By Pat Duggins
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wual/local-wual-1012284.mp3
Tuscaloosa, Alabama – Last year's retirement of the NASA's Space Shuttle program doesn't mean the end of Congressional budget woes for the U.S. Space Program. The winged spacecraft are being sent to museums, including the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. In their place, NASA hopes to create a brand new four hundred foot tall rocket called the Space Launch System, or SLS, to carry astronauts on missions far from Earth, perhaps to an asteroid, or maybe to the planet Mars.
The project, which is being managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, may go no farther than budget talks on Capitol Hill. Critics of the new missile say it's a waste of money, with one and half billion dollars in proposed spending each year between now and the year 2017.
I sat down with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to talk about SLS, and Marshall's role in the future of the U.S. space effort. Bolden says the new crew rocket is the right project at the right cost. "We have gone through independent cost assessments," he says. "And I'm sure that will stand the time of time. We've also received strong bi-partisan support from the (U.S.) House and Senate."
The U.S. space program is going through growing pains in its post Shuttle years. This Saturday, a commercially built rocket with a privately owned cargo capsule is set to blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a trip to the International Space Station. If it works, a manned version of the capsule could carry astronauts on future flights. Along with these so called "space taxis," NASA is also looking at next generation Space Shuttles, including one with an Alabama connection.
Former astronaut Jim Voss is from Opelika. He's leading the effort to design and build a small winged shuttle called "The Dream chaser." It's one of four designs from four companies competing to be the ticket to space for future astronauts. Cost conscious members of Congress suggest NASA trim the number of possible designs to save money, but Bolden disagrees. "The critical importance of the competition that it allows us a variety of selections. Dream chaser is a winged vehicle, while the others are capsules that people will be familiar with when they go back to the Apollo era. So, the longer we maintain this competition, the wider the variety of vehicles we have to choose, and we think we'll get the best of all worlds when we select."
Despite NASA's on-going budget woes, Bolden offered both praise and support for the men and women at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.
"Marshall is critical to everything we do in human and robotic spaceflight. Marshall is not about rockets. Marshall is a wealth of talent and engineering integration. When you and I first met, I was on STS-45, (Shuttle Atlantis mission in 1992, where Bolden was the astronaut commander) and that was based out of Marshall, and the payload operation center. So, Marshall has enjoyed a critical place at NASA, and will enjoy that for years to come."