NASA reboots, focuses on cheaper, sustainable exploration

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Last October, NASA received a committee report that called existing planning "unsustainable." The agency couldn't even budget the money to deorbit the International Space Station as planned in 2016—itself a waste of the construction costs—and the vehicles needed for its planned return to the moon wouldn't be ready by the 2030s... "if ever," in the committee's words. So today, NASA administrator Charles Bolden announced a new five-year budget plan that significantly changes the nation's spaceflight priorities.

A completely revamped human program

The biggest decision in the new budget is the end of the Constellation program, which included the Orion crew vehicle and Ares launch vehicles, which merged the Apollo approach to orbit with technology developed for the shuttle. At current budget levels, the full development of these systems would take us well into the 2020s even if completed on schedule, and arrive after the planned appearance of private-sector equivalents. Political opposition to this decision, which will mean the loss of jobs in a number of states, is already present, and many questions in the press conference that accompanied the announcement focused on this issue.

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