In 2004, President Bush announced his Vision for U.S. Space Exploration, which called for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to develop new vehicles for spaceflight that would allow humans to return to the moon by 2020. In response, NASA restructured its plans to achieve that objective, and in September 2004, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published a budgetary analysis of NASA's new plans. This report updates that analysis, incorporating elements of NASA's plans that had not been established in 2004. To meet the goal set by the President, NASA reduced its planned budgets supporting science and research in aeronautics by more than 40 percent and made plans to complete construction of the International Space Station and retire the space shuttle by 2010. Using about $100 billion of potential funding through 2020 made available by those changes, NASA began developing new vehicles for human spaceflight in what the agency calls its Constellation program. Two of those vehicles--the Ares 1 crew launch vehicle and the Orion crew exploration vehicle are to achieve initial operating capability by March 2015. At that point, the vehicles should be capable of carrying a crew of astronauts to the International Space Station. NASA is also developing additional vehicles and systems including the Ares 5 cargo launch vehicle and the Altair lunar lander that are needed to return humans to the moon. According to NASA, its current plans will require an average of $19.1 billion of funding annually from 2010 through 2025, with the Constellation program accounting for about half of the total by 2017.


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    Titel :

    Budgetary Implications of NASA's Current Plans for Space Exploration


    Erscheinungsdatum :

    2009


    Format / Umfang :

    35 pages


    Medientyp :

    Report


    Format :

    Keine Angabe


    Sprache :

    Englisch