This is because none of the bill has anything to do with a specific plan. It's just groups of congressmen and senators all fighting over which state gets the jobs and the money. It really has nothing to do with progress whatsoever, and that's the sad part. It would be alot easier if NASA itself could come up with a great objective to be achieved, not the US government, and have alot of the money that goes to the department of defence go to NASA so this could be achieved.

One of the biggest problems lately is the fact that pretty much no politician or private contractor recognizes the need for better propulsion systems and probes. We need to find the new eden outside of the solar system and we need to find a way to get there. This invovles better propulsion, life support systems, and perhaps a firm understanding of agriculture outside of earth. Most likely aeroponics, which have been recently invented, but probably need to be revamped to work in space. Without this, going to the moon or to mars is pretty much just an expensive and slow ride to a campground only to be returned back to earth quickly.

We have the best agriculture experts in the world. I don't see why we don't have them employed to work with NASA on creating low or null gravity habitats for the future. On top of that, we have cancelled propulsion research, which is highly important. Also I still don't understand why people can't understand the need for 2 different types of ships. Payload ships designed for leaving gravity wells (which we have done and can improve on) as well as ships purely designed for space travel (something that just doesn't get looked at) For some reason we seem to feel that we need to combine these 2 ships together.

I don't think that the House should mess anymore with wasting money on one more shuttle mission or endangering an emerging commercial investment and interest in getting into the space race. I love the shuttle program and mourn it's end but it's time to end the shuttle now as there is no real good mission for it to fly, it's nothing but an election year stunt to make some politicians more popular by not letting those jobs go until after the election.

gaetanomarano is correct. Past plans lacked staying power because they did not have a clear, achievable objective supported by the majority of the public. Finding that objective is step one. Then build a plan to achieve that objective. Then fully fund the program, and hold the program managers accountable for achieving milestones and staying on budget. In my opinion, that objective has to include a specific destination ("We choose to go to the Moon...".) While I support the ideas of improving propulsion technology and fostering commercialization of space, these are not exploration objectives.

Much of NASA is dominated by military or ex-military (primarily fighter jocks) who believe that they, and no one else, have "the right stuff." In fact, while these people may have archaic cockpit skills, they are severely lacking in project management and especially budgetary skills. They have no realistic vision for the future, jumping wildly from one hare-brained rush back to the moon for H3 scheme to let's-all-go-to-Mars-for-vacation.

The problem is that we have absolutely zero ability to send man on long-duration spaceflights beyond the Earth's magnetosphere. Period. It will not happen for at least 50-75+ years. Even some sort of cockamamie moon base is beyond our wildest capabilities.

What is within out sphere of possibility is to continue robotic explorations, moving more and more toward reliable vehicles and landings and moving closer to semi-autonomous lander maneuvering. Even these need a lot of work.

The Space Shuttle was a quasi-military bad idea from the start. We came up with the absolutely most dangerous and expensive method of putting man into low space effort and allowed the military to just walk away from it when it tanked. And the ISS is even worse. No science, only billions of dollars spent to service the billions of dollars already spent. Both programs were heavily lobbied for by the military because of their potential for weaponizing space and bombing or surveiling battlefields. And even the ever-eager-to-spend military backed down from those programs.

As long as the military runs NASA, there will be no progress in space exploration except what the scientists can sneak past them using off-the-shelf technology to achieve realistic goals. Until the scientists take over, there is no real hope for the future of NASA. It will remain a "Faster, Better, Cheaper" money pit while the scientists mock the military managers with "Faster, Better, Cheaper --- Pick Two."

It is interesting that all the fighter jocks in NASA cannot get a working toilet in the ISS while Spirit and Opportunity have functioned for years where they were nominally designed to function for 90 days. And we won't even mention the two Space Shuttles that crashed and killed their crews.

"The Machinist union's websitealso referred to an independent report that raised questions about the Obama administration's space commercialization initiative."

I followed this link and find the CSIS report to be mostly supportive of President Obama's initial proposals and more so with Senate alterations.  The Unions website statement suggests it wasn't completely read before citing it as a reference.  Might have changed their position if they had.

Typical Obama, Pelosi and Congressional response to an important issue that affects people's jobs! Do Nothing! Then when September comes, they will do NOTHING again, until after the November elections. They talked about delays in the Constellation program. The Obama administration has done NOTHING about their own "plan" since February. Typical. I voted from Mr. Obama in 2008, but never again. I totally disagree with his space "plan" which amounts to gutting the NASA manned capabilities, a transfer of of cash to the Russians, and a vague wave in some direction about an asteroid 15 years or so from now. Talk about your government fairy tales! (and outright lies -see Obama campaign stop in Titusville, Fla in June 2008)! Even if Mr. Obama actually supported the return to the moon, which is the only sensible path to Mars and to deeper space, I'd still vote against him because he is totally incompetent as an executive. He can't get anything done. As we approach 2010 elections, Mr. Obama has achieved just two pieces of legislation - a watered down health insurance bill and a totally gutted Financial Regulations Bill that puts power back into the hands off the same banking "regulators" who were sound asleep between 1980 and 2008! Space exploration doesn't need friends like Mr. Obama. He might as well have put Richard Nixon, arch-enemy of the US manned space program, in charge of NASA as put Charles Bolden in charge of NASA as Mr Obama's "Stepen Fetchit". Personally, my hope to see another moon landing in my lifetime is riding on the Chinese and Indians.

OK, lets go back in time to about 1956. Von Braun launched a Redstone multistage missile downrange over the Atlanic and if the 4th dummy stage had been an active rocket we could have achieved orbit.

Let congress know which of the 3 paths the American space program should take, as proposed by the President, Senate and the House, respectively. Write to your congressman today.

Here's the link: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

Here's what I wrote, cheers!

Hello Congressman, I would like to urge you to vote "NO" on Space Spending bill H.R. 5781.

I strongly believe that the Senate's proposed version of NASA's budget actually represents the more vigorous and sustainable path toward achieving our aspirations in space for several reasons. First, the Senate language has essentially provided a balanced compromise between President Obama's vision and the House bill. Secondly, the House bill, as currently written, appears to favor the unsuccessful approach characterized by the Constellation program failures.

Although commercial space is not as heavily-funded under the Senate plan as what the President has proposed, it still allows for the continued viability, growth, and development of the commercial sector, whereas the House version essentially cuts it off. This is a serious flaw in the House language. It is the commercial sector that will ultimately provide the high paying jobs, and it is the commercial sector that has and will further create innovative solutions to our space needs.

It seems clear that, with additional seed money, commercial will soon become the most cost-effective provider of cargo and crew transport to low-earth orbit, specifically the International Space Station. SpaceX's recent successful Falcon-9 test launch, and ULA's proven track record, point to an expected success story in providing commercial crew launching services. However, this is the game-changing business approach to space that has yet to be proven. Therefore, additional investment is needed for these companies to succeed and expand their capabilities.

Meanwhile, NASA documents are showing that the agency has accepted that Shuttle-Derived Heavy Lift Vehicle (SD-HLV) may be the best way to transition current workforce skills into providing the necessary lift capacity for ambitious, near-earth object (NEO), lunar, and Mars missions. In addition, due to high-commonality of components with the current shuttle program, the speed with which SD-HLV development may be accomplished, allows us to minimize the "gap" in American human launch capabilities, once the shuttle has been retired. The Senate bill is better than the House bill in this regard.

The "DIRECT" team (a voluntary team consisting of NASA engineers, NASA-contractor engineers, and managers from the Constellation Program) has been developing this alternative SD-HLV on a volunteer basis, basically since the beginning of the Constellation program (building upon the Shuttle-C concept that has been promoted at times since the early days of the space shuttle program) knowing that Ares was, and continues to be ill-fated and ill-conceived, especially in light of more recent economic and political constraints.

The SD-HLV as currently envisioned, is flexible enough to be readily modified for several different missions, from low-earth orbit to beyond-earth orbit. It could also be scaled up in size, increasing the tonnage of its payload. In addition, upper stage modifications can be tailored to a wide range of possible missions, some of which have been outlined in the “Flexible Path” statements. This ability would allow new propulsion technologies for beyond-earth orbit travel to be implemented on top of a common core launch vehicle.

Another benefit to the Senate bill is that it would slightly extend the shuttle program, further shrinking the "gap", and utilizing expensive hardware that has already been bought and paid for under the space shuttle program.

For these reasons and more, I believe that the Senate bill language has proposed the best vision for the future of the American space program. I urge you to work with your colleagues to modify the House bill to agree with the Senate bill.

Thanks for your time...

Ok Guys, Gaetano, who I often disagree with, has a good point. A large part of the problem here is lack of vision, lack of direction. Bush's space vision was good. Return humans to the Moon. Establish a permanent lunar base. Use this as the basis for developing resource and technologies to make further trips to asteroids, Mars and Martian moons possible as well as more economical.

The augustine commission made a major blunder by implying that the problem was the mission, not the timelines and by providing their own personal favourite list of alternative visions. Obama took this hook, line and sinker; picked a new vision from the menu they gave him. I seriously doubt the independence of the commission and I suspect that both the administration and the commission wanted to change the vision more because it was Bush's than because they saw a better plan.

What I fail to see is how a trip to an asteroid furthers our technology or our space infrastructure. Technologies we need to succeed at this venture include better shielding for radiation and micrometeors which could be developed and perfected in a lunar environment and we could have the added benefit of developing and using in-situ fuel resources, having a stable platform for new space telescopes and developing the technologies for extended duration missions.

If we couldn't send people to the moon first, we should have sent the robots, not changed the vision.

Just my 2-cents. :-(

Chris537131 said "The problem is that we have absolutely zero ability to send man on long-duration spaceflights beyond the Earth's magnetosphere. Period. It will not happen for at least 50-75+ years. Even some sort of cockamamie moon base is beyond our wildest capabilities."

I have to fundamentally disagree with this statement. I understand why a person would make this statement. I have been frustrated by an apparent lack of research and development of technologies that would facilitate these kinds of missions.

but to state categorically "the ability" is not there "period" is disheartening to say the least. to say what i really think - it's arrogantly closed-minded. to even go so far as to say we can not do these things now but we will be able to in 50 - 75 years is (to me) absurd. and calling the idea of a moon base cockamamie is personally insulting.

using off the shelf technology, a sizable workforce, and few billion dollars I could come up with a feasible design for a moon-base (and i know many others here who've commented feel the same way). I have thought about it since I was 10 years old. given all the problems that would arise and the difficulties associated with a task of this magnitude it would only be "cockamamie" to a closed minded A hole with no passion for space exploration.

I apologize in advance to the group who is participating in this discussion. Normally, i would never resort to useless name calling, but Chris537131's comment has struck a chord in me. Comments like his are the heart of the problem with today's space program. Where is the passion? where is the desire to see the impossible made possible??! if you think it's possible in 75 years, Chris, why then is it not possible today? when you have the answer to that question you should be able to make it possible. when you run into a roadblock you build a bridge or a detour or something! There is no limit to human ingenuity. just remember that.

It has been suggested by some that my R.I.P. eulogy for the scheduled shut down of the SSI platform was a bit harsh. History however, will best evaluate the comparative balance sheet between the Apollo vs: SSI era. Again, by getting rid of the old girl's (SSI) bells and whistles - triming down her Solar sails -- and Bates Motel accommodations, we'll have:

A lean/mean/machine that, with modifications, then provideing a space buoy/lifeboat, having minimal mobility to move out of the way of any oncoming debris field, or Solar flair. In case you're wondering about the Bates Motel reference; this past week's space and on board "malfunctions" would make you reconsider any long stay reservations. My recommendation is to solicit android (robotic) occupancy -- they don't feel our pain....

Having read all these comments I think most of it has been covered. But I'll touch on a couple things.

Space must be an international objective, and I think it is time for the U.S. to promote international venture above U.S. only missions. A simple analogy is in the music industry, since digital media has become so readily available its suffering, so what do they do, they make music together. On almost every album there is at least one song that "Features" another artist, if not several. So, as we have started to do, we need to "Feature" other countries in nearly all space endeavors. Having the Russians put us in space for 5 years is not a bad idea. Its like each person flying their own private jet, when we could fly commercial. It makes sense.

Someone earlier mentioned how Scientist need to be at the helm of space exploration. I couldn't agree more. Private companies are founded by scientist, or individuals with inherit interest is science/space exploration. They will push the boundaries of science more than currently being done. These people working for companies like SpaceX, aren't doing so because it's another job. They are doing it becasue they have PASSION and the desire to do things we cannot do currently. What makes them better than NASA? The sheer fact that they don't have a money pool like the Government behind them. Budget means more to companies like SpaceX, if they go over budget, then they could go bankrupt. If NASA goes over budget, they lobby.

As far as a dedicated space craft, I have often wondered why it doesn't exist as well. And I have wondered why we have relied on rockets? Aircraft can now reach space, take off from any airport, and land at any airport as well. To me it makes more sense to take people to L.E.O and transfer them to a dedicated space craft and launch them from there.

I think thats mostly it. Thanks