NASA: Extending Station Plans For Mars Mission
Posted on: Tuesday, 1 September 2009, 07:05 CDT
It turns out that landing humans on Mars may take a bit more time and money than NASA had originally anticipated.
According to the program’s chief scientist, roughly five additional years of medical research aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will be required before they think about sending an astronaut to the Red Planet, entailing billions in additional funds beyond the previously projected budget.
A presidential panel charged with reviewing the ISS project — a ten year, $100 billion dollar collaborative effort of 16 countries — is to deliver the details of their findings to the president this week, with the reports expected to be made public by the end of the month.
The panel also reported that the program known as Constellation — an in-the-works project that is to be charged with exploring the deeper reaches of our solar system after the ISS is retired — is likely to experience a budget shortfall of roughly $3 billion a year if additional funds are not appropriated.
NASA currently has an annual budget of $18 billion.
“NASA needs the ISS,” contended Julie Robinson, a scientist for the program. “A six-month stay on the space station is going to be the best analog we’re ever going to have for a six-month microgravity transit to Mars in the future.”
Robinson says that medical researchers need to utilize the space station until at least 2020 for researching the effects of and possible treatments for such space-related health complications as radiation exposure and loss of bone density.
NASA has already committed to investing $2.5 billion a year in the space station through 2015.
During public hearings, members of the Human Space Flight Plans Committee also argued that attempting to dissolve the program a mere five years after its completion would likely ruffle the feathers of the project’s co-participants like Canada, Japan, Russia and the European Union who have also dished out billions in contributions.
Sally Ride, chair of the subcommittee and iconic former astronaut, reported that her group had encountered nearly ubiquitous support for maintaining and enlarging the ISS program beyond 2016.
“We didn’t start off with that perspective,” she said. “We don’t think that the deorbit of ISS in 2016 makes much sense.”
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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User Comments (2)
| 2. |
Posted by FLASH on 09/02/2009, 23:29 Maybe we are not allowed out to play just yet and research is as good a reason or excuse as any to stay in LEO along with budgetary restrictions and the like. |
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Posted by AJ on 09/01/2009, 17:41 What a crock by Julie Robinson. She's just trying to justify her "zero-g research" budget. When we send humans to Mars they will NOT be in zero G. They ship will have artificial gravity by tether during trasit stages. Mars obviously has gravity so they will be fine there as well. Just a desperate attempt to mislead the public into thinking the ISS has to be extented. We have plenty of research already done by the long duration flights of Mir and early ISS crews. How many more test subjects do you need to subject to radiation and bone loss?? Look, It's been fun but you've almost wasted ANOTHER generation by detouring the country with your space station project. It's finished and 6 more years of use is plenty, now let move on to Mars. |
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