned missions are gaining favor, not only because they are more economical but because they also produce very good science and technology innovation and have less risk associated with them.
NASA is currently managing 65 robotic space probe missions -- from the Hubble Telescope to space radiation probes and interplanetary craft - and another 40 unmanned probes are in various stages of development. Several planned probes aim to learn more about the sun and its composition, about sun spots and sun flares and solar radiation in the solar system affecting Earth and the planets. Others will study so-called dark matter in the universe, and others will search for more planets in distant solar systems.
As talk of Moon and Mars begins to fade in light of the cost, look for more attention and funding on the unmanned missions. That will be a benefit for a variety of contractors that work on smaller-scale unmanned probes, including Alliant Techsystems, Wyle Laboratories, InDyne, Jacobs Engineering Group and ITT.
The typical unmanned space mission costs $300 million, start to finish. For comparison, that is less than the cost of one shuttle flight to the International Space Station, which is still seven shuttle trips away from being complete and which is expected to end its service life in 2016-2017. That's about the time the Constellation program should be operational, even if the Moon-Mars project has been shelved by then.
Reader Comments (5)
Posted by: Storm9 at 11/18/2009 08:25:06 PM
And its worth every sent. There shouldn't be a price tag on knowledge and exploration. Also 1 trillion spread out over 25 years is not much. And we should be collaborating with China, ESA, Japan and India so we do not need to bare the entire cost. There is no need to plant an "American" Flag. We should go to Mars as once species not as a single nation.
Posted by: Thomas at 11/18/2009 08:47:09 PM
A trillion dollars? I doubt that very highly. Unless they decide to throw in Jupiter and Saturn and really paint the town red. What I would like to see is a breakdown of the figure and what goes into what piece of hardware and what they plan to do with one trillion dollars. because they can do a lot with one trillion dollars. However, even if it does cost that much, just to put to flag on mars, and nothing else, it would be a much MUCH better use of public funds than the war in Iraq. With just 40 billion a year on Average, they can take it from the defense budget and no one will notice it's missing. They can just call it a black op, say they're looking for terrorists, little green terrorists.
Posted by: Andrew at 11/18/2009 09:32:26 PM
Regardless of the large price tag, manned space flight is a mush for the future of humanity. People need to get over the fact that scientific progress is not a monetary loss but more so an investment in our future and that of future generations. Just look at all of the technology that space flight has given us; everything from materials such as carbon fibers and Kevlar to baby formulas. The benefits are immense. Also, we are already feeling a crunch that has resulted from the misuse of the Earth's resources. The Earth will not be able to provide like it has been in the future, especially if we continue consumption of said resources as we are now. Manned space flight gives us the opportunity to look for alternate places nearby for humans to possibly live in generations to come as well as discover new resources to help replace those that we are losing now. A robot can only send back computational data, but the experience from other humans actually being there is will be more valuable to the development of humans as a whole in the long run.
Posted by: Shaun at 11/18/2009 10:29:56 PM
But where does the trillion go? It gets spent, mostly to huge contractors. So in the big picture, what's the difference between giving NASA a trillion to trickle into the likes of Lockheed Martin, General Electric, etc; and giving the same trillion to the military .. to trickle into the likes of lockheed, GE ..There will be research, development, innovation that we'll benefit from in the wider market. But we'll go forward, instead of sitting around blowing ourselves up.Why not.
Posted by: 1trill at 11/19/2009 12:43:21 AM
Your source throws around the $1 trillion as a simple guess - a guess that is based upon outdated methods, as your source acknowledges. Great research.