NASA's "Bizarre" Cuts

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TR: Just last year, NASA scientists were saying they expected increases of six, seven, or eight percent for science missions for the next several years. Now they'll be getting about one percent a year. Why the sudden turnaround, and why shift those resources to the space shuttle?

LF: There is a protection-of-jobs issue which is actually dominant. The point is that we have to make that transition [from the shuttle to the CEV and HLV] sometime, and the sooner we make it, the less serious and the more honest it will be. We could start those transitions to the CEV and the HLV and new cargo vehicles right now. We might have to pay a little extra for that, so we might be facing the same cutback in science this year. But at least we wouldn't be facing those cuts farther out -- in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.

TR: Which science missions will be hit hardest by the reduced growth in funding?

LF: The ones I'm most concerned about are the mission to Europa and the Terrestrial Planet Finder. These missions are fundamental to exploring space. The idea of the Europa mission is to see an undersea ocean that might be an abode for life. The decision not to do it now is a decision not to do it for the next decade. Basically, we're putting that mission off the books -- which is a historic change in where NASA's going.

I'm concerned about the Terrestrial Planet Finder for all the same reasons. A very powerful goal driving our whole reason for having a space program is understanding ourselves and our possible analogs out there in the universe.

But I guess my biggest concern is that I see the whole Vision for Space Exploration -- that humans should go into orbit and to the moon and on to Mars -- in danger of being wiped out, because basically the shuttle funding will continue to grow. They're digging themselves deeper and deeper into the shuttle hole. Things won't go perfectly [with the CEV and HLV], and they'll have to extend the shuttle's life in order to deal with the expanding gap between the shuttle and the next-generation human flight capability, and they'll have to make compromises that will end up delaying all space exploration.

TR: Well, we probably do need some kind of human spaceflight capability in order to finish the International Space Station and keep it supplied. Don't we need the space shuttle to do that?

LF: In an ideal world, yes, the shuttle should be used to complete the space station. It is the only vehicle on Earth that can take the Japanese and European modules up there. However, the shuttle isn't ideal. It's down to three vehicles, and it's having trouble on every flight. After the Columbia accident there was a two-and-a-half-year delay before the return to flight, and another year probably after that until the next mission. So it is unreasonable to expect that all will go well.

And to base the current and the future program on the idea that all will go well is bad planning, not just for us but for our European and Japanese partners. We need to tell them we have an emergency and the shuttle just can't do it, and that they'll have to accept a several-year delay. If we face that problem now, it would be much more realistic, and we could better afford the transition. What I fear right now is that the shuttle decision will mean that we can't afford the transition.