Smaller work force, fewer programs are part of new budget
2/4/2004
The Bush administration has changed the focus of SLI from a technology program to developing the Orbital Space Plane and finding a new, reusable second-generation space shuttle, or Next Generation Launch Technology.
The Orbital Space Plane work will go toward creating a Crew Exploration Vehicle, which NASA hopes can be used to ferry crews to the space station and, eventually, the moon.
"We aren't throwing that investment away," King said. "The focus has just changed. We won't lose the work we've done to date."
Isakowitz said the $6 billion NASA had planned for SLI over the next five years would be put toward the new lunar and space exploration programs.
Because of the changes in NASA vision and focus - notably a 10-year plan to return to the moon - sent down from President Bush last month, nearly all NASA programs are under review.
NASA plans to use the next five years to develop a detailed plan on what is needed to return to the moon, Isakowitz said. "The only data point we have now is Apollo," he said. "We have the benefit of what was done on Apollo, but we have no plans to copy Apollo. We expect this to be very different."
Isakowitz said NASA has no plans to rebuild a Saturn V-type rocket or to develop a new rocket along the lines of Saturn V. The Saturn V was developed and managed in Huntsville and was used during the Apollo years to place men on the moon.
NASA officials estimated that key studies and reviews should be completed by this summer. "But the key details of where we are going and how we are going to get there could take the next two years to develop," Isakowitz said.
NASA budget documents show space station microgravity science work managed and developed in Huntsville - such as materials and protein crystal growth science - are under review. "We aren't targeting specific disciplines or areas" but will support only areas that can be applied to the new exploration vision, Isakowitz said.
Isakowitz said science work that applied to the new vision would be funded.
"If areas in material sciences can be applied to" the new exploration policy, he said, "then we will continue with those. If it doesn't support the vision, then there will be things we stop."
The science review should be completed this summer.
The one constant in the NASA budget is work to improve the shuttle and return it to flight. The shuttle program has been on hold since Columbia disintegrated on re-entry a year ago, killing the seven astronauts aboard. NASA plans to spend about $200 million in the next year to improve the space shuttle systems that were red-flagged by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.
A key Marshall shuttle upgrade program to improve the space shuttle's main engine received a $3 million cut in its 2005 budget because the program is coming in ahead of schedule. The advanced health management system is an upgrade to the shuttle engine's 30-year-old computer.