Seeing the end of Obama’s space doctrine, a bipartisan Congress moves in

NASA administrator Charles Bolden, left, and US Representative Mike Honda, center, tour the NASA Ames SpaceShop. (credit: NASA)

Although it has been less than thrilled by NASA’s effective taboo on lunar exploration, Congress has adopted a good-cop approach toward the agency's asteroid-then-Mars human spaceflight plans during the last six years. In hearings, members have suggested that the space agency reconsider its human mission to an asteroid and perhaps work with Europe on some tentative plans to send humans to the surface of the Moon. But NASA hasn’t acquiesced to this gentle cajoling.

During the recent appropriations process in the House, as Ars reported in May, members exercised the power of the purse to more forcefully nudge NASA back toward the Moon as an interim step to Mars. Lawmakers zeroed out funding for the asteroid mission and encouraged NASA 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.” After discussions with lawmakers, aides, and officials in the aerospace community since then, it has become clear this is no transient movement. Rather, the Moon-then-Mars plan has bipartisan support.

NASA’s prohibition on lunar exploration dates to 2010, when President Obama set NASA's human exploration program on a course to visit an asteroid by 2025 and then on to Mars in the 2030s. As for the Moon, then the short-term goal of NASA’s human spaceflight program, Obama said, “We’ve been there before.” Now House members see the end of Obama’s presidency looming and have found his go-it-alone approach toward Mars probably will not be supported by the next President—Republican or Democrat.

Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments