SpacePolicyOnline has put together a summary of the latest NASA bill from the House Appropriations Committee covering FY 2017 funding priorities. Some of the highlights include:
- Rejection of the White House's plan to capture an asteroid and instead a new focus on a manned mission to the Moon;
- Continued support for a robotic mission to Europa;
- Continued support for the SLS and Orion spacecraft; and
- Support for a 2069 mission to Alpha Centauri using propulsion that is 1/10th the speed of light.
I had not heard of the Alpha Centauri mission earlier. Here is the language from the
committee report:
The Committee encourages NASA to study and develop propulsion concepts that could enable an interstellar scientific probe with the capability of achieving a cruise velocity of 0.1c. These efforts shall be centered on enabling such a mission to Alpha Centauri, which can be launched by the one-hundredth anniversary, 2069, of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Propulsion concepts may include, but are not limited to fusion-based implementations (including antimatter-catalyzed fusion and the Bussard interstellar ramjet); matter-antimatter annihilation reactions; multiple forms of beamed energy approaches; and immense ‘sails’ that intercept solar photons or the solar wind. At the present time, none of these are beyond technology readiness level (TRL) 1 or 2. The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program is currently funding concept studies of directed energy propulsion for wafer-sized spacecraft that in principle could achieve velocities exceeding 0.1c and an electric sail that intercepts solar wind protons. Over the past few years NIAC has also funded mission-level concept studies of two fusion-based propulsion concepts. Therefore, within one year of enactment of this Act, NASA shall submit an interstellar propulsion technology assessment report with a draft conceptual roadmap, which may include an overview of potential advance propulsion concepts for such an interstellar mission, including technical challenges, technology readiness level assessments, risks, and potential near-term milestones and funding requirements.
It is odd that we are going back to the Moon while also planning for travel to another star. Yet the Moon is seen as a better way to get us to Mars. Here is the committee report on that point:
...the Committee believes that neither a robotic nor a crewed mission to an asteroid appreciably contribute to the over-arching mission to Mars. Further, the long-term costs of launching a robotic craft to the asteroid, followed by a crewed mission, are unknown and will divert scarce resources away from developing technology and equipment necessary for missions to Mars, namely deep space habitats, accessing and utilizing space resources, and developing entry, descent, landing, and ascent technologies.
Toward that end, no funds are included in this bill for NASA to continue planning efforts to conduct either robotic or crewed missions to an asteroid. Instead, NASA is encouraged to develop plans to return to the Moon to test capabilities that will be needed for Mars, including habitation modules, lunar prospecting, and landing and ascent vehicles. Further, the Committee is supportive of NASA’s efforts to use the International Space Station (ISS) to conduct research necessary to enable long-term human spaceflight, or ‘‘Earth-reliant’’ technology development; cis-lunar space activities, or ‘‘proving ground’’ efforts such as Orion flights on SLS in the vicinity of the Moon, and deployment and testing of deep space habitation modules; and finally, NASA’s ‘‘Earth independent’’ activities which include using cis-lunar space as a staging area, mapping potential human exploration zones and caching samples on Mars as part of the Mars Rover 2020 mission.
It makes sense to me. Returning to the Moon may not excite some out there, yet if we sell it as a testing ground for Mars it may gain greater support. We may be joining the Chinese and Russians on the surface as well, but if it takes a space race to get us to the Moon and Mars then so be it.
