Using fear of China to get people to spend money on space, making Mars a four letter word, wondering if NASA would have been better off just human rating an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, it was all the normal patter of congressional hooves until Rep. Rohrabacher (R-CA) asked if anyone is doing "anti-gravity" research. Certainly makes the ears perk up. Did you say "anti-gravity"? "research"? Well maybe he meant zero gravity countermeasures. Who knows...
NASA tried to present thier case that things were on track and progress was being made. GAO said it's not, but then again I think that is GAO's job. Aviation Week covers a comment from Exploration Systems Associate Administrator Richard Gilbrech at the hearing about a study apparently being done at NASA to look at the possibility of speeding up the COTS crew option(at the moment COTS only includes cargo -- NASA has not exercised the crewed option.)
According to the Aviation Week article, Gilbrech said that NASA would release the results of that internal study to lawmakers and that they were in the finally stages of vetting the report now.
Given that the cargo versions of both SpaceX and Orbital are slated to fly in 2010, it is possible that a crewed COTS vehicle could take people to ISS before 2015. A higher risk, but lower cost strategy to "closing the gap." So far Orbital has not expressed an intention to produce a crewed version of their vehicle.
For SpaceX to really have a shot at safely launching crew by 2015, they will have to pass a critical milestone of their own soon. Launching a Falcon 1 and achieving orbit. We will have to wait till at least June to see if that works.
Former astronaut, Kathryn Thornton also testified and I actually liked part of what she had to say. Maybe it is an oversimplification of the situation, but she said the original Vision for Space Exploration had more science in it and maintained Mars (and beyond) as the ultimate goal of human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Now, she says, four years later, NASA is using science to pay for the vision, and only focusing on exploration of the Moon.
Speeding Up COTS Crew Option Studied [Aviation Week]
Shuttle successor flawed, dangerous, GAO report finds [Orlando Sentinel]
See Also:
- House will Attack NASA Ares Program Tomorrow
- SpaceX Passes NASA Review of Their Plans to Dock with Space Station
Photo courtesy of House.gov/Screenshot by Alexis Madrigal
