White House panel sees little point to new NASA rocket

White House panel sees little point to new NASA rocket

www.newscientist.com

With the first test flight of a new NASA rocket just days away, a White House panel questioned its utility while singing the praises of commercial alternatives.

But in comments to the press on Thursday, panel chair Norman Augustine, former CEO of the aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, offered his sharpest criticism yet of the Ares I rocket that NASA is developing to replace the space shuttle, and came out in clear support of commercial alternatives.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Interesting, very interesting. What I found most telling was this snippet:

the committee believes the rocket will not be ready to loft crew to orbit until 2017, two years after the ISS is scheduled to be abandoned and hurled into the Pacific Ocean, Augustine said.

This confirms that, while previously just a rumor, the ISS is actually being planned to be de-orbited in 2016. Interesting indeed that the USA has that much say in the matter, given the amount of money put into it from around the world. They do not own it, and thus cannot say when to bring it down, surely?

www.newscientist.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 23-10-2009 by D.E.M.]

we don't own it? Show me an ISS without American taxpayer funding, you'll hand me a comic book.

Thats like saying we don't own the U.N.

I say sell both and by 2017 do something REAL.

I think Augustine knows NASA's massive chemical rockets are dinosaurs.

They need to trickle down black world propulsion physics to commerical space projects. It's tricky though because of the natl security implications. The UN would demand we share the tech with the world. And that would weaken our defense.

www.esa.int...


6 of the world space agencies fund the ISS - all have a vested interest in it.

and whilst NASA say they want to `de-orbit` it in 2016 - the ther countris do not - and remember , russia and the ESA have the lions share of transport to it since the shuttle is end of life.

But in comments to the press on Thursday, panel chair Norman Augustine, former CEO of the aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, offered his sharpest criticism yet of the Ares I rocket

Eh? Augustine has a vested interest in the commercial side, of course he would criticize NASA.

United Launch Alliance's Atlas V and SpaceX's Falcon 9 are among the rockets that have been put forward by companies to perform this service.
Recently, Bigelow (who operate the Atlas V) announced that it is close to signing an agreement with Lockheed Martin, based in Bethesda, Maryland, US, to use the company's Atlas V-401 rockets to launch both crew and cargo into space.