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With recent news headlines proclaiming that dozens of people have been selected as finalists for a Martian astronaut corps, it might seem like a trip to this alien world might finally be close at hand.

But let's have a little reality check. What are the chances that we really will see people on the Red Planet in the next couple of decades?

Most people just don't get how hard this would be, says Mary Lynne Dittmar, an aerospace consultant in Washington, D.C. "The distances that are involved and the complexities that are involved in going and staying there are really enormous," she says.

Dittmar ticks off a list of challenges: The trip will take more than half a year, one way, and you'll need to bring a bunch of food, plus oxygen. Then there's the question of whether you can even land on a planet with such a thin atmosphere. And if people do manage to make it to the surface, the first Martians will have to cope with everything from cancer-causing radiation to dust.

"Mars has a big dust problem," Dittmar notes.

Still, a Dutch venture called Mars One has captured the public's imagination with its plan to colonize Mars by 2025. Bas Lansdorp, the group's CEO, says they've been featured in major media outlets like CNN and the New York Times. "We've been on NPR - I think twice already," Lansdorp says.

Lansdorp is a mechanical engineer by training who has worked on wind energy technology. His Mars dream started almost 20 years ago, when he was watching Dutch TV and was stunned by vivid images of the red Martian surface sent back by a NASA rover.

"For some reason that I really cannot explain, I wanted to go to Mars and build a new human settlement there," he says.

Lansdorp believes the voyage will likely pay for itself because it will be a media spectacle. Everyone in the world will want to watch the whole adventure, he says. Mars One is planning a reality TV show with sponsorships and advertising.

"We expect it's worth up to 10 Olympic Games' [worth] of media revenue, which is $45 billion," says Lansdorp.

Of course, sponsors of the Olympics can be pretty confident that their games will happen. When asked how he responds to skeptics who say that Mars One is basically just a website and a marketing plan, Lansdorp says, "I think that the people who say that really haven't paid attention to what we've achieved already."

Lots of people applied to be part of the Mars One astronaut corps - paying a fee to do so. And the group has commissioned a couple of studies from established aerospace companies.

The Mars One plan calls for first sending out a small robotic lander in 2018. Lansdorp says he can do this more cheaply than NASA. But missions like that typically cost hundreds of millions of dollars. When told that it didn't sound like he'd raised anything like that amount of money, Lansdorp replied that "we don't need that kind of money yet because we're not yet building the actual lander. But these are the kinds of investments that we're currently in negotiation for."

How much has he raised? He won't say.

Some longtime space watchers say they seriously doubt whether Mars One has the right stuff. "I just don't find it a credible proposition," says John Logsdon, a space policy specialist and professor emeritus at George Washington University.

But that doesn't mean he thinks the idea of going to Mars in the next couple of decades is a total fantasy.

"No one can know the future, but I would say that the strongest initiative going on right now - the one that's making visible, dynamic progress - is the SpaceX initiative."

"I would like to see, once again, people leave this planet and go someplace else," says Logsdon. "Whether I'll be around in the 2030s to see the first missions to Mars ... I hope so."

Getting humans to Mars in the 2030s is NASA's stated goal. The trouble, Logsdon says, is that NASA can't expect any big infusion of cash to get the job done.

In his book After Apollo? Logsdon describes a serious proposal by NASA to push for Mars after the first moon landing. Under that plan, the first missions were scheduled for the 1980s. But President Richard Nixon didn't go for an expensive, Apollo-like program aimed at Mars, and no other administration has either.

That means that NASA will have to cobble together the pieces of a Mars program on its current budget.

Last week, in Utah, the agency test-fired part of a new rocket that NASA says it will need to be able to go out into deep space - to the moon and beyond. The rocket's first flight (with no people on board) should come in 2018.

"We are developing many of the different systems to move from this low, Earth-orbit phase that we're in today with the space station, into deep space and onward toward Mars," says Jason Crusan, director for advanced exploration systems at NASA.

But that does not impress the president of the Mars Society. "The NASA humans-to-Mars program is all sizzle and no steak," says Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer who heads the society, which has long pushed for human missions.

NASA is building a big rocket and a little capsule, says Zubrin, but where's key stuff like the space habitation module that you'd need for any real, long-term mission? "There is no program," he says. "There isn't even a plan. There's just chatter."

So who's got the best shot at really making a Mars mission happen?

"No one can know the future," says Zubrin, "but I would say that the strongest initiative going on right now - the one that's making visible, dynamic progress - is the SpaceX initiative."

SpaceX is the first private company to have a robotic capsule actually dock with the international space station. The firm currently delivers cargo for NASA, and may soon transport astronauts, too.

The founder of SpaceX is Elon Musk. Zubrin calls Musk "quite a person."

"He developed spacecraft for one-tenth the cost and one-third the time that NASA and the aerospace major companies have done," Zubrin points out.

Plus, everyone knows Musk is gung-ho for Mars. He makes no secret of the fact that he founded SpaceX to help make sure that life exists on more than one planet. Although, as he noted on Twitter last week, "The rumor that I'm building a spaceship to get back to my home planet Mars is totally untrue."

A search online instantly turns up videos of Musk talking about why we need to go to Mars: "I just think that a future where humanity is a spacefaring civilization and out there exploring the stars is an incredibly exciting future, and inspiring," Musk told an interviewer for the website of the Wall Street Journal a few years ago, adding, "and so that's what we're trying to help make happen." Space X, he predicted, will get people to Mars in 10 to 20 years.

Musk also announced, in another recent online discussion, that sometime in 2015 he hopes to unveil plans for the Mars Colonial Transporter, a plan for getting large numbers of people to the Red Planet.

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Are Humans Really Headed To Mars Anytime Soon?

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With recent news headlines proclaiming that dozens of people have been selected as finalists for a Martian astronaut corps, it might seem like a trip to this alien world might finally be close at hand. But let's have a little reality check.

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Paul Kingsnorth is a British author and editor. In the following article, Kingsnorth examines the growing support for space colonization and how this relates to humanity's delusions about the future.

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In this informational text, NASA discusses the humanoid robots that will likely work alongside humans in space.

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I think both human & robotic exploration in the private sector is worthy.

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Humanity's interest in the heavens has been universal and enduring. Humans are driven to explore the unknown, discover new worlds, push the boundaries of our scientific and technical limits, and then push further. The intangible desire to explore and challenge the boundaries of what we know and where we have been has provided benefits to our society for centuries.
Human space exploration helps to address fundamental questions about our place in the Universe and the history of our solar system. Through addressing the challenges related to human space exploration we expand technology, create new industries, and help to foster a peaceful connection with other nations. Curiosity and exploration are vital to the human spirit and accepting the challenge of going deeper into space will invite the citizens of the world today and the generations of tomorrow to join NASA on this exciting journey.

A Flexible Path

This is the beginning of a new era in space exploration in which NASA has been challenged to develop systems and capabilities required to explore beyond low-Earth orbit, including destinations such as translunar space, near-Earth asteroids and eventually Mars.
NASA will use the International Space Station as a test-bed and stepping stone for the challenging journey ahead. By building upon what we learn there we will prepare astronauts for the challenges of long-duration flight and the permanent expansion of human exploration beyond where we have been before. Explorers may visit near-Earth asteroids where we may get answers to the questions humans have always asked. Visiting an asteroid will provide valuable mission experience and prepare us for the next steps-possibly for the first humans to step on Mars.
Robotic exploration continues to deliver profound answers about our Universe by visiting far-off destinations, providing reconnaissance and collecting scientific data. When combining both human and robotic exploration methods we will use technology and our senses to increase our ability to observe, adapt, and uncover new knowledge.

Why the International Space Station?

The first step in embarking on a long and challenging journey involves laying solid groundwork for a successful endeavor. The International Space Station serves as a national laboratory for human health, biological, and materials research, as a technology test-bed, and as a stepping stone for going further into the solar system. On the International Space Station we will improve and learn new ways to ensure astronauts are safe, healthy and productive while exploring, and we will continue expand our knowledge about how materials and biological systems behave outside of the influence of gravity.
NASA will continue its unprecedented work with the commercial industry and expand an entire industry as private companies develop and operate safe, reliable and affordable commercial systems to transport crew and cargo to and from the International Space Station and low Earth orbit.

Why Translunar Space?

Translunar space is vast expanse surrounding the Earth-moon system, extending far beyond the moon's orbit and dominated by the two bodies' gravity fields. Exploring in translunar space, beyond the protection of the Earth's geomagnetic field, will provide unprecedented experience in deep-space operations. Operating in translunar space, NASA can research galactic cosmic radiation-potentially the most threatening element to humans exploring deep space-and develop mitigation strategies that may also lead to medical advancements on Earth.
The Lagrange points-places in cislunar space where the gravitational influences of the Earth and moon cancel each other out-are advantageous areas for exploration and research in which almost no propulsion is required to keep an object or spacecraft stationary. The Lagrange point on the far side of the Earth-Moon system, called L2, also provides a "radio silence" zone for astronomical observations.
Missions to translunar space will give NASA and its partners the opportunity to develop tools and operational techniques to support decades of future exploration, while remaining in relative proximity to Earth.

Why Asteroids?

Asteroids are believed to have formed early in our solar system's history-about 4.5 billion years ago-when a cloud of gas and dust called the solar nebula collapsed and formed our sun and the planets. By visiting these near Earth objects to study the material that came from the solar nebula, we can look for answers to some of humankind's most compelling questions, such as: how did the solar system form and where did the Earth's water and other organic materials such as carbon come from?
In addition to unlocking clues about our solar system, asteroids may provide clues about our Earth. By understanding more about asteroids we may learn more about past Earth impacts and possibly find ways to reduce the threat of future impacts.
Future robotic missions to asteroids will prepare humans for long-duration space travel and the eventual journey to Mars. Robotic missions will provide reconnaissance information about asteroid orbits, surface composition, and even return samples to Earth for further evaluation. These robotic missions are a critical step in preparing humans to visit asteroids where we will learn about the valuable resources available in space, and further develop ways to use them in our quest for more efficient and affordable exploration.

Why Mars?

Mars has always been a source of inspiration for explorers and scientists. Robotic missions have found evidence of water, but if life exists beyond Earth still remains a mystery. Robotic and scientific robotic missions have shown that Mars has characteristics and a history similar to Earth's, but we know that there are striking differences that we have yet to begin to understand. Humans can build upon this knowledge and look for signs of life and investigate Mars' geological evolution, resulting in research and methods that could be applied here on Earth.
A mission to our nearest planetary neighbor provides the best opportunity to demonstrate that humans can live for extended, even permanent, stays beyond low Earth orbit. The technology and space systems required to transport and sustain explorers will drive innovation and encourage creative ways to address challenges. As previous space endeavors have demonstrated, the resulting ingenuity and technologies will have long lasting benefits and applications.
The challenge of traveling to Mars and learning how to live there will encourage nations around the world to work together to achieve such an ambitious undertaking. The International Space station has shown that opportunities for collaboration will highlight our common interests and provide a global sense of community.

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Humanity's interest in the heavens has been universal and enduring. Humans are driven to explore the unknown, discover new worlds, push the boundaries of our scientific and technical limits, and then push further. The intangible desire to explore and challenge the boundaries of what we know and where we have been has provided benefits to our society for centuries.

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Read "Stepping-Stones to the Future of Space Exploration: A Workshop Report" at NAP.edu

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Read chapter 3 Rationale for Human and Robotic Space Exploration: NASA's Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) program within the Office of ...

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Humans Are Essential for Space Exploration

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." With these words, President John F. Kennedy roused America's support of space exploration in 1962. He also acknowledged the geopolitical competition with the Soviet Union that provided the impetus to make mankind's greatest technological achievement a possibility. Absent that Cold War motivation, our manned space program has languished in low Earth orbit for the last 40 years. That drought drives home the point that we must return to the spirit of human exploration of the final frontier exemplified by the Apollo program. The need to see what is over the next horizon - and not to simply see it, but to actually touch it - is a fundamental aspect of human nature. Those horizons beckon on countless asteroids, the moon and Mars.

The manned exploration of space is an expression of one of our finest aspects - curiosity. To truly satisfy that curiosity we need to be participants. My colleague correctly points out that the robotic space program is a far more cost-effective means of advancing our scientific knowledge of the universe, and I could not agree more. While valuable advances have been made because of the manned program, it cannot and should not be justified on the grounds of scientific advancement. It is instead about something equally important as science - the inspiration of our species to pursue lofty goals.

Space scientists frequently make the mistake of assuming that the space exploration budget is a zero-sum game, lamenting the money spent on the manned program that could be used to fund ambitious and scientifically valuable robotic missions. It is naïve to expect that politicians would spend those same billions on purely scientific exploration. If the manned program was canceled today, its budget would disappear, never to be spent on space exploration of any kind. In contrast, the U.S. manned space program enables NASA to maintain a scientific program of space exploration that is by far the largest in the world. We need to move past the debate of manned versus unmanned programs and recognize that they serve different yet complementary roles, and that each endeavor ultimately strengthens the other.

Robots Are Key to Future Space Exploration

On the plus side, humans in space provide operational flexibility, inspiration and native intelligence. On the minus side, that flexibility comes at a steep price. Humans are heavy, fragile, dirty, vulnerable, picky about their environment, and have a low tolerance for the space environment (i.e., high energy radiation, extreme heat and cold, etc.). The fragility of humans, our aversion for risking human life, and the all-too-human need for consumables (food, water and oxygen) require vast amounts of money to pay for the extra engineering and multiple redundant systems we demand to reduce risk to astronauts, as well as for the vastly larger support crews needed to baby-sit every aspect of daily life during a manned space mission.

For crewed spacecraft, Venus and Mercury are impossibly hot, and the asteroid belt and Jupiter are impossibly cold. The longer travel times to these worlds would be a death sentence from radiation exposure, not to mention bone loss and muscle atrophy. Once at an exploration target, humans can be a mixed blessing. Imagine trying to search for life on Mars with human explorers who are shedding pollutants and terrestrial contamination with literally every step and breath.

Fundamentally there is no real choice between robotic and human exploration of space, however. Both are synergistic and mutually dependent. Robotic exploration is necessary to enable human exploration by setting the context, providing critical information, and reducing the risk to humans. Imagine how the Apollo program would have functioned without its robotic precursors - Lunar Orbiter to map the moon's surface, Ranger to get close-up views of areas that helped perfect NASA's navigation skills (remember that NASA missed the moon with two of the first three Rangers to get that far), and Surveyor to explore the surface, determine its composition and practice soft landings. Without these robotic precursors it would've been impossible to know where to go on the moon, to design the landing hardware, or to have any real idea of what to do once we got there - other than plant the flag.

Is there a choice between human and robotic exploration? Not really. Considering the current limited range of human exploration, robotic exploration is essential to enable manned missions. For the rest of the solar system, robotic exploration is the only realistic game in town.

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Are robots or astronauts the future of space exploration?

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"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." With these words, President John F. Kennedy roused America's support of space exploration in 1962.

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"I think humanity needs to get to Mars, one way or another," said Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive of SpaceX, who vows that his company will send people to Mars in as little as 10 years - more likely 15 years, and certainly within 20. He said he would do this with or without NASA: "I would prefer it would be with NASA. If not, we have to find another path."

The International Space Station is only a couple of hundred miles up - SpaceX's rocket has yet to get there, of course - and Mars is millions of miles away. But Mr. Musk predicts that travel to Mars will eventually become commonplace, and that the ticket price will eventually - perhaps a decade after the first flight - drop to half a million dollars. That contrasts with the more than $60 million a seat that the Russians are currently charging NASA to take one astronaut to the space station.

"Is it possible to achieve that?" Mr. Musk said in an interview at his headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. "I think it is. My calculations show that it is."

To date, space travel has been expensive and, as a government-managed operation, has had little incentive to streamline. NASA, of course, was the only game in town for American astronauts, and most recently it operated the shuttles that supplied the International Space Station. Big aerospace has been involved, too: One company, United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, effectively has a monopoly for launching satellites for NASA and the Air Force on its Delta IV and Atlas V rockets.

Only recently have smaller, nimbler companies like SpaceX, some of them run by billionaires who proved themselves in other fields, started trying to compete as equals with NASA and its major contractors. (Mr. Musk, for example, is an Internet entrepreneur who founded PayPal.)

"SpaceX is attempting to build the same class of vehicle, to my mind, only with modern manufacturing techniques and management techniques to reduce the cost," said Jeff Greason, chief executive of XCOR Aerospace, which is building a two-seat rocket plane to take tourists to the edge of space.

Since the end of the space shuttle program, NASA has relied on Russia to take its astronauts to space in Soyuz rockets, but now it is looking to hire commercial companies for space taxi services. So there are incentives for commercial companies both to build the transportation and to offer it at competitive prices. SpaceX, for one, says that it could provide rides to NASA astronauts at $20 million a seat, a third of the Russian price.

But the new space companies are relying on taxpayer dollars to finance their research and development. The Obama administration requested $830 million for next year to finance the development of passenger-carrying spacecraft. Proponents argue that the investments will jump-start a vibrant new business that dwarfs NASA; Congress has so far remained skeptical. A report by the House committee in charge of NASA's budget said the program ran the "risk of repeating the government's experience from last year's bankruptcy of the solar energy firm Solyndra."

Despite the ambivalence on Capitol Hill, the new space competition has drawn both entrepreneurs and the old aerospace giants.

Alliant Techsystems, better known as ATK, manufactured the solid rocket boosters for the space shuttles and had the contract to build a longer-range version as the first stage for NASA's next-generation rocket, the Ares I. That was before the Ares I was canceled in favor of the space taxi approach.

ATK has now teamed up with Astrium, a European rocket company, to come up with what is essentially a commercial version of the Ares I, which it called the Liberty. Last week, ATK announced that it was developing its own capsule - based heavily on the Orion capsule that was originally going to sit on top of the Ares I - to carry astronauts for NASA one day. ATK says it, too, would charge less than the Russians.

What is not clear is whether there are people and companies interested in buying all those seats to orbit. Currently, the market for taking people into space is small. NASA needs to send only two crews a year to the space station, and if a piece of space debris were to disable the station, there would suddenly be no demand at all. The commercial future of space, while relying on NASA financing in the short run, needs new markets for manufacturers to take advantage of the economies of mass production.

"The only way to make a dramatic reduction of price is to assume a dramatic increase of launches," said Mr. Greason of XCOR. "You have to assume there is some market, that there will be enough demand to support that low price."

The current rockets - most of them good for one launching only - are very expensive regardless of whether they are built by entrepreneurs or government. The future of low-cost travel in space hinges on reusable rockets and technologies not yet developed, space experts say.

Mr. Musk declined to talk about what a profitable business model for sending people to Mars might look like, but said his ultimate goal of a $500,000 trip to Mars depended on a large number of passengers and fully reusable systems.

"I'm not going to try to convince people I can do it," he said. "I'm just going to do it."

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national aeronautics and space administration

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Contracts Help Private Sector Edge Deeper Into Space

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"I think humanity needs to get to Mars, one way or another," said Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive of SpaceX, who vows that his company will send people to Mars in as little as 10 years - more likely 15 years, and certainly within 20.

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Editor's Note: Amitai Etzioni is professor of international relations and director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at George Washington University.

Story highlights

While space travel still gets a lot of attention, not enough attention has been accorded to a major new expedition to the deepest point in the ocean, some 7 miles deep - the recent journey by James Cameron, on behalf of National Geographic.

The cover story of the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs lays out the "Case for Space." "60 Minutes" recently ran a story about the dire effects on Florida's space industry of scaling back our extraterrestrial endeavors. Newt Gingrich gained attention earlier this year by calling for building a permanent base on the moon. And President Obama has talked of preparing to eventually send Americans into orbit around Mars.

Actually, there are very good reasons to stop spending billions of dollars on manned space missions, to explore space in ways that are safer and much less costly, and to grant much higher priority to other scientific and engineering mega-projects, the oceans in particular.

The main costs of space exploration arise from the fact that we are set on sending humans, rather than robots. The reasons such efforts drive up the costs include: A human needs a return ticket, while a robot can go one way. Space vehicles for humans must be made safe, while we can risk a bunch of robots without losing sleep. Robots are much easier to feed, experience little trouble when subject to prolonged weightlessness, and are much easier to shield from radiation. And they can do most tasks humans can.

British astronomer royal Martin Rees writes, "I think that the practical case (for manned flights) gets weaker and weaker with every advance in robotics and miniaturization. It's hard to see any particular reason or purpose in going back to the moon or indeed sending people into space at all." Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg calls manned missions "an incredible waste of money" and argues that "for the cost of putting a few people on a very limited set of locations on Mars we could have dozens of unmanned, robotic missions roving all over Mars."

The main argument for using humans is a public relations one. As Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it in Foreign Affairs, "China's latest space proclamations could conceivably produce another 'Sputnik moment' for the United States, spurring the country into action after a relatively fallow period in its space efforts." Also, astronauts are said to inspire our youth to become scientists and explorers. However, it is far from established that we cannot achieve the same effects by making other R&D projects our main priority.

Take the oceans, about which we know much less than the dark side of the moon. Ninety percent of the ocean floor has not even been charted, and while we have been to the moon, the technology to explore the ocean's floors is still being developed. For example, a permanent partially-submerged sea exploration station, called the SeaOrbiter, is currently in development.

The oceans play a major role in controlling our climate. But we have not learned yet how to use them to cool us off rather than contribute to our overheating. Ocean organisms are said to hold the promise of cures for an array of diseases. An examination of the unique eyes of skate (ray fish) led to advances in combating blindness, the horseshoe crab was crucial in developing a test for bacterial contamination, and sea urchins helped in the development of test-tube fertilization.

The toadfish's ability to regenerate its central nervous system is of much interest to neuroscientists. A recent Japanese study concluded that the drug eribulin, which was derived from sea sponges, is effective in combating breast, colon, and urinary cancer.

Given the looming crisis of water scarcity, we badly need more efficient and less costly methods to desalinate ocean water. By 2025, 1.8 billion people are expected to suffer from severe water scarcity, with that number jumping to 3.9 billion by 2050-well over a third of the entire global population.

If the oceans do not make your heart go pitter-patter, how about engineering a bacteria that eats carbon dioxide - and thus helps protect the world from overheating - AND excretes fuel which will allow us to drive our cars and machines, without oil? I cannot find any evidence that people young or old, Americans or citizens of other nations, would be less impressed or less inspired with such a breakthrough than with one more set of photos of a far away galaxy or a whole Milky Way full of stars.

Space enthusiasts claim that space exploration has generated major spinoffs for our life right here on Earth. Tyson quotes President Obama suggesting that the Apollo mission "produced technologies that have improved kidney dialysis and water purification systems; sensors to test for hazardous gases; energy-saving building materials; and fire-resistant fabrics used by firefighters and soldiers," and adds a few more innovations to the list: "digital imaging, implantable pacemakers, collision-avoidance systems on aircraft, precision LASIK eye surgery, and global positioning satellites."

Of course, the space environment is radically different from the one on Earth. Materials and technologies that are suited for a vacuum, zero gravity, and extreme cold and heat are not the ones we typically can use on Earth.

Opinion: Gingrich's moon colony lost in the laughter

Elias Carayannis, professor of Science, Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at The George Washington University, notes "government agencies - particularly those such as the National Space and Aeronautics Administration that are continually pressured to justify their activities - tout the spin-off value of their investments in sometimes quite extravagant claims." Products such as Velcro, Tang, and Teflon that are often cited as spinoffs of space technology did not actually result from the space program.

Space promoters tell us, once every few months, that there are signs that there might be or has been water on one of the planets that might make "life" possible. I wonder if some of those who hear these reports interpret them to mean that we expect to find a civilization out there, one that we could ally with, say against the Chinese. What scientists are really talking about is organic material, the kind found in any compost - not a reason to spend billions of dollars of public funds.

In short, do not cry for Mars. It is not going away. We can send R2D2 to explore it and still keep a whole pile of dough for important and inspiring exploration missions right here on Earth, starting at the beach nearest you.

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Editor's Note: Amitai Etzioni is professor of international relations and director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at George Washington University. While space travel still gets a lot of attention, not enough attention has been accorded to a major new expedition to the deepest point in the ocean, some 7 miles deep - the recent journey by James Cameron, on behalf of National Geographic.

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https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/whyweexplore/why_we_explore_main.html#.W_1p6YFKjnE
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/60counting/spaceflight.html

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From shrinking spines to space fungus: The top five dangers of space travel

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When President John F. Kennedy declared in 1962 that the United States would go to the moon, not because it is easy, but "because [it is] hard," he had no idea how hard. Nevertheless, the success of the Apollo 11 moon landing and subsequent manned missions inspired space explorers of all stripes to justify their journeys to other cosmic outposts in the same vein: because it's the ultimate challenge. But with each new study, the passage to Mars and other planets seems fraught with more danger than ever thought possible.

Just lifting off the surface of Earth and landing on another planet is bad enough. But how intense are the dangers of actually traveling in space? Here are five of the most dangerous threats astronauts will face when traveling to Mars and beyond.

Cosmic radiation

En route to another world, astronauts will be bombarded with cosmic radiation: tiny, high-energy atom fragments that whiz through space and can damage cells and DNA. People on Earth are protected from cosmic rays thanks to Earth's magnetic field, but an unprotected, Mars-bound astronaut would receive 0.3 sieverts of radiation on a one-way trip-that's hardly close to the lethal dose of 8 sieverts or even the radiation sickness-causing dose of 1 sievert, but researchers think that amount (equivalent to 24 computerized tomography scans) is enough to cause irreversible damage to brain cells and other cells that aren't readily replenished.

"The central nervous system is the 800-pound gorilla in all of this," says Charles Limoli, a radiation oncologist at the University of California, Irvine. In a recent rodent study in Scientific Reports, Limoli suggests that cosmic rays would cause long-term brain damage in astronauts on the way to another planet, resulting in dementia, memory deficits, anxiety, depression, and impaired decision-making. "This is not positive news for astronauts deployed on a 2- to 3-year round trip to Mars," he says. But it might be a problem we can fix. Several research groups, including Limoli's, are working on a drug that could protect cells and DNA from being broken apart. Still, others are trying to invent shields that would deflect the rays altogether.

Going stir crazy

If you've ever been on a long family road trip, you've had a taste of what a trip to Mars might be like-except that when your dad plays too much ABBA, you can eventually exit the vehicle. In a years-long deep space voyage without pit stops, a spat could mean life and death for crewmembers. In a NASA-funded report published this year on long space flights, Jack Stuster, a cultural anthropologist at private research corporation Anacapa Sciences in Santa Barbara, California, writes that U.S. astronauts' No. 1 concern on missions to the International Space Station (ISS) was getting along with crewmates. Their journals, positive overall, reflected that concern: "I think I do need to get out of here," one astronaut wrote. "Living in close quarters with people over a long period of time, definitely even things that normally wouldn't bother you much at all can bother you after a while ... that can drive anybody crazy."

And that was when Earth was right out the window. If astronauts start to feel this way when both Earth and their destination are but tiny pinpoints in space, things will feel even grimmer, Stuster says. Though these feelings can be limited by keeping busy, and by the intense psychological screenings that crewmembers undergo, the spectre of violence-and even mutiny-will always be a possibility.

Space fungus

We've known since the 1960s that some microorganisms can survive the perils of space, including microgravity, extreme temperatures, and radiation. And given that our best efforts to wipe space vessels clean of microorganisms often fails, exposure to these potentially pathogenic organisms is unavoidable. Now, a new study supports that claim. In October, researchers found that the airborne fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, the most common cause of invasive fungal infection in humans, grows just as well on the ISS as it does on Earth. And if fumigatus lives just fine in space, the researchers write, so could many other, more lethal pathogens. The researchers say this calls for a better detection and cleaning policy to avoid sending a ship full of astronauts into the dangers of deep space, only to have them killed by an earthly pathogen.

Microgravity

From YouTube videos of astronauts playing with floating blobs of water or doing effortless backflips, it seems like microgravity would be a blast. But up in space, the reality is much more serious. The absence of gravity causes bones and muscles to deteriorate, leading to a number of physiological problems. Astronauts on the ISS exercise for 2 hours a day to protect their muscles from wasting away, but losing bone density is unavoidable.

Microgravity could also affect the body in other, unpredictable ways. Many astronauts, including Scott Kelly, have returned to Earth with blurred vision. The cause, according to research presented this week at the Radiology Society of North America's annual meeting, is an increased volume of spinal fluid that pushes against the optic nerve and eyeballs, causing farsightedness. In another study, scientists discovered that the spinal muscles of ISS astronauts-essential for support and movement-shrank significantly during their time in space, decreasing by 19%. That could be the reason more than half of all ISS crew members report spinal pain and are four times more likely than Earth-bound citizens to have herniated disks, the researchers write in Spine. One solution? Space yoga-researchers say it might help increase spine mobility and strength. Exactly which poses they'll do is yet to be determined.

Human error

Making mistakes is something humans are extraordinarily good at, and in space, mistakes tend to hold heavier consequences. Andy Weir, the author of the science-fiction novel The Martian, took full advantage of that, crafting his entire plot around how a stranded astronaut must expertly solve dozens of problems or face certain death. Real-life space explorers are not always as lucky. Take the space shuttle Challenger and Columbia disasters, for example. Both shuttles broke apart because of mechanical problems, killing all seven astronauts on board each time. With Challenger, rubber O-rings were the culprit, causing the shuttle to break apart in the sky when they couldn't seal properly in the cold. Columbia broke apart during re-entry when insulating foam separated from the shuttle and punctured its left wing. NASA management knew about mechanical issues in both cases, but considered them unimportant because they had never derailed a mission in the past.

On long spaceflights where tensions might be running high or radiation could cause unusual anxiety, depression, or confusion, it'd be no surprise to see human-caused errors like a crash landing, leaky space suits, or even the loss of the water supply. Finding a way to limit the dangers of space and learning from past mistakes will ensure the safest flight to Mars and beyond. And with a little luck, our astronauts could end up as successful as Weir's.

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From shrinking spines to space fungus: The top five dangers of space travel

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When President John F. Kennedy declared in 1962 that the United States would go to the moon, not because it is easy, but "because [it is] hard," he had no idea how hard.

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We've put boots on the moon. There are plans in the works to put boots on Mars in this generation. Small spacecraft, such as Voyager 1, have traveled more than 138 AU from our planet since launching, with the goal of discovering what interstellar space may have in store. The pros and cons of space exploration let us explore the final frontier that we currently know. It allows us to see what the universe offers beyond on our planet.

Exploring space is also inherently dangerous. Not only is space a vacuum environment that does not support human life without protection, but we do not know what may be lying in wait for us out there. The conflicts we have here at home could be minuscule compared to the conflicts that may be waiting for us in the stars.

Here are some of the key points to think about when looking at this debate.

What Are the Pros of Space Exploration?

1. It provides humanity with hope for the future.
Humans are currently confined to a single planet and facilities that orbit it. Should something happen that changes the environment of the planet, it would have the potential of wiping out the entire human species. A large asteroid, the star going nova, or even a shift in the planetary climate could devastate humanity. Space exploration gives us the chance to begin colonizing other locations, giving us hope that our species can survive.

2. It increases our knowledge.
There are many secrets lying in wait to be discovered in space. Asteroids or planets may have new materials that we don't have on Earth. We can discover more about how the universe was created and why it exists in its current state. These discoveries could then help to improve life on our own planet as we seek out others to explore.

3. It drives innovations in numerous fields.
According to the 100-Year Starship Program, the technologies that were created for and made possible because of space exploration have helped to shape, permeate, and are an integral part of who we are today. To travel the stars, we must be able to store large quantities of energy. We must develop closed-loop support systems. Advances in agriculture, computing, artificial intelligence, and manufacturing must happen as well. The framework needed to explore space improves the socioeconomic frameworks we have at home.

4. It can be something that we do at home.
According to information provided by the Goddard Space Flight Center, there are over 2,200 active satellites in orbit around Earth right now. One of those satellites is the Hubble Space Telescope. This technology has allowed us to explore our solar system from right here at home. In 2017, this telescope discovered that a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, name 2007 OR10, has a moon that was previously unknown.

5. True space exploration requires international cooperation.
The foundation of how we explore space was created in 1966 with the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. It's easier to call it the "Outer Space Treaty." By 2017, there were 105 countries who had signed onto the treaty and another 24 who have signed, but not yet ratified it. This treaty forbids placing weapons of mass destruction into orbit, installing them on the moon, or any other location in space. The treaty also disallows any nation from claiming a celestial resource as a national appropriation.

6. The political structures of managing space exploration are already in place.
According to Wired, a multistate body that is supported by 193 nations approves the orbits of items that are currently in space. It is called the International Telecommunication Union and it has been in place since the 1960s. With their protocols helping to create a push deeper into space, exploration could become a future way of life.

What Are the Cons of Space Exploration?

1. It could allow other civilizations to know about our own.
The idea of finding alien life has been a concept explored in the medium of fiction for more than a century. There is something comforting about the idea that humans are not alone in the universe as a species. That knowledge could come with a price. If an advanced civilization encountered one of the gold-plated records on the Voyager crafts and decided they wanted our planetary resources, we might be unable to stop them. There is sometimes more danger in being part of a community than living by yourself without any neighbors.

2. Exploring space is a costly venture.
In 1973, the total cost of the Apollo program was reported to the US Congress as being $25.4 billion. The total cost of the space shuttle program, when adjusted for inflation, was $196 billion. Each mission that was flown came at a cost of $450 million. The Mars One mission budget to bring just 4 people to Mars is over $6 billion. Even as technologies advance, the costs of exploring space are far from cheap.

3. We must consume resources to get people or equipment into space.
There are high fuel costs required to launch anything into orbit. Using the US Space Shuttle program as an example, the total mass of all propellants was over 3.8 million pounds. Fossil fuels are refined to create these fuels, used in the manufacturing processes to create the equipment or vehicles, and this creates an environmental cost which must be paid at some point.

4. Exploring space means we're leaving a lot of litter behind.
According to information provided by NASA, there are more than 500,000 items of debris that are currently being tracked as they orbit our planet. This space junk is litter that is flying at a speed of over 17,500 miles per hour, which means an impact could do great damage. Now expand the amount of space junk that exists to other planets or solar systems and the amount of litter we would leave behind is quite enormous.

5. No agreements are in place for rich resources that may exist in space.
The current treaties which govern space exploration forbid governments from appropriating territories in space. The amount of materials in a single asteroid could be more than $100 billion. Planetary Resources has evaluated an asteroid called "Davida" to be worth $100 trillion or more. Although the US has brought back hundreds of pounds of rocks from the moon without litigation, there would be a greater fight in grabbing resources that are in the hundreds of trillions of dollars.

The pros and cons of space exploration highlight the current rifts we have in society. Governments are restricted and private organizations with the most resources have the chance to make huge profits. If those profits can be funneled toward a mutual good, then humanity can do more than just survive. It could thrive.

Blog Post Author Credentials
Louise Gaille is the author of this post. She received her B.A. in Economics from the University of Washington. In addition to being a seasoned writer, Louise has almost a decade of experience in Banking and Finance. If you have any suggestions on how to make this post better, then go here to contact our team.

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We've put boots on the moon. There are plans in the works to put boots on Mars in this generation. Small spacecraft, such as Voyager 1, have traveled more than 138 AU from our planet since launching, with the goal of discovering what interstellar space may have in store.

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Human Exploration and Operations (Archive)

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NASA.gov brings you the latest images, videos and news from America's space agency. Get the latest updates on NASA missions, watch NASA TV live, and learn about our quest to reveal the unknown and benefit all humankind.

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This article is part of a series looking at the moral dimensions of modern life In February, the British Government announced a £10 million initiative to support innovation in space commerce. In economic terms, expenditure of this sort, on near-Earth space activity, makes sense.

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Emily Lakdawalla * December 30, 2011

In the hours after Curiosity launched last month, there were more than a few people questioning the worth of spending two and a half billion dollars to launch a spacecraft to Mars. This is absolutely a fair question to ask. It's important to place the question in context, because most people in the general public think NASA gets a much larger fraction of the U.S. budget than it actually does (people tend to think it gets five or even 15 or 20 percent of the budget, when the actual number is about 0.4 percent).

Even though NASA is not as large a part of the budget as people think it is, it's irrefutable that $2,500,000,000 (the approximate total cost of Curiosity through its primary mission) or $17,800,000,000 (the fiscal year 2012 budget for all of NASA) is a lot of money that could pay for lots of other worthwhile things. I wondered how it compared to other discretionary expenses, so I checked. The 2012 budget for federal cultural grants agencies -- things like the National Endowment for the Arts, the Smithsonian, and so on -- totals a little over $1,250,000,000, or about half the cost of the Curiosity mission. The National Park Service gets $2,200,000,000 out of the Department of Interior's total $12,000,000,000 budget. NASA has a relatively big budget.

Obviously, I believe NASA is worth the money. But it's such a lot of money that it's difficult to explain briefly why it's worth it. Here's what I think: investing in NASA makes us smarter, improves our lives, and increases our capability to overcome technological challenges. Even more important, though, are the intangible benefits of pride, respect from other nations, respect for our place in the universe, and hope for a future in which we can accomplish even greater things. In this post I'm going to explain why I think these things. This will be an unusually U.S.-centric post for me, but many of the ideas in it apply to other spacefaring nations.

First, there are some immediate practical benefits to spending on space exploration. Billions of dollars spent on NASA are not crateloads of cash loaded onto a rocket and shot into space. The high costs are not associated (entirely) with the materials that leave Earth. Instead, they're associated with the technical challenges of building machines to rigorous specifications. To meet those technical challenges, we need lots of very smart engineers, and those engineers are developing all kinds of new technologies. Many of those new technologies can be turned to commercial uses, providing a direct economic benefit and making America one of the few nations in the world capable of revolutionary technological innovation. NASA has a website devoted to spinoff technologies; there's a lot more than just Velcro and Tang. NASA technologies have made their way into medical, architectural, military, automotive, and artistic applications, just to name a few.

Just as important, the brains capable of all that innovation remain here on Earth, ready to develop more valuable, new ideas. Not every engineer at a NASA center is building scientific spacecraft; they work for commercial clients and the military, too, innovating new solutions to practical problems here on Earth. NASA technologies and space industry engineers make our lives better and give America economic power.

All of that is good but I do wonder what an economic analysis of the return on our investment would show. I do not know (can anybody point me to a paper?) but my working hypothesis would be that we don't get 18 billion dollars' worth of direct economic benefit annually from our 18-billion-dollar investment. [EDIT: Barbara Cohen pointed me to an excellent NASA HQ library resource on measuring the return on investment in NASA, and said that estimates of ROI in NASA range from 1:1 to 9:1, much larger than I had thought..]

That's where we get to the intangibles: pride, respect, and hope. Pride is complicated; there's good pride and there's bad pride. The good kind of pride is the kind that you feel when you achieve something, and it scales with the challenge inherent in your achievement. When I stand with thousands of others and watch a great rocket soar on that parabolic arc into the sky, carrying with it a relatively tiny, almost unimaginably complex package that embodies more than ten years' worth of hard work of more thousands of skilled people, I feel immense pride that my country can do such difficult things. I didn't build that rover, or that rocket, but my team did.

It's a good feeling, but why is that important? If you are proud of what you do, and what you can do, you have self-respect. And if you can accomplish such great things, you can earn the respect of others. There is a lot of value in respect. We as a nation have lost a lot of respect in recent years, and with that loss of respect has come a loss of political power and a reduction in our capability to lead other nations into actions that are compatible with our interests. Our space program is one of the things that makes us great, that sets us far apart from other productive countries, that makes us respectable, that makes our advice worth listening to. I don't really know how to put a value on that, but I feel comfortable saying that the value of that respect must be measured in many billions of dollars. There's a story about physicist Robert Rathburn Wilson testifying to Congress, who was asked by a senator: is a large science project (which became Fermilab) connected with the security of our country? The response: "It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending." *

Another intangible benefit of space exploration is hope. "Hope" became a politically charged word in our last election, and that's too bad, because it's so important. Hope and confidence that the future will be better than the present have always been an important driver of American growth. Hope is what brought the first colonists to American shores, and hope is what continues to bring immigrants to the United States today. Hope for the future makes us want to contribute to the greater good, while lack of hope makes us selfish and defensive. Space exploration, especially human space exploration, has always been coupled to visions of a future filled with technological wonders, breathtaking vistas, and a home world more advanced than the one we live on now. We can't make all of those visions come true, but the ones we can achieve through our toil will make our children's lives better than ours.

Visions of being part of that better world filled with better things and unimagined wonders are what drive children into studying science and technology. Not every kid who imagines herself an astronaut is going to walk on Mars some day, or captain an interstellar spaceship. But by following those dreams, she will develop the mind and skills needed to keep advancing our technological capability and maintain our economic standing.

There's a final wildcard reason why I think it's important to explore space. We don't know what we're going to find until we get out there. We don't know yet what we don't know. What are we going to discover out there that will be important or valuable out there someday? Maybe nothing. Maybe something that will change everything. Once people have met their basic needs -- food, shelter, security -- they look outward, look for something more, hope for something even better somewhere out there, seek answers to the question of how we got here in the first place, and wonder whether we're the only ones here. It's just the way we are. We're curious. Of course, just because curiosity is natural doesn't mean it's good. It's natural for humans to commit violence, too, and that's usually not good. And in fact curiosity, and messing with the unknown, don't always pay off. Not infrequently it results in disaster for the explorers. But occasionally, we find treasure, literally or figuratively. It was a willingness to probe the unknown in the uncertain hope that we'd find something better that led the first Europeans to America, and look at what we are now. Will our push into the solar system accomplish the same thing? Who knows? But we'll never know if we don't try.

Happy new year, everybody. May 2012 be filled with wondrous discoveries and delightfully puzzling new questions.

* Thanks to commenter Steven D. Adams for pointing me to the exact quote from Dr. Wilson.

Casey Dreier

Casey Dreier

Casey Dreier

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Investing in NASA makes us smarter, improves our lives, and increases our capability to overcome technological challenges. Even more important, though, are the intangible benefits of pride, respect from other nations, respect for our place in the universe, and hope for a future in which we can accomplish even greater things.

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QUESTION: 1) What do you see as the most significant challenges associated with the integration of human and robotic exploration in the future and what is the roadmap to achieve this vision? What role could NASA Ames Research Center play to realize this vision?

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Presented by Dara Ó Briain Presenter

Presented by Dara Ó Briain Presenter

In July 1969 the world watched as two men set foot on the Moon. For the first time, humanity had ventured out of the planet we call home and touched the possibility of worlds beyond.

But our space travel ambitions seem to have stalled since the 1970s and 1980s. In over 30 years, we've ventured virtually no further than the original pioneers. And as more astronauts have spent more time aboard the various space stations, they have reported worrying health problems.

As recent tragic events have shown, the most dangerous part of any space journey is take off. Trying to reach the speeds needed to escape Earth's gravity is fraught with peril. But even once they reach space, astronauts are not out of danger. Instead they are exposed to a new set of risks which we are only just beginning to understand.

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In Earth's orbit, astronauts might experience temperatures as low as -129C (-200F) and as high as 121C (250F). Spacesuits have been cleverly designed to protect us from these extreme conditions. They also provide air pressure to prevent our bodily fluids from boiling in the hard vacuum of space. But astronauts can only travel so far in the spacesuits that exist today. Even our best suits are limited to a 'low-Earth orbit'. To push farther into the Solar System we will need a new suit - one that will shield us from the lethal hazards of deep space. But even then, are we sturdy enough to survive a long mission? (Image courtesy of ILC Dover, LP.)

A spacesuit may protect us externally, but space can have devastating effects on the internal workings of the human body.

On Earth, we have evolved to work in harness with gravity. Our muscles and bones have developed to expect this force and it's needed to keep them strong and healthy. In space, astronauts float weightlessly. This looks like a lot of fun, but prolonged exposure to a microgravity environment can have insidious effects on the human body.

Space travel plays havoc with our blood circulation. Human cardiovascular systems are designed to pump blood steadily around the body against the force of gravity, which normally pulls blood towards our feet. But in the microgravity of space, blood moves up to the chest and head, giving astronauts puffy faces and raised blood pressure.

Muscles are also threatened by space travel. Without the need to work against gravity, muscles can start to waste, which increases the risk of tendonitis and fat accumulation.

The lack of gravity even makes astronauts stand up to two inches taller, as back vertebrae separate without the compression of gravity, leading to painful back-aches.

Over the long term, astronauts suffer the devastating consequences of bone loss. Microgravity causes the body to lose calcium and phosphorous, leading to a gradual weakening of bone and an increased risk of osteoporosis. Bone loss can be as high as 1.5% of its mass per month, that's roughly 10% over a six-month stay in space, with the recovery after returning to Earth taking at least three to four years. In an attempt to combat this, astronauts living on the ISS must carry out 2.5 hours of exercise a day, six times a week.

Radiation's biological effect is measured in mSv, the millisievert. No matter where you live on Earth you receive a small dose of radiation each day, but an astronaut living on the International Space Station is exposed to over 80 times that amount. Head further into space and that figure rises to a deadly degree.

Gemini astronaut Eugene Cernan walks in space © NASA

Eugene Cernan discovered that air makes a poor spacesuit coolant. He lost several pounds from dehydration during his 1966 spacewalk. Suits are now water-cooled.

Mir space station circles the Earth © NASA

Mir space station had 234 microbial species thriving on board, leading to infections. Astronauts now follow strict hygiene rules and sample the cabin for bugs.

Preventing space sickness

Astronaut Jake Garn sick aboard Space Shuttle Discovery © NASA

Preventing space sickness

In 1985 Jake Garn suffered the highest level of space sickness recorded. Now astronauts take motion sickness medicine as choking on their vomit could be fatal.

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Why has human space exploration got little further than the Moon? Dara O'Briain investigates what makes space travel so hazardous to health.

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NASA explores the unknown in air and space, innovates for the benefit of humanity, and inspires the world through discovery.

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"The Future of Robotic Space Exploration" | MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences

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Space & planetary sciences crew welcome! We have the treat of having Leon Alkalai on campus, he is a creative maestro behind many great mission ideas at JPL, and is a key strategic leader for their research efforts. "The Future of Robotic Space Exploration"

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NASA will continue tapping the private sector to fund space exploration efforts under President Donald Trump, a continuation in policy that began under former President George W. Bush.

"Public-private partnerships are the future of space exploration," Dava Newman, a former NASA deputy administrator who resigned before Trump took office, told CNBC on Tuesday. "I call it the new NASA."

In total, 22 companies - all American - have won contracts with the agency across a diverse range of sectors, from in-space manufacturing to engine development.

Boeing and Elon Musk's SpaceX will be delivering NASA astronauts to international space stations, while Orbital ATK, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX will transport NASA cargo to space stations, said Newman, who is now chair of the Apollo Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

NASA is a part of the U.S. government but remains independent while still receiving federal funds - a structure originally conceived by McKinsey & Co. In the 1950s, the management consultancy suggested the idea of a separate government office dedicated to space research.

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national aeronautics and space administration

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NASA bets big on private sector to put humans on Mars

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NASA will continue tapping the private sector to fund space exploration efforts under President Donald Trump, a continuation in policy that began under former President George W. Bush. "Public-private partnerships are the future of space exploration," Dava Newman, a former NASA deputy administrator who resigned before Trump took office, told CNBC on Tuesday.

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Machines, not people, should be exploring space for now

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Don Lincoln says romantic notions of manned spaceflight shouldn't obscure the fact that most exploration can be done more cheaply and more safely by robots

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https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/opinion/

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What Did This Cosmonaut Miss About Earth After a Year in Space? | National Geographic

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Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Future of Space Exploration | StarTalk

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Recently, it seemed as though support for space exploration, both human and robotic, was reaching a crescendo.

Last year's Pluto flyby, a new mission to Jupiter, and a planned mission to the icy moon Europa showcased NASA's commitment to exploring deep space, while major announcements from President Obama and Elon Musk made it sound like efforts to send humans to Mars might finally escape the realm of science fiction. All this activity fueled an optimistic view that exploring space may once again be a national priority.

But under President-elect Donald Trump, might all of that energy come to a hood-buckling, airbag-deploying halt?

There's a good chance the answer is no.

"Space is the frontier on which American aspiration can become humankind's inspiration," Trump advisors Robert Walker, a former U.S. congressman, and Peter Navarro, an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine, wrote in an op-ed published at SpaceNews in October. "The destiny of a free people lies in the stars. Donald Trump agrees."

While those ideas are strongly stated, it's unclear whether they will survive Trump's transition into power, says space policy expert John Logsdon. "The public Trump statement has endorsed space exploration ... but it could go either way."

Right now, landing people on Mars in the next several decades is NASA's major focus in crewed spaceflight, and it seems like that goal may survive-with the caveat that sending humans to the moon may become a nearer-term priority.

"I think that there will be momentum building to reinsert missions to the moon as part of the human exploration plan, while maintaining Mars as the horizon goal," Logsdon says.

An Emphasis on Deep Space ...

Truthfully, we know little about how Trump might approach space policy. His public statements have mostly been space-positive (except for that time he told a 10-year-old that fixing potholes was a more pressing problem than anything NASA-related).

Two op-eds by advisors Walker and Navarro, as well as Trump's own rhetoric, suggest space exploration will not fare badly during his administration. It seems likely that the Trump vision includes a focus on increased partnership with commercial enterprises rather than governmental development, but an emphasis on humans pushing farther into the solar system could accelerate the development of relevant technologies across all sectors.

"Human exploration of our entire solar system by the end of this century should be NASA's focus and goal," wrote Walker and Navarro.

It's a promising concept, says the Planetary Society's Casey Dreier. "I hope we'll be talking about planetary science and robotic exploration," he says. "But I think it's so hard to know. We're working with such little information."

There are potential downsides to Trump's vision, as well. He and his advisors have been clear about their intentions to aggressively streamline the NASA bureaucracy and eliminate duplicative projects, a move that could lead to some major reorganizations within the agency.

"It makes little sense for numerous launch vehicles to be developed at taxpayer cost, all with essentially the same technology and payload capacity," wrote Walker and Navarro. "Coordinated policy would end such duplication of effort and quickly determine where there are private sector solutions that do not necessarily require government investment."

At the Expense of Earth Science?

Another casualty-this one seemingly more assured than the demise of SLS-is NASA's earth sciences program, which employs a fleet of satellites to study and understand our home planet. In addition, Trump may try to reduce NASA's role in ferrying goods to and from the Earth-orbiting International Space Station.

"I will free NASA from the restriction of serving primarily as a logistics agency for low-Earth orbit activity," Trump said during an October campaign stop in Sanford, Florida.

It's a sentiment that was echoed by Walker and Navarro, who wrote that NASA "has been largely reduced to a logistics agency concentrating on space station resupply and politically correct environmental monitoring." Instead, they suggest that NASA's primary focus ought to be free from what they seem to consider the distracting endeavor of understanding the planet we live on.

Earth science helps save lives. It also helps grow companies and creates an awareness of environmental challenges that affect our lives today and tomorrow.

This means the Trump team might try to shift Earth-observing activities from NASA to another agency, probably the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which introduces a whole host of funding quagmires, because there's no expectation that NOAA's budget will expand enough to absorb the shift.

To say scientists aren't optimistic about the potential impact on earth science programs is no overstatement, and in a time when climate change threatens this planet in a very real way, that information is more valuable than ever.

"Earth science helps save lives. It also helps grow companies and creates an awareness of environmental challenges that affect our lives today and tomorrow," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for science, said during a briefing on November 10.

Luckily, Dreier says, Trump won't be inheriting oppressive cost overruns like George W. Bush did with the International Space Station, or President Obama did when he cancelled Bush's Constellation program, which would have sent humans back to the moon. "That's a pretty good position to be in," Dreier says.

Hopes for Minimal Disruption

Other information from those reports and from the Trump transition team hint at a potential focus on returning humans to the lunar surface (which is not a current NASA priority) while canceling the Asteroid Redirect Mission, which has been a controversial stepping stone on the human journey to Mars.

The Trump team has also announced its intent to reinstate the George H.W. Bush-era National Space Council, which would be chaired by incoming Vice President Mike Pence.

Founded in 1958 as the National Aeronautics and Space Council, and subsequently disbanded and revived several times, the panel arose as a way to comprehensively coordinate all aspects of U.S. space activities, whether civilian or military. If it's organized as before, the council will include the heads of agencies involved in space-related endeavors, and it should work in tandem with Congress to set national goals and priorities.

"The idea is that so many agencies are involved in the space program, that there needs to be White House coordination of what they're up to," Logsdon says.

Of course, no major changes in NASA programs will happen easily without congressional approval. And given that most prominent lawmakers involved in space policy have retained their seats in Congress, it's possible that anything truly distasteful-for example, shuttering SLS, which is strongly supported by congressional Republicans-could run into roadblocks.

But overall, with the notable exception of NASA's earth science program, "this may be the first time in decades where you don't see a whole dramatic shift in the agency's focus," Dreier says. "Minimal disruption is what we're hoping for."

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Recently, it seemed as though support for space exploration, both human and robotic, was reaching a crescendo. Last year's Pluto flyby, a new mission to Jupiter, and a planned mission to the icy moon Europa showcased NASA's commitment to exploring deep space, while major announcements from President Obama and Elon Musk made it sound like efforts to send humans to Mars might finally escape the realm of science fiction.

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After a 205-day journey through space, NASA's InSight lander is safely on the surface of Mars. Tasked with peering beneath the Martian surface and mapping the planet's underworld, InSight touched down at 2:52 p.m. ET in a sunny patch of boring landscape inside the equatorial plains of Elysium Planitia.

Anxious teams of scientists and engineers, clustered together at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, knew the spacecraft had survived its wild and tricky descent to the red planet's surface after receiving data suggesting the lander had touched down safely-followed by an image from InSight itself showing a dusty, alien horizon with a single robot foot.

"It's nice and dirty; I like that," says Bruce Banerdt, InSight's principal investigator. "This image is actually a really good argument for why you put a dust cover on a camera. Good choice, right?"

After successfully unfurling its solar panels a few hours later, the spacecraft officially became the newest member in an elite fleet of interplanetary robots currently exploring the red planet-including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which monitored InSight's descent.

"I'm very, very happy that it looks like we have an incredibly safe and boring-looking landing plain. That's exactly what we were going for-it's what the landing site selection people promised me," says JPL's Tom Hoffman, the InSight project manager. "They promised me sandy with no rocks. But there's one rock, so I might have to talk with them about that."

InSight's journey of more than 300 million miles began on May 5 with a foggy, early morning launch from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. Tucked inside its shell, the spacecraft rocketed through the solar system, navigating by starlight as an onboard star tracker helped it stay on course.

On November 25 -and then once more, a few hours before touchdown-the spacecraft's entry, descent, and landing team nudged it onto a trajectory that would allow it to bulls-eye in Elysium Planitia. This flat, unremarkable plain was chosen specifically because of the relatively abundant sunlight at the equator and its geologic boringness at the surface, which offers the best chance of finding ideal places to set down its instruments.

Once its plunge through the atmosphere was set, the team could only sit back and watch: Without guided entry, InSight had to fly itself to the Martian surface, meaning that a safe landing relied upon correct, preprogrammed commands and on all the necessary onboard instruments functioning properly.

"There are certainly points that will make me smile if they go well," Julie Wertz-Chen, an entry, descent, and landing team member, said the week before.

As InSight made contact with the planet's thin air, a heat shield protected it from burning up while it whizzed along at 12,300 miles an hour. About a minute later, the spacecraft deployed a parachute that put on a hefty brake and eventually slowed it to 134 miles an hour.

Its heat shield then popped off, and an on-board radar began to search for and ultimately lock onto the ground. At 3,280 feet up, InSight ditched its parachute, performed a short free fall, and then fired a dozen descent engines to eventually slow it to a mere five miles an hour.

From atmospheric contact to setting robot legs on the ground, the process took just 6 minutes and 45 seconds.

"It was an incredibly emotional experience," Hoffman recounts. "To get to the point where you have seven more minutes to survive, literally survive, is incredibly hard to describe. My heart ... just stopped beating for seven minutes."

InSight wasn't the only robot entering Martian airspace for the first time today. Two mini-spacecraft, each about the size of a briefcase, were tagging along as part of the first mission to send tiny spacecraft known as CubeSats into interplanetary space.

Collectively known as Mars Cube One, but separately referred to as MarCO-A and MarCO-B, their mission was to collect information from InSight as it descended to the surface, and then relay that information to mission control at JPL. They succeeded not only in doing that, but also in sending back a stark, evocative image of Mars as they departed.

"This is a fantastic day for spacecraft, great and small," says JPL's Andrew Klesh. "This team of really mostly part-timers has proven the technology that we were trying to demonstrate with this mission."

Now that its solar panels are set up, it's time for InSight to get to work. Over the course of one Martian year (or at least two Earth years), it will do something a bit different from most other Mars missions, which have focused on the planet's flashy rift valleys, mammoth volcanoes, or signs of ancient running water on the surface.

Instead, this mission aims to get at the heart of Mars, to measure the size of the planet's core and other interior layers. To do this, it will rely on marsquakes -or tremors that are often produced by the same tectonic activity that crafts those beautiful mountains and valleys.

One of InSight's primary goals is to figure out how seismically active Mars is, says Renee Weber of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

"That is something that we don't actually know," she says. "That's basically how many quakes there are, how often they occur, where do they occur, how big they are."

Weber suspects that Mars will lie somewhere between Earth and moon in terms of tectonic activity (yes, the moon has moonquakes, which Apollo astronauts measured when they visited in the 1970s).

Parked on the surface, InSight is just waiting to snare those signals. Over the next couple months, it will deploy its instruments, including an exquisitely sensitive seismometer that should detect a variety of marsquakes, both those produced by the planet's own spasms and those resulting from meteor impacts.

"To get all the instruments on the ground is expected to take approximately two to three months," says JPL's Elizabeth Barrett. "I liken it to playing that claw game at a carnival, but you're doing it with a really, really valuable prize, and you're doing it blindfolded where you can only take occasional pictures, and then you're doing it via remote control on another planet."

After the spacecraft determines the location of a marsquake, it will read the incoming seismic waves and use the information they carry to figure out what types of rock they moved through. As marsquakes rock the planet's innards, they send seismic waves bouncing through the interior, signals that travel just a tiny bit differently depending on what kind of material they're moving through.

With enough data from enough different directions, scientists should be able to put together a picture of the planet's alien heart. A second instrument will be deployed to take the planet's temperature, drilling deep into Mars to find out how much heat is still escaping from its core.

All together, InSight's readings will help scientists figure out how planets are put together and how they evolve, says Suzanne Smrekar, the mission's deputy principal investigator. That's important not only for better understanding our own solar system, but also for deciphering clues about much more distant planets circling other stars.

"Really understanding the whole enchilada, not just the surface," Smrekar says, "is essential to really being able to make a reasonable prediction about what's going on in these distant worlds."

This story was updated on November 27 at 10:30 a.m. ET.

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New Mars lander safely touches down. What happens now?

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After a 205-day journey through space, NASA's InSight lander is safely on the surface of Mars. Tasked with peering beneath the Martian surface and mapping the planet's underworld, InSight touched down at 2:52 p.m. ET in a sunny patch of boring landscape inside the equatorial plains of Elysium Planitia.

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https://www.nap.edu/read/11020/chapter/4

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On March 21st, 2018, both branches of Congress passed the United States' Consolidated Appropriations Act, finalizing spending for the 2018 fiscal year. This omnibus spending bill clocks in at 2,232 pages and a total budget of $1.3 trillion, and despite initial threats by the President to veto the legislation, it was signed into law on Friday, March 23rd. Under President Trump's earlier proposal, many science-and-education-based organizations were facing dramatic potential cuts, including multiple branches of the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the EPA, the US Geological Service, the National Institutes of Health, NOAA, and the National Science Foundation. But in an unprecedented move, the administration proposed cancelling the flagship mission of NASA Astrophysics for the decade of the 2020s: WFIRST, along with many other cuts to NASA. Thankfully, many of these cuts didn't make it through. Let's examine the winners and losers.

Winner: NASA Science. Representing 28% of the total NASA budget, NASA Science focuses on astrophysics, planetary science, Earth science, and heliophysics, and is the primary contributor to what humanity learns about these fields from space. The biggest cuts were supposed to be immediate, and impact NASA Earth Science, the Office of Education, and WFIRST. (Each dealt with separately below.) For as much as the omnibus spending bill can accomplish, this is a victory for NASA science. The overall budget for NASA science actually goes up by $457M (8%), versus a decrease that was proposed in the President's recommendation.

Neutral: NASA Earth Science. There were five NASA Earth Science missions slated for the chopping block in the President's original proposal. These cuts were to vital satellites, all of which are focused on measuring various aspects of Earth's climate, including reflected and emitted light and energy, cloud cover and behavior, and the detection of long-and-short-term climate trends. If you want to understand how the planet's climate works, to forecast seasonal and environmental trends, and to do medium-to-long-term forecasting, you need these missions. Four of these five missions have had their funding restored:

1. the Plankton; Aerosol; Cloud; ocean Ecosystem (PACE);

2. the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3);

3. the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR)'s Earth-viewing instruments;

4. and the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Pathfinder.

while a fifth, the Radiation Budget Instrument (RBI), remains cancelled. However, future large missions designed to monitor the Earth's climate have received no official nod of support, threatening their long-term viability.

Precarious Winner: NASA's Office of Education. NASA's Office of Education is responsible for a whole slew of programs specifically designed to not only communicate the results of what NASA accomplishes to the general public, but also to provide grants, scholarship, internships, and educational programs run through schools, museums, and science centers. These affect everyone from K-12 children to undergraduates to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. The appropriations bill restored funding to the tune of $100M, but there is no long-term way to ensure this funding continues past September 30th. Time will tell whether this continued funding is a stopgap measure or a true victory.

Winner: Space Technology. NASA's Restore-L satellite received a windfall in the form of a $130M mandate, to develop this mission to its fullest extent. While its objective is listed as "autonomous rendezvous and grasping with telerobotic refueling and relocation," this satellite will focus on restoring and servicing existing satellites to their original design capabilities. These systems will include five separate servicing technologies, including an autonomous navigation system, servicing avionics that control its rendezvous and robotic tasks, two dextrous robotic arms that execute servicing assignments, advance tools and tool drives to execute each servicing task, and a propellant transfer system to deliver measured amounts of fuel at the right temperature, pressure, and rate. It's a huge, positive investment in our existing space-based infrastructure.

Neutral: WFIRST. The flagship astrophysics mission of the 2020s, WFIRST, chosen as the highest-priority mission for the field, was in danger of being completely defunded. As Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate of NASA, said earlier this year:

What we learn from these flagship missions is why we study the Universe. This is civilization-scale science... If we don't do this, we aren't NASA.

Under the omnibus budget, full funding for WFIRST has been restored ($150M) for the current cycle, and its early-stage operations will continue as planned. However, this in no way eliminates the risk of the mission being outright cancelled in 2019; the President has not given any signal that he plans to provide continued funding for WFIRST once major construction operations are slated to begin.

Neutral: James Webb Space Telescope. This telescope receives the exact amount requested by the administration, with a big caveat: if you exceed a total cost of $8B for this telescope, it triggers a notification of the administrator and an audit. Given that the telescope is in the final stages and the engineers and scientists working on perfecting the final systems before deployment, this sets up a win/lose scenario:

either do the job right, ensuring the mission succeeds and there are no hitches, but risk exceeding the time-and-money allocated to the project,

or do the best job you can on-time and on-budget, and risk a potentially crippling snag.

There is no substitute for doing the job right, and if the James Webb Space Telescope launches and fails because of external pressures, this could be the end of NASA's astrophysics. There will be a teleconference at 11:30 AM ET today on the updated status of James Webb.

Update: To date, NASA has spent $7.3B in development so far, and final integration of the various elements will take at least an additional 6 months beyond the original launch window; they are now targeting May of 2020 for a launch date. This additional time (and the resources required to get this right) may mean that the $8B limit imposed by the government will be exceeded, which will trigger an external independent review board (IRB) to be chaired by NASA veteran Thomas Young.

Winner: Planetary Science. This was potentially the biggest winner of all, receiving more than $2.2B: an increase of almost 15% over what was initially requested. $595M was earmarked for an orbiter and lander to meet the science goals outlined for the Jupiter Europa Clipper mission. This would meet the goals laid out by the planetary science decadal survey for searching for signs of life around one of the most likely candidates to house it in our Solar System. The orbiter should plan for launch no later than 2022 and the lander no later than 2024, so this is a big victory for these missions and that big question: is there life anywhere in the Solar System beyond Earth?

Winner: NASA Exploration. The Europa Clipper lander and orbiter must both launch aboard the SLS, which gets $2.15B, and the Orion system getting an additional $1.35B on top of that. The bill also includes another $350M for a second mobile launch platform; something that NASA did not even request for 2019. This represents a net increase for NASA Exploration of $1.06B over the original budget request, and hundreds of millions more than either the House or Senate requested. Exploration may lay claim to being the biggest winner, but space aficionados have strongly criticized both SLS and Orion, and many may be disappointed that this is where their money goes.

Loser: Peace. NASA has long been about the peaceful exploration of space, and the spirit of science has always been about the open sharing of data and information. Every NASA photo you've seen is public domain, and that's strongly aligned with the mission of sharing what we learn about the Universe and our place within it for the benefit of all of humanity. The President's latest space strategy statement goes against that. The "America First National Space Strategy" explicitly states, among other things:

President Trump's National Space Strategy recognizes that our competitors and adversaries have turned space into a warfighting domain. While the United States would prefer that the space domain remain free of conflict, we will prepare to meet and overcome any challenges that arise. Under the President's new strategy, the United States will seek to deter, counter, and defeat threats in the space domain that are hostile to the national interests of the United States and our allies.

There has never been a clearer message in all the space age that the benefit of all humanity is no longer the top priority here.

Neutral: Space Operations; Safety, Security, & Mission Services; Office of the Inspector General. These major divisions of NASA remain funded at levels unchanged from prior proposals and agreed upon without much controversy.

Loser: Long-term stability. As big of a fight as it was to get this bill passed and the crippling proposed cuts by the President overturned, it expires on September 30th of this year. All of these battles will likely need to be fought again in the very short term; WFIRST, James Webb, the Office of Education, and NASA's Earth Science will quite possibly see additional attempts to curtail, cut, or eliminate them entirely. In past administrations, it was rare to see an already funded-and-agreed-upon mission cancelled. If this year is any indication of what's to come, there will likely be additional battles required to ensure that many of these missions are seen through to fruition.

If the omnibus budget that was just passed this past week was an indicator of things to come for the state of NASA, the scientifically-minded among us would be quite pleased and satisfied with the direction of science in this country. However, pro-science advocates must take care that the Consolidated Appropriations Act doesn't become a Pyrrhic victory: a temporary boon of funding to be followed by a crushing defeat. If so, this will be a short-lived success that's only a precursor to the worst fears of many, an end to the era of NASA as the pre-eminent world powerhouse in scientific exploration and discovery of Earth, the Sun, our planetary system, and space.

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Winners And Losers In NASA's Budget For 2018 And Beyond

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On March 21st, 2018, both branches of Congress passed the United States' Consolidated Appropriations Act, finalizing spending for the 2018 fiscal year. This omnibus spending bill clocks in at 2,232 pages and a total budget of $1.3 trillion, and despite initial threats by the President to veto the legislation, it was signed into law on Friday, March 23rd.

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When NASA's space shuttle program was announced back in 1972, it was billed as a major advance - a key step in humanity's quest to exploit and explore space.

The shuttle would enable safe, frequent and affordable access to space, the argument went, with flights occurring as often as once per week and costing as little as $20 million each. But much of that original vision didn't come to pass.

Two of the program's 134 flights have ended in tragedy, killing 14 astronauts in all. Recent NASA estimates peg the shuttle program's cost through the end of last year at $209 billion (in 2010 dollars), yielding a per-flight cost of nearly $1.6 billion. And the orbiter fleet never flew more than nine missions in a single year.

The shuttle program is drawing to a close, with its last-ever mission - the STS-135 flight of Atlantis - slated to launch Friday (July 8). So now is as good a time as any to ask: Was it worth it? Or, put another way: Could NASA have found a better use for that $209 billion?

"People endlessly debate this stuff," said Roger Launius, space history curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. "You can make a case on both sides. It's not open-and-shut." [ NASA's Space Shuttle Program in Pictures]

The space shuttle Endeavour and International Space Station shine front and center in this amazing (and historic) photo of the two vehicles docked together as seen from a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Astronaut Paolo Nespoli snapped this view and others during the first-ever photo session of a shuttle docked at the space station. Original Image

Credit: NASA

Trapped in low-Earth orbit

A chief criticism of the shuttle program is that it prevented more ambitious manned exploration missions.

There is merit to that argument, experts say. After all, NASA's Apollo program put boots on the moon in 1969, just 12 years after the space age began. But it's been four decades since the last manned lunar landing, and in that time, NASA has made little discernible progress toward the next logical giant leap: getting people to Mars.

Instead, since 1981, the shuttle has kept zipping around the planet over and over again, just a few hundred miles above Earth's surface. [ Infographic: Evolution of the Space Plane]

"It kept us limited to low-Earth orbit," said space policy expert John Logsdon, professor emeritus at George Washington Universtity and author of "John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

Indeed, some NASA officials have voiced dissatisfaction with the agency's post-Apollo focus on the shuttle and the International Space Station, which shuttle missions have helped build since 1998.

"It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path," then-NASA chief Michael Griffin told USA Today in 2005. "We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can." [ Gallery: Visions of the Future of Human Spaceflight]

The new path Griffin referred to was laid out by President George W. Bush's moon-oriented Constellation program, which President Barack Obama cancelled last year.

Not enough money for Mars?

It's not as if NASA dreamed up the shuttle as part of a plan to restrict astronauts to low-Earth orbit for 30 years. Rather, the vehicle was viewed as a piece of infrastructure to enable more ambitious exploration down the road, Launius said.

Back in 1969, the space agency presented President Richard Nixon with several proposals for its post-Apollo direction. All of them advocated an integrated program aimed at getting astronauts to Mars in a series of steps.

Those steps involved building a shuttle and a space station, then using the station as a jumping-off point for return trips to the moon and, eventually, manned missions to Mars. But Nixon thought all of the proposals were too expensive, so he green-lighted just one aspect of them: the shuttle.

"There was no political will to continue flights to the moon, or to go off to Mars," Logsdon told SPACE.com. [ Giant Leaps: Top Milestones of Human Spaceflight]

As a result, there was not enough money to do these things, either. In 1966, NASA's budget was $5.9 billion (4.4 percent of the federal budget). By 1972, Nixon had cut it to $3.4 billion (1.6 percent of the budget).

And in the four decades since, NASA's budget has continued to decrease as a proportion of national spending. The agency got $18.45 billion in fiscal year 2011, less than 0.5 percent of the federal budget.

"It wasn't the space shuttle that was preventing us from exploring further," said space history expert Robert Pearlman, editor of the website collectSPACE.com and a SPACE.com contributor. "It was the lack of political will to give NASA more money."

The space shuttle Discovery launched on its STS-31 mission on April 24, 1990 at 8:33 a.m. EDT. The mission featured the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope, the first of NASA's Great Observatories to reach orbit. Original Image

Credit: NASA

The shuttle's benefits

While the shuttle program hasn't lived up to the great - and, in hindsight, unrealistic - expectations NASA laid out for it in the early 1970s, it has delivered significant returns over the years, many experts say.

For example, the shuttle has lofted many important pieces of hardware into space, such as the Hubble Space Telescope. And shuttle missions repaired and upgraded Hubble multiple times, enabling scientists to see the universe as never before.

Further, the $100 billion International Space Station, which could provide big research dividends down the road, has taken shape largely as a result of the shuttle's efforts. And hundreds of experiments performed aboard the shuttles themselves have provided scientists with new insights in a range of fields, from biology and medicine to physics and materials science.

In addition to those achievements, the shuttle program has helped humanity establish a foothold beyond our home planet for the first time - a major milestone, some analysts contend.

"We've gone from where we went to space, and we touched space and we came back," NASA space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier told reporters in a June 28 press conference. "We now are really in the posture where we're learning to live in space and operate in space."

Launius agreed.

"It did create an environment in which spaceflight was an essentially normal activity," he told SPACE.com. "That was a stunning achievement."

For these reasons and more, some argue, the shuttle program should be viewed as a success in many ways.

"On balance, I think it has been a remarkable era for human accomplishments in space," Valerie Neal, curator for contemporary human spaceflight at the Smithsonian, told SPACE.com. "We set out with ambitions to make spaceflight routine, and we pretty much succeeded in doing that."

The space shuttle Endeavour glides back to Earth on Jan. 20, 1996, after nine days in space on the STS-72 mission. The orbiter is about to touch down on Runway 15 at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Original Image

Credit: NASA

The bottom line

So was the shuttle program worth the 40 years (10 years of development and 30 years of flight) and $209 billion that NASA and the nation poured into it? That probably depends on your priorities and your point of view.

Some people may always view the shuttle as a costly distraction, a diversion from more ambitious goals that the nation is just now starting to work toward once again. Others will regard it as a ringing success, a triumph of American technological know-how that opened space up and fostered international cooperation like nothing ever had before.

As for history's verdict? It will likely fall somewhere in between, experts say.

"It's not all one way or all the other, in terms of success or failure," Launius said. "The nuances associated with this are going to be signficant in trying to assess the legacy of the shuttle."

Logsdon voiced similar sentiments.

People "will view it with mixed feelings," he said. "It did some remarkable things. But we flew it for too long, and it cost too much."

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Visit SPACE.com for complete coverage of Atlantis' final mission STS-135 or follow us @Spacedotcom and on .

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NASA's Shuttle Program Cost $209 Billion - Was it Worth It?

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When NASA's space shuttle program was announced back in 1972, it was billed as a major advance - a key step in humanity's quest to exploit and explore space. The shuttle would enable safe, frequent and affordable access to space, the argument went, with flights occurring as often as once per week and costing as little as $20 million each.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On March 21st, 2018, both branches of Congress passed the United States' Consolidated Appropriations Act, finalizing spending for the 2018 fiscal year. This omnibus spending bill clocks in at 2,232 pages and a total budget of $1.3 trillion, and despite initial threats by the President to veto the legislation, it was signed into law on Friday, March 23rd. Under President Trump's earlier proposal, many science-and-education-based organizations were facing dramatic potential cuts, including multiple branches of the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the EPA, the US Geological Service, the National Institutes of Health, NOAA, and the National Science Foundation. But in an unprecedented move, the administration proposed cancelling the flagship mission of NASA Astrophysics for the decade of the 2020s: WFIRST, along with many other cuts to NASA. Thankfully, many of these cuts didn't make it through. Let's examine the winners and losers.

Winner: NASA Science. Representing 28% of the total NASA budget, NASA Science focuses on astrophysics, planetary science, Earth science, and heliophysics, and is the primary contributor to what humanity learns about these fields from space. The biggest cuts were supposed to be immediate, and impact NASA Earth Science, the Office of Education, and WFIRST. (Each dealt with separately below.) For as much as the omnibus spending bill can accomplish, this is a victory for NASA science. The overall budget for NASA science actually goes up by $457M (8%), versus a decrease that was proposed in the President's recommendation.

Neutral: NASA Earth Science. There were five NASA Earth Science missions slated for the chopping block in the President's original proposal. These cuts were to vital satellites, all of which are focused on measuring various aspects of Earth's climate, including reflected and emitted light and energy, cloud cover and behavior, and the detection of long-and-short-term climate trends. If you want to understand how the planet's climate works, to forecast seasonal and environmental trends, and to do medium-to-long-term forecasting, you need these missions. Four of these five missions have had their funding restored:

1. the Plankton; Aerosol; Cloud; ocean Ecosystem (PACE);

2. the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3);

3. the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR)'s Earth-viewing instruments;

4. and the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Pathfinder.

while a fifth, the Radiation Budget Instrument (RBI), remains cancelled. However, future large missions designed to monitor the Earth's climate have received no official nod of support, threatening their long-term viability.

Precarious Winner: NASA's Office of Education. NASA's Office of Education is responsible for a whole slew of programs specifically designed to not only communicate the results of what NASA accomplishes to the general public, but also to provide grants, scholarship, internships, and educational programs run through schools, museums, and science centers. These affect everyone from K-12 children to undergraduates to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. The appropriations bill restored funding to the tune of $100M, but there is no long-term way to ensure this funding continues past September 30th. Time will tell whether this continued funding is a stopgap measure or a true victory.

Winner: Space Technology. NASA's Restore-L satellite received a windfall in the form of a $130M mandate, to develop this mission to its fullest extent. While its objective is listed as "autonomous rendezvous and grasping with telerobotic refueling and relocation," this satellite will focus on restoring and servicing existing satellites to their original design capabilities. These systems will include five separate servicing technologies, including an autonomous navigation system, servicing avionics that control its rendezvous and robotic tasks, two dextrous robotic arms that execute servicing assignments, advance tools and tool drives to execute each servicing task, and a propellant transfer system to deliver measured amounts of fuel at the right temperature, pressure, and rate. It's a huge, positive investment in our existing space-based infrastructure.

Neutral: WFIRST. The flagship astrophysics mission of the 2020s, WFIRST, chosen as the highest-priority mission for the field, was in danger of being completely defunded. As Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate of NASA, said earlier this year:

What we learn from these flagship missions is why we study the Universe. This is civilization-scale science... If we don't do this, we aren't NASA.

Under the omnibus budget, full funding for WFIRST has been restored ($150M) for the current cycle, and its early-stage operations will continue as planned. However, this in no way eliminates the risk of the mission being outright cancelled in 2019; the President has not given any signal that he plans to provide continued funding for WFIRST once major construction operations are slated to begin.

Neutral: James Webb Space Telescope. This telescope receives the exact amount requested by the administration, with a big caveat: if you exceed a total cost of $8B for this telescope, it triggers a notification of the administrator and an audit. Given that the telescope is in the final stages and the engineers and scientists working on perfecting the final systems before deployment, this sets up a win/lose scenario:

either do the job right, ensuring the mission succeeds and there are no hitches, but risk exceeding the time-and-money allocated to the project,

or do the best job you can on-time and on-budget, and risk a potentially crippling snag.

There is no substitute for doing the job right, and if the James Webb Space Telescope launches and fails because of external pressures, this could be the end of NASA's astrophysics. There will be a teleconference at 11:30 AM ET today on the updated status of James Webb.

Update: To date, NASA has spent $7.3B in development so far, and final integration of the various elements will take at least an additional 6 months beyond the original launch window; they are now targeting May of 2020 for a launch date. This additional time (and the resources required to get this right) may mean that the $8B limit imposed by the government will be exceeded, which will trigger an external independent review board (IRB) to be chaired by NASA veteran Thomas Young.

Winner: Planetary Science. This was potentially the biggest winner of all, receiving more than $2.2B: an increase of almost 15% over what was initially requested. $595M was earmarked for an orbiter and lander to meet the science goals outlined for the Jupiter Europa Clipper mission. This would meet the goals laid out by the planetary science decadal survey for searching for signs of life around one of the most likely candidates to house it in our Solar System. The orbiter should plan for launch no later than 2022 and the lander no later than 2024, so this is a big victory for these missions and that big question: is there life anywhere in the Solar System beyond Earth?

Winner: NASA Exploration. The Europa Clipper lander and orbiter must both launch aboard the SLS, which gets $2.15B, and the Orion system getting an additional $1.35B on top of that. The bill also includes another $350M for a second mobile launch platform; something that NASA did not even request for 2019. This represents a net increase for NASA Exploration of $1.06B over the original budget request, and hundreds of millions more than either the House or Senate requested. Exploration may lay claim to being the biggest winner, but space aficionados have strongly criticized both SLS and Orion, and many may be disappointed that this is where their money goes.

Loser: Peace. NASA has long been about the peaceful exploration of space, and the spirit of science has always been about the open sharing of data and information. Every NASA photo you've seen is public domain, and that's strongly aligned with the mission of sharing what we learn about the Universe and our place within it for the benefit of all of humanity. The President's latest space strategy statement goes against that. The "America First National Space Strategy" explicitly states, among other things:

President Trump's National Space Strategy recognizes that our competitors and adversaries have turned space into a warfighting domain. While the United States would prefer that the space domain remain free of conflict, we will prepare to meet and overcome any challenges that arise. Under the President's new strategy, the United States will seek to deter, counter, and defeat threats in the space domain that are hostile to the national interests of the United States and our allies.

There has never been a clearer message in all the space age that the benefit of all humanity is no longer the top priority here.

Neutral: Space Operations; Safety, Security, & Mission Services; Office of the Inspector General. These major divisions of NASA remain funded at levels unchanged from prior proposals and agreed upon without much controversy.

Loser: Long-term stability. As big of a fight as it was to get this bill passed and the crippling proposed cuts by the President overturned, it expires on September 30th of this year. All of these battles will likely need to be fought again in the very short term; WFIRST, James Webb, the Office of Education, and NASA's Earth Science will quite possibly see additional attempts to curtail, cut, or eliminate them entirely. In past administrations, it was rare to see an already funded-and-agreed-upon mission cancelled. If this year is any indication of what's to come, there will likely be additional battles required to ensure that many of these missions are seen through to fruition.

If the omnibus budget that was just passed this past week was an indicator of things to come for the state of NASA, the scientifically-minded among us would be quite pleased and satisfied with the direction of science in this country. However, pro-science advocates must take care that the Consolidated Appropriations Act doesn't become a Pyrrhic victory: a temporary boon of funding to be followed by a crushing defeat. If so, this will be a short-lived success that's only a precursor to the worst fears of many, an end to the era of NASA as the pre-eminent world powerhouse in scientific exploration and discovery of Earth, the Sun, our planetary system, and space.

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Winners And Losers In NASA's Budget For 2018 And Beyond

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On March 21st, 2018, both branches of Congress passed the United States' Consolidated Appropriations Act, finalizing spending for the 2018 fiscal year. This omnibus spending bill clocks in at 2,232 pages and a total budget of $1.3 trillion, and despite initial threats by the President to veto the legislation, it was signed into law on Friday, March 23rd.

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Bryan Versteeg/Deep Space Industries

Silicon Valley says asteroid mining will end Earth's conflict over natural resources. It won't.

It's become clear that there's just not enough stuff on Earth to go around. We're constantly fighting over land and water, jockeying for access to our home planet's diamonds or oil or sugarcane or schools of fish. In the last few years a chorus of voices has arisen to suggest that we could solve these petty human squabbles by looking to space. "Everything we hold of value on this planet, metals, minerals, real estate, energy sources, fuel-the things we fight wars over-are literally in near infinite quantities in the solar system," says Peter Diamandis, one of the founders of the asteroid-mining company Planetary Resources. He claims we have a "moral obligation to become an interplanetary species," and that if we harness the resources in space, "the entire human race will be the beneficiary." Naveen Jain, founder of Moon Express, wants to do on the moon what Diamandis wants to do with asteroids. A recent CNBC profile quotes him as saying, "Once you take a mind-set of scarcity and replace it with a mind-set of abundance, amazing things can happen here on Earth."

This kind of exultant talk is perhaps to be expected from entrepreneurs describing their companies' dreams, but Diamandis and Jain are not alone. In a radio interview this April, Neil deGrasse Tyson, the public face of American astrophysics, also voiced his excitement about the potential of space mining. "If you haul an asteroid the size of a house to Earth, it could have more platinum on it than has ever been mined in the history of the world. More gold than has ever been mined in the history of the world. When that happens"-and here his voice takes on the dreamy tone familiar to fans of " COSMOS: A Spacetime Odyssey," the Fox series he hosts-"the scarcity that has led to human-to-human violence, there's a chance it could all go away." Tyson admitted that he was being "a little hopeful"-he has also noted that it is far more likely that any resources found in space will be put to use in space first, not hauled back to Earth (more on that later)-but his comment captures the aura of starry-eyed excitement that surrounds space mining ventures. At Slate, Will Oremus wrote about the terrestrial tech world's blasé response to the founding of Planetary Resources, and commanded, "Wake up! This is outer space we're talking about! This is awesome!"

It is awesome. To read about these ambitious plans, and to contemplate the scale of human brainpower and industriousness required to pull them off, fills one with awe. These new companies talk about space in a way that sounds unfamiliar to the civilian ear accustomed to the reverent tone of planetarium field trips; rather than the vastness of space, the companies emphasize its accessibility. Moon Express calls the moon "the eighth continent." Planetary Resources wants to "bring the solar system into humanity's sphere of influence." Experiencing awe is fun. It's even more fun to imagine a world of outer-space abundance in which we don't have to worry about fossil fuels and everyone can afford a platinum case for their iPhone. And there is great potential for resource extraction in space, though these ventures will carry great upfront costs and plenty of uncertainty about whether they will actually come to fruition. Many deadlines and timeline estimates are fast approaching or have passed already.

What's misleading about these projects isn't that they're subject to budget problems and delays, but that they come couched in overblown rhetoric about their potential to radically alter human life, to do away with the notion of scarcity and deliver us to a future of plenty and peace. It's a pattern that has become familiar in Silicon Valley: develop a plan for a business that will do something cool and make a lot of money, but describe it instead as something that will change the world. Return to that platinum asteroid for a moment. There's one that Planetary Resources has been tracking: It passes near the Earth's orbit every 23 months and is a half-kilometer by one kilometer in size. A spacecraft could travel to it in around eight months. Diamandis estimates its total worth at between $300 billion and $5 trillion. If it were to be mined at some point in the future, it would drive down the global price of platinum, which might make some items more affordable-luxury jewelry, of course, but also catalytic converters for cars and hard disks for laptops and DVRs-but it would primarily make the investors of Planetary Resources extremely rich.

Allusions to the Wild West abound in the literature of space-mining companies. The Moon Express website talks about "brave pioneers" who explored new territories "with the backing of a monarch or a state." For these entrepreneurs, space is not a distant emptiness; beyond the frontier, they envision a business-place. And with the exception of a Cold War-era treaty prohibiting national appropriation of the moon, there aren't laws about ownership in space; its riches are there for the taking, like gold nuggets in a California stream. In a March debate on "Selling Space," at the American Museum of Natural History, Space Foundation CEO Elliot Pulham said that asteroids are clearly up for grabs: "There's no law that says you can't snag an asteroid. Knock yourself out."

It's certainly true that space is full of valuables. Billions of years ago, during the formation of the solar system, gravity pulled the heavy materials on would-be planets toward their cores, forcing the comparatively lighter rocky material out to the surface. When those planets broke apart, they became asteroids. Some are made of rocky surface fragments, but some are made of the core materials-platinum, gold, silver, palladium-that are rare and precious on Earth. At a press roundtable after the "Selling Space" debate, Tyson explained why this process matters so much to those who would mine the sky: "Nature has pre-sifted the ingredients for you. You go grab yourself an asteroid made from the core of a planet that never survived, and you've got this stuff concentrated in the palm of your hand." This is what Manifest Destiny must have felt and sounded like. Wealth beyond your wildest dreams, and it's there for the taking. You just have to get there first.

The "getting there first" will not be simple, or cheap. Most of the asteroids in the solar system are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. But the orbit paths of some near-Earth asteroids, or NEAs, bring them relatively close to our planet-that is, within around 30 million miles. Planetary Resources has developed what is essentially an outer-space drone: a small telescope-equipped spacecraft, around the size of a desktop computer, that will survey near-Earth asteroids. Once an asteroid is identified and determined to be valuable, the extraction could begin, though that introduces a new set of technical obstacles. Because of the difficulty and expense of getting heavy machinery from Earth into space, some have suggested using 3D printing technology to use materials found in space to create the necessary equipment. Then, some modified version of a terrestrial mining method, like drilling or magnetic separation, could be used for the mining itself. But these extraction processes have been developed for the pressure and gravity of Earth, and they would need to be overhauled to function in the low-gravity, vacuum environment of space.

If this part of the process sounds unclear, it's because it is. To give an idea of the scale-in time and difficulty-of these kinds of operations, consider the government's version of asteroid prospecting. In April, NASA greenlighted a mission in which a spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx will rendezvous with an asteroid called Bennu. OSIRIS-Rex is scheduled to launch in 2016, reach the asteroid in 2018, reconnoiter it for over a year, and then bring back samples for scientific study. The amount of asteroid that NASA plans to collect after all this time and trouble? Two ounces. A major premise of private space mining companies is that they will be able to work far faster and more economically than NASA, and will be willing to take on levels of risk beyond that of a government operation, but the scale and timeline of OSIRIS-REx shows how complex these operations will be, even for the swiftest companies.

The most far-out proposal in space mining is to "redirect" an NEA toward Earth and into lunar orbit. There, the asteroid could spin safely around the moon, accessible to our planet. A 2012 Cal Tech study determined that this method would be not only feasible, but "essential" for long-term human space exploration. According to the study, it will soon be possible for an unmanned spacecraft to identify a target asteroid-one around seven meters in diameter and 500,000 kilograms in mass-approach it, "loiter" nearby to determine its spin, and ultimately enclose the asteroid in what is described as a "draw-string bag." (Take a moment to imagine a man-made drawstring bag capturing a giant mass of precious metal hurtling through space. "This is awesome!" does feel like the only reasonable response.) Once the asteroid and spacecraft are connected, a solar-powered propulsion system could fly the asteroid back to our moon and deposit it in lunar orbit. Depending on the mass of the asteroid, this retrieval flight would last between six and ten years.

This idea, like the other space-mining projects, will require tremendous patience, money, vision, and bluster. So it's no surprise that the futurists of Silicon Valley are behind them: The group of companies founded with the intention of mining space are backed largely by investors who made their names and fortunes in tech. Peter Diamandis is the founder of the X Prize Foundation and of Silicon Valley's Singularity University, which he co-founded with futurist Ray Kurzweil; Eric Schmidt is one of Planetary Resources' major investors; before starting Moon Express, Naveen Jain was a senior executive at Microsoft and then CEO of his own startup, InfoSpace; Elon Musk founded PayPal and now has a private space company, SpaceX, currently under contract with NASA to begin carrying astronauts to the International Space Station.

The New Yorker's George Packer identifies the "conflicting pressures" of Silicon Valley as "work ethic, status consciousness, idealism, and greed." All of these pressures are present in the space-mining race, too. The work required to pull it off is undeniable-as is the idealistic delusion that outer-space extraction would bring world peace. Whoever accomplishes this first will be hailed, from Mountain View to Capitol Hill, as a genius. They will also become unfathomably wealthy, and rightly so: Entering a new, high-risk, high-tech field of business should come with the possibility for enormous reward. These entrepreneurs have evinced as much in less-utopian, off-the-cuff remarks. Diamandis has joked that his company's financing plan is to buy puts in the platinum market and then announce their plan to bring a platinum asteroid home. Jain imagines coming back from trips to the moon with payloads worth billions of dollars: "I don't care what people say," he said in an interview with Wired's editor last year. "That's a shit load of money."

It's telling that the foundational text of the space mining industry-1997's Mining the Sky, by John Lewis, a professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona and the chief scientist of Deep Space Industries -begins not with a catalog of the wealth of space, but with a brief history of exploration and military domination on Earth. Here, there isn't enough, but in space, rather than nothingness, we find "a lively, rich understanding of the unity and lawfulness of Creation, within which the diversity and complexity of local materials and events falls into place." Thanks to the saving power of technology, the very ideas of "limited resources and finite living space" are "tired old myths," he writes.

It's exhilarating, this notion that tech advances could end scarcity as we know it, relegating wars over mineral wealth and energy sources to the list of woes defeated by science, alongside plague and polio. But it's a dangerous exhilaration. It seems far more likely that new sources of wealth will, in their abundance, be one more thing for us to scrabble over. The space-mining notion is immensely appealing: the sky is full of infinite riches and abundance leads to peace. But why wouldn't riches from the heavens cause conflicts and problems? Their vulgar terrestrial cousins always have.

The problem with comparing space-mining to the Wild West isn't just that it won't revolutionize our economy like Manifest Destiny did. It isn't even that there's something suspect in taking the sky-something that feels so shared, so very deeply part of the commons-and turning it into a set of privately held commodities. It's that this rhetoric gives the industry a kind of up-by-the-bootstraps patina, calling to mind a situation in which anyone with a gold-pan could go and seek their fortune, if one were plucky and lucky enough to set out for virgin territory. This simply does not apply to space mining, an industry where-to an even greater degree than modern-day resource extraction businesses on Earth-the barriers to entry in terms of both technology and capital are so immense that it is only open to entrepreneurs who are already billionaires.

Would-be space mining companies are often called "crazy," their plans described as wild schemes. In fact, these companies are not crazy at all. As Jain, of Moon Express, says in a promotional video, "It is not just a fun project. It is also a great business." Space-mining investors may be thinking extremely far outside the box, and willing to take on levels of risk that governments-the only entities with dealings in space until just recently-would never take on. But these are savvy investors, not a bunch of kids with a kooky dream, and they expect an eventual return on that investment.

That might explain why, as the Wall Street Journal reported recently, Planetary Adventures has shifted its focus from precious metals "to a more mundane space resource: water," which "could be processed into fuel to extend the useful lives of aging commercial satellites." Granted, water has been a part of Planetary Resources's business plan for years: When the company announced two years ago its intentions to mine asteroids, it said in a press release that "accessing water resources in space will revolutionize exploration." But it never got headlines, for obvious reasons. As John Logsdon of the GWU Institute of Space Policy said after the "Selling Space" debate in March, "It's not as sexy as platinum but I think the most valuable resource in space is water."

Harvesting asteroid ice could be very profitable in its own right, but it doesn't conjure the same Panglossian platitudes as giant chunks of space gold do. That's just as well. It's a more practical approach for the near future. Because of the tremendous cost-both in terms of energy and money-of launching something out of Earth's atmosphere or back into it, the most efficient use of resources extracted in space will be right there: in space. And that, in turn, should help bring the peace-and-abundance rhetoric back down to Earth. It's like much of what Silicon Valley invents: Not as awesome as the elevator pitch makes it sound, but useful in its own little way.

Rachel Riederer is co-editor-in-chief of Guernica: a magazine of global art & politics.

@ readerer

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Silicon Valley Says Space Mining Is Awesome and Will Change Life on Earth. That's Only Half Right.

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Bryan Versteeg/Deep Space Industries Silicon Valley says asteroid mining will end Earth's conflict over natural resources. It won't. It's become clear that there's just not enough stuff on Earth to go around. We're constantly fighting over land and water, jockeying for access to our home planet's diamonds or oil or sugarcane or schools of fish.

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Elon Musk's rocket company was set to pull off two launches from two different coasts within about 24 hours Tuesday, but the second launch had to be put off due to rotten rodent food.

NASA

The 16th SpaceX cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station had been scheduled to blast off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center a day after the company successfully launched and landed a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 64 small satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Monday's mission also marked the first time a single orbital-class rocket booster has been launched and recovered three times.

But the delay of the flight to the ISS had nothing to do with SpaceX's West Coast success.

"The launch was moved to Wednesday after mold was found on food bars for a rodent investigation prior to handover to SpaceX," NASA said in an email late Monday. "Teams will use the extra day to replace the food bars."

The food is for mice living on the space station that are part of NASA's Rodent Research program to investigate the physiology of aging. Researchers think the way humans and mice respond to spaceflight might resemble certain aspects of accelerated aging.

"This investigation provides a better understanding of aging-related immune, bone, and muscle disease processes, which may lead to new therapies for use in space and on Earth," reads NASA's overview of the research program.

The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will be carrying all sorts of cargo besides rodent food to resupply the ISS. It will also deliver the Robotic Refueling Mission-3, which hopes to demonstrate the ability to store and transfer cryogenic fluids in space. The system could advance how propulsion and life support systems are sustained on future missions.

"This will help us with our goals of moving farther in to exploration, either to the Moon or to Mars," Kirt Costello, ISS program chief scientist, said during a teleconference Monday.

The Dragon will also carry the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation, which will use laser technology to observe a number of aspects of Earth's forests, including "the first high-resolution observations of forest vertical structure at a global scale," according to a NASA release.

The new launch time is 1:16 p.m. ET Wednesday. Both NASA TV and SpaceX will livestream the launch. You can watch via the embedded feed below:

NASA turns 60: The space agency has taken humanity farther than anyone else, and it has plans to go further.

CNET's Holiday Gift Guide: The place to find the best tech gifts for 2018.

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SpaceX launch to ISS delayed by moldy mouse food

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Elon Musk's rocket company was set to pull off two launches from two different coasts within about 24 hours Tuesday, but the second launch had to be put off due to rotten rodent food.

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Mars_ Inside the High-Risk, High-Stakes Race to the Red Planet

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Cosmonaut brains show space travel causes lasting changes

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Billionaires plan for space tourism—are travelers interested_

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Mission Budget - Finance and Feasibility - Mars One

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US$ 450 million for the first unmanned Mars lander mission US$ 425 million for the communications satellite US$ 900 million for the first rover mission US$ 2,300 million for all remaining outpost hardware and supplies before the human mission US$ 1,250 million for sending the first crew to Mars US$ 582 million for operations, including astronaut selection and training US$ 93 million for ground stations and other costs US$ 1,850 million per year for follow-up human missions

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The Trump administration is proposing a budget of $19.9 billion for NASA in its request for fiscal year 2019-slightly more than its request for fiscal year 2018. The additional funds would support the administration's directive to reinvigorate human and robotic exploration of Earth's moon and other planets in the solar system but would also come at the expense of several other big-ticket items in NASA's portfolio-namely the International Space Station (ISS) as well as the Wide Field Infrared Space Telescope (WFIRST), a "flagship"-class mission next in line for launch after the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The budget also recommends canceling five NASA Earth science missions as well as the space agency's Office of Education.

Under the proposal U.S. funding for the ISS would cease in 2025, a year after the station's current retirement date. That's years ahead of 2028, however, which many public and private ISS stakeholders have been counting on as the most likely target for an extension of the ISS's mission that has cost U.S. taxpayers some $100 billion since the 1990s. The station would potentially live on, however, sustained by still-nascent public-private partnerships that could in theory shift the bulk of upkeep costs to private businesses. To that end, the budget also calls for $150 million in 2019 and more in future years to help commercial companies expand their activities in low Earth orbit, although it does not specify the ISS as an explicit part of that spending. In recent years the ISS has become a vital destination for U.S. launch providers such as SpaceX and Boeing, which are competing for NASA contracts to ferry astronauts to and from the orbital outpost. Rockets from SpaceX and other providers already make regular supply runs to the ISS.

Despite the budget's supposed support for more commercial activity in low Earth orbit, industry representatives view its defunding of the ISS as shortsighted. "Only now are we finally reaching the full operational level for which ISS had been designed," Commercial Spaceflight Federation president Eric Stallmer said in a statement. "An early retirement of the station prior to 2028 would not allow sufficient time to leverage the asset appropriately..., the ISS should fly throughout a transition period until such time as we have a sustainable orbital economy, more likely to be in place by 2028."

Within NASA the official view is decidedly rosier. "The commercial cargo and crew work continues through the life of the International Space Station in the budget," NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement. "Further, this budget proposes for NASA to ramp up efforts to transition low Earth [orbital] activities to the commercial sector, and end direct federal government support of the ISS in 2025 and begin relying on commercial partners for our low Earth orbit research and technology demonstration requirements." Some of the savings from defunding the ISS would feed into NASA's return to the moon, chiefly a new lunar robotic exploration program as well as a "Deep Space Gateway" in lunar orbit that would serve as a staging ground for operations on the surface. Some of those payloads, presumably, would launch on NASA's in-development mega-rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), which is slated for its first test flight in 2019 or 2020 and has to date consumed more than $18 billion of taxpayer funds. In the White House proposal, the SLS and its associated Orion spacecraft would receive $3.7 billion in fiscal year 2019.

The White House has bleaker plans for WFIRST, which the U.S. space science community ranked as the highest priority for NASA's astrophysics program in the 2010 Decadal Survey. Offering a field of view 100 times larger than that of the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, WFIRST is meant to study dark energy-the mysterious force driving the universe's accelerating expansion-as well as large numbers of planets orbiting other stars, among many other scientific objectives. The telescope is currently being developed for launch in the mid-2020s. According to language in the new budget proposal, however, WFIRST should instead be canceled because it "was not executable within its previous budget and would have required a significant funding increase in 2019 and future years." WFIRST's funds, the budget indicates, would instead be given to smaller, competitively selected astrophysics missions akin to those led by outside researchers as part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Meanwhile the budget still includes necessary funds for WFIRST's predecessor, JWST, which is undergoing final testing in California and is slated for launch as early as next year at a total estimated cost of $8.8 billion.

WFIRST's estimated price tag has indeed grown in recent years, up to $3.9 billion in latest estimates, but NASA is in the midst of replanning the telescope to bring it back within its previously approved budget of $3.2 billion. Much of the project's past cost growth ironically stems from a "free" upgrade that came in 2012, when the National Reconnaissance Office gifted NASA with a spare Hubble-size mirror larger than the one the space agency planned to build for WFIRST. The mirror's larger size would boost WFIRST's scientific capabilities but also necessitated expensive redesigns and a pricier launch on a heftier rocket.

The budget also resurrects cuts proposed earlier by the White House for fiscal year 2018, namely the cancellation of NASA's Office of Education as well as five Earth science missions: the Radiation Budget Instrument (RBI); the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite; the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO 3); Earth-observing instruments aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR); and the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Pathfinder. These previously proposed cuts have largely floundered in Congress, which has yet to pass them into law. They, along with the rest of the Trump administration's latest budget request, may face a similar fate this year, perhaps even being dead on arrival in Congress given legislators' recent passage of a two-year budget deal funding the government through September 2019. Already, one staunch advocate of human spaceflight, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is calling the budget a "nonstarter" due to its defunding of the ISS. In the House, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) issued a statement saying "the only good thing about this budget is that it's so extreme, I have no doubt that it will be summarily rejected by both sides of the aisle."

CLARREO, much like WFIRST, was also a high-priority recommendation from the U.S. scientific community, codified in a 2007 decadal report. Of CLARREO's proposed cancellation, Lightfoot said nothing, and only noted WFIRST's potential axing as a "hard decision." Most scientists outside NASA, however, appear to be greeting the news with more opprobrium. On Twitter, Caleb Scharf, an astrophysicist at Columbia University, called the budget "a hostile bill" that burdens NASA with "a set of priorities that veer away from science." Speaking to reporters from , David Spergel, an astrophysicist at Princeton University and co-chair of the WFIRST science team expressed shock: "If a few people in the White House can override these decisions, why do a decadal survey at all?" In tweets, Spergel offered a blunter assessment, writing that the "U.S. is abandoning its leadership in space astronomy," and that the proposed cuts "imperil not only WFIRST but any future major mission."

There is, perhaps, some silver lining for space science advocates in the White House's budget proposal: It aims to boost NASA's planetary science budget to $2.235 billion, an increase of 22 percent. Of that increase, $50 million supports the continued development of collecting and returning samples from Mars, which was a top decadal priority. But much of the rest goes toward goals largely absent from the planetary science community's consensus planning, namely the new push for lunar exploration. And in contrast to those hopeful goals, there remains one harsh reality: Beyond the early 2020s the proposal forecasts a flat budget for NASA that would not increase with inflation-effectively acting as a reduction in purchasing power and thus a budget cut each year.

To Casey Dreier, director of space policy at The Planetary Society, supporting such ambitious yet unsanctioned missions while acting to undermine ones like WFIRST makes little sense, particularly because Congress has proactively provided hundreds of millions of dollars for that mission already on a bipartisan basis. "There is a lot of support out there for [WFIRST], and the potential science return is very high," he says. "More to the point, with Congressional activity that increased the size of the budgetary pie there is no reason that NASA's science program can't see a bigger slice. This allows NASA to maintain critical momentum in rebuilding its planetary exploration program, preserve its Earth science missions, and to begin work on the next generation of space telescopes. We should use this rare moment of bipartisan support in spending and invest in the United States' scientific industry and workforce."

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NASA Budget Proposal Defunds Space Station, Space Telescopes and More

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The Trump administration is proposing a budget of $19.9 billion for NASA in its request for fiscal year 2019-slightly more than its request for fiscal year 2018.

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Goal
NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) was formed to facilitate the development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit.

Background
CCP has invested in multiple American companies that are designing and developing transportation capabilities to and from low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station. By supporting the development of human spaceflight capabilities, NASA is laying the foundation for future commercial transportation capabilities.
Ultimately, the goal is to establish safe, reliable and cost-effective access to space. Once a transportation capability is certified to meet NASA requirements, the agency will fly missions to meet its space station crew rotation and emergency return obligations.
Throughout the process, both NASA and industry have invested time, money and resources in the development of their systems. NASA also is spurring economic growth through this program as potential new space markets are created.
To accelerate the program's efforts and reduce the gap in American human spaceflight capabilities, NASA awarded more than $8.2 billion in Space Act Agreements (SAAs) and contracts under two Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) phases, the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, Certification Products Contract (CPC) and Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap).
The Commercial Crew Program is primarily based at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the space agency's premier launch site. About 200 people are working in the Commercial Crew Program for NASA, with almost half involved in the work at other NASA centers, including Johnson Space Center in Houston and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
More about the Commercial Crew Program: http://go.nasa.gov/1viFbRx

How NASA's Commercial Crew Program is Different
NASA's Prior Approach for Obtaining Crew Transportation Systems:
· NASA devised requirements for a crew transportation system that would carry astronauts into orbit, then the agency's engineers and specialists oversaw every development aspect of the spacecraft, its support systems and operations plans.
· An aerospace contractor was hired to build the crew transportation system to the design criteria and the standards NASA furnished.
· NASA personnel were deeply involved in the processing, testing, launching and operation of the crew transportation system to ensure safety and reliability. The space agency owned the spacecraft and its operating infrastructure.
· Every spacecraft built for humans, from Mercury to Gemini and Apollo to the space shuttle and American section of the International Space Station, was built and operated using this model.

Commercial Crew's Approach for Obtaining Crew Transportation Systems:
· NASA's engineers and aerospace specialists work closely with companies to develop crew transportation systems that can safely, reliably and cost-effectively carry humans to low-Earth orbit, including the International Space Station, and return safely to Earth.
·Interested companies are free to design the transportation system they think is best. For the contracts phase of development and certification, each company must meet NASA's pre-determined set of requirements.
· The companies are encouraged to apply their most efficient and effective manufacturing and business operating techniques throughout the process.
· The companies own and operate their own spacecraft and infrastructure.
· The partnership approach allows NASA engineers insight into a company's development process while the agency's technical expertise and resources are accessible to a company.

Complementary Approaches to Complementary Goals
Space Act Agreements: When NASA decided to support the development of new U.S. human spaceflight capabilities to low-Earth orbit, it relied on its commercial partners to propose specifics, ranging from the design and capabilities to private investment ratio, milestone achievements, success criteria and timelines. Once an agreement was accepted, the Commercial Crew Program and its expert teams worked closely with each company to provide technical support and determine when milestones were met.
Contracts: Concurrently with the Space Act Agreements, NASA established safety and mission requirements for missions to the International Space Station that would be flown under a NASA contract. During their development efforts, companies could choose to design their systems to meet NASA's pre-determined requirements. To support the certification of these systems, NASA awarded Certification Products Contract (CPC) and Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts.

Commercial Development with Space Act Agreements
To support the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from low-Earth orbit for commercial customers, NASA used Space Act Agreements to partner with domestic companies capable of contributing to the development of a U.S. human spaceflight capability.

Commercial Crew Development Round 1 (CCDev1)
Space Act Agreement
As NASA retired the space shuttle, the ability of private industry to take on the task of providing routine access to space was of vital importance. In 2010, NASA invested a total of nearly $50 million of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds for CCDev1 to stimulate efforts within the private sector to aid in the development and demonstration of safe, reliable and cost-effective crew transportation capabilities. It included the development and maturation systems and subsystems, such as a spacecraft, launch vehicle, launch abort systems, environmental control and life support system, launch vehicle emergency detection systems and more.

Blue Origin - $3.7 million
Boeing - $18 million
Paragon Space Development Corporation - $1.4 million
Sierra Nevada Corporation - $20 million
United Launch Alliance - $6.7 million

Details of CCDev1 partnerships: http://go.nasa.gov/1tFw8Y1

Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2)
Space Act Agreement

CCDev2 kicked off in April 2011 when NASA awarded a total of nearly $270 million to four companies to aid in further development and demonstration of safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation capabilities. The agency also signed unfunded Space Act Agreements to establish a framework of collaboration with additional aerospace companies. As part of those agreements, NASA reviewed and provided expert feedback on overall concepts and designs, systems requirements, launch vehicle compatibility, testing and integration plans, and operational and facilities plans.

Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) - unfunded

Boeing - $92.3 million
Excalibur Almaz Inc. (EAI) - unfunded
Sierra Nevada Corporation - $80 million
SpaceX - $75 million
United Launch Alliance (ULA) - unfunded

NASA later funded an additional $20.6 million to Boeing and $25.6 million to Sierra Nevada Corporation by exercising optional, pre-negotiated milestones, which were part of their original Space Act Agreements, to accelerate development.
In 2012, the agency extended its CCDev2 agreement with Blue Origin in an unfunded capacity. Through the agreement, the agency continued to support the development of the company's Space Vehicle and related systems.
More details about CCDev2 partnerships: http://go.nasa.gov/ 1viFDiH. CCDev2 Source Selection Statement.

Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap)
Space Act Agreement
CCiCap continued the development of three fully integrated systems in August 2012. The Space Act Agreements called for industry partners to develop crew transportation capabilities and to perform tests to verify, validate and mature integrated designs.
More details about the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability agreements: . CCiCap Source Selection Statement.

Boeing - $460 million
Sierra Nevada Corporation - $212.5 million
SpaceX - $440 million

NASA later funded an additional $20 million to Boeing, $20 million to SpaceX and $15 million to Sierra Nevada Corporation by exercising optional, pre-negotiated milestones, which were part of their original Space Act Agreements, to accelerate development.

Supporting NASA's Mission Needs through Contracts
To support the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the International Space Station for the agency, NASA awarded contracts intended to permit the certification of commercial crew transportation systems to carry NASA astronauts.

Certification Products Contracts (CPC)
Contract
Throughout CPC, the first phase of a two-phase contract, companies worked with NASA to discuss and develop data products to implement the agency's flight safety and performance requirements. This included implementation across all aspects of the space system, including the spacecraft, launch vehicle, and ground and mission operations. The CPC was awarded in December 2012.
Under the contracts, certification plans were developed toward achieving safe, crewed missions to the space station.It included data that will result in developing engineering standards, tests and analyses of crew transportation system designs. NASA awarded a total of nearly $30 million under the CPC contracts.
More details about the Certification Products Contract: http://go.nasa.gov/TSLHKV

Boeing - $9.993 million
Sierra Nevada Corporation - $10 million
SpaceX - $9.589 million

Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap)
Contract
CCtCap is the second phase of a two-phase certification plan for commercially built and operated integrated crew transportation systems. Two FAR-based, firm fixed-price contracts were awarded in September 2014 following an open competition. Through its certification efforts, NASA will ensure the selected commercial transportation systems meet the agency's safety and performance requirements for transporting NASA crew to the International Space Station. NASA awarded a total of $6.8 billion under CCtCap contracts. CCtCap Source Selection Statement.

Who Is Involved
These companies played roles in the development and certification phases of the Commercial Crew Program. Amounts are totals of all Space Act Agreements and contracts awarded to each company.

Alliant Techsystems
Participated in CCDev2
Unfunded partnership

Blue Origin
Participated in CCDev1 and CCDev2
Awarded $25.6 million

Boeing
Participated in CCDev1, CCDev2, CCiCap, CPC and CCtCap
Awarded $4.82 billion

Excalibur Almaz Inc.
Participated in CCDev2
Unfunded partnership

Paragon Space Development Corp.
Participated in CCDev1
Awarded $1.4 million

Sierra Nevada Corporation
Participated in CCDev1, CCDev2, CCiCap and CPC
Awarded $363.1 million

SpaceX
Participated in CCDev2, CCiCap, CPC and CCtCap
Awarded $3.144 billion

United Launch Alliance
Participated in CCDev1 and CCDev2
Awarded $6.7 million

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Commercial Crew Program - The Essentials

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› Printer-friendly version Goal NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) was formed to facilitate the development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit.

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