Nasa's Next Step
Can the manned space program find a new, revitalizing mission in the wake of the Columbia tragedy?
More than 40 years after John Glenn's orbital flight, the romance of manned space travel is undimmed. We flock to see films like the Star Wars series or witness the gee-whiz hardware at Washington's National Air and Space Museum, the most popular attraction in a city of must-see sights. Thirty-four years later, our pride in the Apollo moon landings remains enormous. Not even the deadly disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia on February 1 dampened our belief that humans belong in space. A recent poll found that two thirds of Americans want the shuttles to take wing again.
But on Tuesday, when the Columbia Accident Investigation Board issues its report on the tragedy, it will set in bold relief the historic pull between our desire to keep Americans in space and our willingness to pay for it. As space historian Roger Launius explains, "We want to do these things, but we don't want to spend money on them." Trouble is, space travel is expensive. Launius estimates that Apollo cost more than $100 billion in today's dollars. Each shuttle flight gobbles up $500 million. The international space station (ISS) is $22 billion over budget and only 40 percent complete. Yet NASA's annual budget has languished for a decade at about $15 billion, leading to possibly fatal cuts in personnel, maintenance, and infrastructure.
The Columbia investigation panel is expected to say that those cutbacks indirectly contributed to the disaster, which was triggered when a chunk of foam insulation broke off a fuel tank on takeoff and gashed the leading edge of the left wing. The report is also expected to portray NASA as hobbled by poor management and communications roadblocks that kept low and midlevel employees from passing on fears about safety. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, predicts that the board will pinpoint "the root cause" of the accident as "a lack of communications" and "an atmosphere of arrogance."
But once fingers have been pointed and fixes recommended, the spotlight will move beyond Columbia to how much money NASA needs to rebuild its manned program--and just what its mission should be. "It's a critical juncture for NASA," Launius says. Critics in Congress and elsewhere say it's time to revitalize the agency and make the exorbitant costs of space travel more palatable by investing it with a new, overarching goal: perhaps colonizing the moon. Or exploring Mars. Or both. "They need to come up with a goal that recaptures the excitement of the American people," says Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican.
Underwhelmed. NASA certainly hasn't managed that with its current focus: using the shuttles to build and maintain the space station. Since construction began in 1998, 250 miles above Earth, NASA has tried to make it look as routine as building a downtown office tower. "The ideal space mission is routine," explains Keith Cowing, editor of the NASA Watch Web site. But underwhelmed Americans showed little interest in the space program--until the fatal mishap. And although the ISS is meant as an orbiting lab for cutting-edge science, budget cuts have curtailed research. It's not worth the cost or risk, critics argue. Neal Lane, a former science adviser to President Clinton, says that "the space station on its own is not a sufficiently exciting or bold enough goal" to justify the dangers of space travel.
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