Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Helpless To follOw

The new budget, announced Monday, seems merely an attempt to disguise the
demise of U.S. leadership in space. The president does away with
Constellation, its Orion spacecraft, and its Ares I and Ares V boosters. The
abrupt cancellation means the U.S. no longer wishes to send its explorers to
the frontiers of knowledge and spacefaring skill. We are deliberately
choosing to have no better space capability than do Russia, China, or India.


During the height of the shuttle program in the 1990s, we launched six or
seven shuttles and about 40 astronauts per year into orbit for science and
defense purposes. Starting next year, and for the foreseeable future, just
four Americans will make it into space annually—as passengers on foreign
rockets. Is this a bold new course for the nation?
With no ability to
launch humans past the ISS, we will watch, helpless to follow, as China
pursues its determination to be the next nation to send its explorers into
deep space.