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House Democrats Plan Attack on NASA’s Mars Mission


Tomorrow morning, the House Committee on Science and Technology will challenge NASA’s vision for space exploration. According to a document on their website, the legislators are planning to grill NASA’s representatives:

  • Does the exploration architecture, as laid out by NASA, present a technically and programmatically viable approach for executing exploration beyond low Earth orbit under a pay-as-you-go strategy?
  • Is the United States on the right track to reach the Moon by 2020, establish an outpost there, and eventually send humans to Mars, or do any changes need to be made to the architecture or implementation plan?
  • How will progress in implementing the architecture be measured?
  • How sustainable will NASA’s planned exploration initiative be, given the assumed constrained budgetary outlook as well as the cutbacks in funding for long-lead exploration technology development?

You can find the full meeting agenda here. (pdf)

Part of NASA’s vision for space exploration is the Ares I program, which is a two-stage rocket that will launch astronauts into space. Along with the Orion crew vehicle, it is meant to replace the aging space shuttle. Critics would say that the project has exceeded its budget and is behind schedule. Activists have proposed cheaper, simpler alternatives, such as a re-hash of the national launch system, which uses parts from existing rockets instead of a completely new design.

Update: The meeting is over and you can find full video coverage here: Link

What do you think of the Ares program? Is it the right move for space exploration?

Image credit: NASA/MSFC