Obama and the Human Spaceflight Program

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about President Barack Obama's plans for the United States human spaceflight program.

This week, the New York Times posted an article, claiming that "Obama vows [for a] renewed space program," and quoting that “the bottom line is, nobody is more committed to manned spaceflight, to human exploration of space, than I am.” I have to wonder about that, considering that the future of the Constellation program, which would send humans back to the moon, remains quite dim. Admittedly, though Obama intended to cancel the program entirely in February 2010, this week he has now suggested using the Orion spacecraft, part of the Constellation program, as "the technological foundation for advanced spacecraft to be used in future deep space missions." The proposed launch date for Orion is in 2015 and could send humans to the moon in 2020, but Obama has suggested using Orion as a rescue vehicle for the Space Station.

Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan wrote a letter concerning Obama's plan to cancel the Constellation program, which MSNBC quotes him as saying, "For the United States, the leading spacefaring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second- or even third-rate stature." I think that the Orion spacecraft could be our next big step in the human exploration of the moon and beyond, and I can agree with the astronauts that we cannot give up this endeavor. I think it would be unreasonable to rely on the Russians to bring our American astronauts into space for too long.

According to the New York Times, Obama also said, "we can’t just keep on doing the same old things we’ve been doing and thinking that’s going to get us where we want to go." I would like to know what exactly Obama thinks is old because I believe that NASA has created certain goals for itself, such as eventually sending humans to Mars, and NASA intends to pursue those goals.

However, perhaps Obama's vision for the future of NASA is commendable in a certain regard: over the next five years, he will increase NASA's budget by $6 billion. Also, he seems to be redirecting NASA's mission towards exploration of Mars (by 2030), asteroids (by 2025), and beyond, instead of concentrating on low-earth orbit. The Times claims that Obama's visions is "a call for private industry to innovate its way to Mars, rather than a call for a national effort to demonstrate American predominance." Furthermore, Obama will devote $40 million in order to retain jobs involved with the space industry and he will create over 10,000 new jobs nationwide, which I think is a good idea since we would certainly lose a lot of jobs without the space program. Perhaps the only problem with all this is that Obama's timeline extends beyond his presidency and future presidents may have a different agenda.

I also thought it was interesting that Obama said:

Why spend money on NASA at all? Why spend money solving problems in space when we don’t lack for problems to solve here on the ground?... We have to fix our economy. We need to close our deficits. But for pennies on the dollar, the space program has fueled jobs and entire industries. For pennies on the dollar, the space program has improved our lives, advanced our society, strengthened our economy, and inspired generations of Americans. And I have no doubt that NASA can continue to fulfill this role.

I suppose it is nice to hear that our President has faith in the space program, but I wonder if this speech was enough to rouse public support for the program. Obviously NASA has benefited us and can continue to benefit us, and NASA is really only a small portion of the United States budget. But maybe that does not necessarily mean that Americans have to support the space program because we have no real initiative like we did during the Cold War. We are only pursuing this because we feel like it—and I am all for that. I am just not so sure that the American public is completely for that. We need more faith in the space program.

Articles Read:

1. MSNBC: "First Moonwalker Blasts Obama's Space Plan"


2. NASA: Transcript of Obama's speech, April 15, 2010


3. New York Times: "Obama Vows Renewed Space Program


4. Space.com: "All Space Out: Past Presidents' Cosmic Visions" (with comments from Roger Launius, whom we have read in class)


5. Wikipedia: the Orion spacecraft