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ASAP: NASA Has No Plan or Firm Funding For Its #JourneyToMars

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
January 13, 2016
Filed under , , , ,
ASAP: NASA Has No Plan or Firm Funding For Its #JourneyToMars

Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel Annual Report 2015
“In October 2015, NASA published what it called “a detailed outline” of its next steps in getting to the Red Planet. Unfortunately, the level of detail in the report, NASA’s Journey to Mars: Pioneering the Next Steps in Space Exploration, does not really validate whether NASA would be capable of achieving such an ambitious objective in a reasonable time period, with realistically attainable technologies, and with budgetary requirements that are consistent with the current economic environment.”
Kicking The Can Down the Road to Mars, earlier post
NASA Begins Its Journey To Nowhere, earlier post
Yet Another NASA Mars “Plan” Without A Plan – or a Budget, earlier post
NASA’s Strategic Plan Isn’t Strategic – or a Plan, earlier post
Charlie Bolden’s Meandering Strategic Plans, earlier post

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

2 responses to “ASAP: NASA Has No Plan or Firm Funding For Its #JourneyToMars”

  1. Michael Spencer says:
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    It is hard to criticize NASA for not planning for something that they can’t achieve.

    NASA is in an unenviable position, caught between starry-eyed space nuts (like me) and hard-headed pols with vision that extends as far as Tuscaloosa.

  2. Littrow says:
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    I think that the NASA leaders of 1970 knew what was needed. They needed to begin to develop an infrastructure for getting people and cargo into orbit, and they needed to begin to develop the infrastructure to take people and cargo from low earth orbit to more distant locations. That was their goal. I think they got us started well on our way.
    I think it was a realistic goal that deserved to be focused upon.

    The mistake was with those people in NASA who gave up on development once Shuttle was “operational”. No further improvements, no reductions in operations costs, no improvements in safety. And then they gave up in order to try their hand on going to Mars-which was completely unrealistic.

    The current NASA management (I won’t call them leaders) are leading us astray and I doubt NASA will be able to recover.