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Sunday, November 22, 2009

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Nasa 'should scrap Ares rocket'

BBC

2009-10-23

A White House panel has suggested that Nasa should scrap its investment in the Ares rocket and instead focus on exploring places beyond the moon.

The recommendations have been made by a presidential advisory panel as part of a review of the US space programme.

The suggestions come just days before the Ares rocket is due to make its first test flight.

The review says the rocket is too expensive to replace the space shuttle, and will be ready too late.

The review suggests a shift away from moon-focused initiatives for human space exploration towards other destinations.

Panel Chairman Norman Augustine suggests that astronauts should aim for a nearby asteroid or one of the moons of Mars.

Space taxis

Nasa currently spends about half of its $18bn annual budget on its human space exploration programmes.

The prototype Ares rocket, designed to replace the shuttle, has taken four years of research at a cost of $350m.

But the rocket will not be ready to serve as a launcher for space station crews until 2017, by which time the International Space Station is due to have been removed from orbit.

"The slippage has caused a mismatch between what Ares-1 is needed for and what it's going to be able to do," Mr Augustine said.

The panel also proposes public-private partnerships - such as space taxis - to boost funding for space exploration and allow the space agency to focus on more challenging projects such as human exploration beyond the low-Earth orbit.

"It is very clear that no commercial entity could raise the risk capital to build a rocket and capsule and recover the costs in our lifetime," Ed Crawley, a committee member and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.

The report suggests that the government should invest $5bn on developing space taxis which could ferry astronauts from the US and other countries to and from space, as well as transporting researchers and tourists.

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