Odyssey: Principles for enduring space exploration

Space Policy

Volumn 21, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 251-258

  Correll, Randall R ^a   Peter, Nicolas ^b  

^a SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION   (United States)

^b GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 28244441718     PISSN: 02659646     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.spacepol.2005.09.001     Document Type: Article

References (22)

1. 1 President George W. Bush, Vision for Space Exploration speech, NASA Headquarters, January 14, 2004. Accessed at http://www.whitehouse.gov/ news/releases/2004/01/20040114-3.html.
2. 2 Personal communications by the author (RRC) with an official from the White House Office of Management and Budget (later to become a senior official at NASA) in 2001.
3. 3 Personal communications by the author (RRC) with an official from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 2004. The official explained that the impetus for the Vision for Space Exploration was to respond to the Columbia disaster. The officials further explained, somewhat surprisingly in this author's opinion, that China's incipient manned-space effort was not a factor.
4. 4 Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Report Volume 1, p 209, August 26, 2003. The report included the first public recognition from an officially established committee of a fairly obvious situation: "...the lack, over the past three decades, of any national mandate providing NASA a compelling mission requiring human presence in space."
5. 5 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Study: "A Budgetary Analysis of NASA's New Vision for Space Exploration", September 2004. As underlined by the CBO study assessing NASA's future exploration programs and the funding that might be needed to execute them, NASA will face a number of significant technical hurdles notwithstanding NASA's previous experience with the Apollo program and its robotic missions to other planets. Even assuming international cooperation on completion of the ISS and participation in exploration, the CBO study found that NASA would have difficulty affording the Vision for Space Exploration.
6. 6 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 25, September 2002.
7. 7 Randall R. Correll, "Military Space Cooperation: Aligning the balance of power and building common interest". Astropolitics 2004; 2: 133-147.
8. 8 Report of the AIAA International Activities Committee Workshop, "International Space Cooperation: From Challenges to Solutions", American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, May 2004.
9. 9 Peggy Finarelli and Ian Pryke "Optimizing Space Exploration through International Cooperation", 1st Space Exploration Conference: Continuing the Voyage of Discovery, Orlando, FL USA, 30 January-1st February, 2005.
10. 10 Ferrazzani Marco, "Alternative Approaches to International Space Cooperation", ESA Bulletin 110, May 2002.
11. 11 Report of the President's Commission on Implementation for the United States Space Exploration Policy, June 2004, "A Journey to Inspire, Innovate, and Discover, accessed on the Internet at http://www.nasa.gov/ missions/solarsystem/explore_main.html. The new NASA administrator, Dr. Michael Griffin, recognized that the roadmapping activity, which his predecessor at NASA had initiated, did not provide timely information regarding important programmatic and budgetary decisions.
12. 12 In his testimony to the Congressional Committee on Science, United States House of Representatives, June 28, 2005, The NASA administrator, Dr. Griffin, announced that NASA had begun a 90-day Exploration Systems Architecture Study to inform the urgent programmatic and budgetary decision. Accessed at http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/full05/ june28/griffin.pdf
13. 13 The anticipated exploration transportation system is nearly identical to the system outlined in "Extending Human Presence into the Solar System", The Planetary Society, July 2004. This was an independent study co-chaired by Michael Griffin and Owen K. Garriott. The system described therein is based on shuttle-derived hardware for ferrying astronauts to and from the ISS, the Moon, and eventually Mars. Accessed at http://www.planetary.org/aimformars/study-report.pdf
14. 14 Joan Johnson-Freese: "Changing patterns of International Cooperation in Space", Orbit Book Company. 1990.
15. 15 Aurora Exploration Programme mission statement. Accessed at http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Aurora/ESA9LZPV16D_0.html
16. 16 Dennis Tito, in collaboration with the Russian Space Agency, became the world's first space tourist despite the controversy with NASA over Mr. Tito's presence on the ISS. A representative press report on the issues can be accessed at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/ 1315214.stm
17. 17 Mark Maier, "Clean Sheet Design of an SE&I Structure Based on Existing Government (NASA) and Industrial Institutions", ESMD Systems Engineering and Integration Workshop, December 15-16, 2004. Accessed at http://exploration.nasa.gov/documents/reports/SoSEI_12-2004/
18. 18 "Methane on Mars causes controversy". Accessed at http://www.newscientist.com/ article.ns?id=dn6425.
19. 19 Peggy Finarelli and Ian Pryke, 'A new paradigm for international cooperation in space exploration', Space Policy, 21(2): 97-99. See also footnote 8.
20. 20 It is clear from previous publications that the newly appointed NASA administrator, Dr. Michael Griffin, is inclined to propose an 'Apollo-style' transportation architecture in order to leverage space-shuttle-derived hardware and infrastructure (see footnote 13). There are justifiable reasons for doing so and also great programmatic risks. One wonders if Dr. Griffin's nomination to the position of administrator was so well-received by the U.S. Congress because they had been assured that existing infrastructure and jobs would be protected. Without being able to divest from some established activities, the exploration vision will require significant increase in NASA's annual budget.
21. 21 Peter B. de Selding, "German Involvement Crucial for ESA's ExoMars Project", Space News, p. 4, July 18, 2005.
22. "Mapping the Global Future", Report of the National Intelligence Council's (NIC) 2020 Project, December 2004. As indicated in the NIC report, "at no time since the formation of the Western alliance system in 1949 have the shape and nature of international alignments been in such as state of flux". The end of the Cold War shifted the tectonic plates, but the repercussions from these momentous events are still unfolding. Other significant characteristics include the rise of new powers such as China and India.