New Mars Forums

This is the picture of a federal agency immune to the competitive influences of the private sector. "You see this little metal loop? It's called a carabineer," California space entrepreneur Rick Tumlinson told a Senate hearing right after the President's announcement in January. "You could go to any sporting goods shop and buy it for $20. Yet NASA pays over $1,000 for the same object because of its procurement methods. It's the 'not-invented-here' mentality and distrust of the private sector that makes the cost of these projects so astronomical."

Each Space Shuttle (there are now three) must be virtually reconstructed after each flight. The process takes two months and 20,000 people. Some of the parts are so outdated that engineers troll eBay for replacements. "What we save on re-use, we throw away on maintenance of the aging fleet," says Alex Roland, professor of military history at Duke and former historian of NASA. The Shuttles are scheduled to be retired for good in 2010.

Detailed examination of the shield will also provide engineering data to help build better future Martian reentry systems. The Martian landers and orbiters will keep arriving at two-year intervals through this decade, adding to the five spacecraft already there--the two rovers, the U.S. Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey orbiters, and the European Mars Express orbiter. In fact, Mars exploration has reached a stage in which, from now into the foreseeable future, dozens of U.S. and European contractors and thousands of employees will be working daily on several hundred million dollars' worth of new robotic Mars missions and Mars-related aerospace technologies to support the existing strategy--which will soon be upgraded by the new road map planning effort.

The next mission will be the $300-million-class NASA JPL/Lockheed Martin Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, set for launch in August 2005 with extremely high-resolution imaging capability (pictured above). It will be followed in 2007 by the Phoenix north polar lander and in 2009 by the Mars Telesat orbiter and $1-billion Mars Science Lander, a much more capable rover. The initial robotic sample return mission, envisioned for 2013, will also drive more than $1 billion in new research and development.

The Mars road map initiative for additional missions to at least 2025 is to get underway in December. JPL Director Elachi is selecting various road map team members to review the Mars strategy in the wake of the rovers' success.

After an extensive review, NASA is planning its Return to Flight Space Shuttle mission, designated STS-114, for a launch window that opens in May 2005.

NASA's Space Flight Leadership Council met today to consider a recommendation from the Space Shuttle Program to revise the Return to Flight target launch window to May 2005. The council endorsed the recommendation the May window, which opens from May 12 to June 3, 2005, is achievable

Even as NASA gears up for the space shuttle's return to flight next year, officials at the space agency are quietly studying the possibility of cutting back its number of missions and retiring the spacecraft years ahead of schedule, MSNBC.com has learned.

On condition of anonymity, one current and one former high-level NASA employee, each with direct knowledge of the studies, provided MSNBC with details of the discussions. In addition, two former astronauts and a senior space policy expert, also requesting anonymity, said they had been told of the shuttle discussion by current NASA officials.

What some officials at NASA are studying, sources told MSNBC.com, is whether the current mission manifest could be cut back. The cold calculus of space budgets state that for every four or five shuttle missions eliminated, the shuttle program can be terminated a year earlier. And at current operating costs, that frees up about $5 billion a year for future development.