Russia’s Conflict With Georgia Influencing Shuttle Partnership
Ares I is the essential core of a safe, reliable, cost-effective space transportation system — one that will carry crewed missions back to the moon, on to Mars and out into the solar system.
A backup transportation plan to the International Space Station once the shuttles are taken out of commission is being sought by three U.S. Senators before the Orion program takes effect in 2015. The new Constellation program is off to a slightly rocky start as its July 24th Ares I drogue parachute test was perfect, yet its July 31st test failed after not inflating, which caused it to develop parachute failure—forcing it to crash into the Arizona desert. With the upcoming NASA budget rather shaky, none of this adds up to good news.
Three U.S. Senators have sent off a joint letter to President Bush, regarding the status of NASA’s new budget in relation to the time constraint for any NASA measure to be enacted. Senators John McCain, Kay Baily Hutchison, and David Vitter are requesting that NASA hold onto its present space shuttle program—hardware, systems, and services—after the program is scheduled to end in 2010, regarding the present situation with Russia’s conflict with Georgia.
The concern of the senators is that, ” Our concern is that we do not have a guarantee that such cooperative and mutually beneficial activity will continue to be available, and the successful utilization of the ISS may be jeopardized,” their letter to President Bush states. The three senators believe that the Russian partnership is still the best plan for the alternative space program replacement, but feel under the present situation another form of transportation should be considered.
Their letter to President Bush also requested that the means for flight hardware, engineering and support services “not be completely and irretrievably lost through destruction or deterioration, at least until a clear path to alternative launch capabilities is in hand. At a minimum, we ask that you direct NASA to take no action for at least one year from now that would preclude the extended use of the space shuttle beyond 2010.”
Newly released new internal timelines for the shuttle’s replacement, the Constellation program, has been given out but they depend on the space agency’s budget reauthorization for 2009. The three senators had nothing in play for the program if the new budget does not pass, but they did say that there was strong support in the Senate and House if the reauthorization bill did not pass, that would allow preservation of the United State’s ability to travel to the International Space Station.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 7:14 am and is filed under Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
