...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.