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...Miami Herald... Obama Review of Constellation due this August!
Is the Constellation the next step for the Space Coast?
http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/1063315.html Driving next year's retirement of the shuttle fleet is NASA'S desire to shift billions of dollars from the shuttle program to a next-generation human spaceflight program called Constellation. The aim of the new program is to return astronauts to the space station by 2015 and to the Moon by 2020. Constellation's components include a crew capsule called Orion, a crew-launch rocket named Ares I, a heavy-lift cargo launch rocket named Ares V and a lunar landing vehicle called Altair. The capsule and rocket designs are derived from both the Apollo and shuttle programs. But serious questions have already been raised about the safety and performance of Ares I, including severe shaking at launch that some fear could cause it to drift into the launch tower. There also are questions about budgets and cost overruns in the Constellation program. Billions of dollars have already been spent. This year, for the first time, Constellation's budget ($3.03 billion) exceeded that of the space shuttle ($2.98 billion). While shuttle funding is slowing to a trickle after 2010 as its orbiters and other parts of the program are mothballed, by the time the shuttle budget reaches zero in 2013, projections call for a $5.4 billion annual Constellation budget. On May 7, the Obama Administration ordered the appointment of an independent panel of experts to review the program and its goals and to report back by August. The committee could recommend anything from a complete redesign of Constellation to scrapping it altogether in favor of an alternative plan for continued space exploration. While the review is in progress, work will continue on Constellation. SOURCE: National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Miami Herald research. |
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