Al Rossiter: Press Forward on Manned Space Missions

The tragic loss of the space shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven has placed the United States at another turning point in its exploration and utilization of space.

Predictably, the accident has raised the voices of those who would like to see the nation's human spaceflight effort sharply curtailed, or even abandoned. The disaster also has reawakened the spirit that insists we press forward.

The question now facing a nation with many challenges is what to do. President Bush had made it clear in the past few days that the space program will continue and those congressional leaders most familiar with space exploration seem to agree. But the more fundamental issue is how to proceed.

NASA a year ago thought it had a plan to embark on an effort to develop a replacement for the space shuttle that, according to an agency press release, would be "at least 10 times safer (with) crew survivability 100 times greater, all at one-tenth the cost of today's space launch systems."

That sounds like a pretty good goal in light of the Columbia accident. The problem was that such a large, second generation reusable rocket ship would be expensive, and take a long time to develop. In the meantime, the nation has the International Space Station in orbit. It is costing more than anticipated and relies largely on current shuttles to service it.

Facing those issues, the Bush administration last November switched course and asked Congress for authority to concentrate on extending the life of the current shuttles -- now down to a fleet of three -- well into the next decade. Instead of building a large shuttle replacement, the revised plan would accelerate work on a smaller "orbital space plane." The space plane, too small to carry cargo, would be launched atop a conventional rocket and glide back to an airport landing like a shuttle but with a better heat protection system.

Bush's proposed Fiscal 2004 NASA budget, released Monday, would continue that effort. The spending plan said the space plane would be able to serve as a lifeboat for the space station by 2010 and as a crew ferry ship, when launched atop an expendable rocket, by 2012.

All that is in doubt now as a result of the Columbia disaster. The first order of business is to find out what happened to Columbia and make sure the same failure doesn't occur again. There is no alternative in the short term but to keep shuttles flying -- unless the nation and its partner nations decide to abandon the space station, a highly unlikely prospect.

Next the White House and Congress must decide whether to extend the life of the shuttles, built on technology that already is a quarter of a century old, or bite the bullet again and proceed to a second generation shuttle.

"Certainly one could build a better and safer space shuttle today if the nation were willing to pay for it," said Professor Earl Dowell of the Pratt School of Engineering. "And that is, of course, the great question. It would be expensive and when this question has been raised in the past, the president and the Congress have always decided we could not afford it."

So, America once again has reached a major decision point. Unlike 1960 when John F. Kennedy set the nation's sights on the moon, the United States is not competing with the Soviet Union. National superiority is no longer a reason to pour billions into spaceflight ventures.

Indeed, today the U.S. is in partnership with Russia, which is providing about one-third of the space station, along with Canada, Japan, Brazil and 11 nations of the European Space Agency. So, if anything, we need to demonstrate our determination to do what we said we would do.

But it goes beyond that. It may be time for the United States to decide if it wants to develop a new generation shuttle that would help build the foundation for international missions beyond Earth orbit.

Someday, humans will return to the moon and go to Mars. The question is should it be in our lifetime, or the lifetime of our children, or later?

This is probably not the best time to be making such choices, with continuing threats from terrorists, a possible war with Iraq on the immediate horizon and problems looming with North Korea. But the Columbia tragedy may force us as a nation to make these decisions soon.

One thing we must remember as the future is debated is that the money spent on the space program goes to people on Earth, creates new jobs and pays for the development of technologies that benefit us all, from healthcare to communications to the defense of our homeland.

Al Rossiter Jr. wrote about the space program for 25 years for United Press International. He retired as director of the Duke News Service in 2001 and now works part time for the Pratt School of Engineering. This commentary was first published in the Durham Herald-Sun Feb. 9.