NASA Johnson Space Center – Earth Sciences and Image Analysis
Today was not a good day for the thousands of employees and contractors at Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake who work on the space shuttle program for NASA.
In a speech at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, President Obama did not choose to change the 2004 decision made by his predecessor and extend the space shuttle program past 2010. There apparently will be no reprieve for the space shuttle program, which is scheduled to end later this year.
The move had been anticipated, but it is still disappointing on many levels. More than half of the people who work at the Johnson Space Center are involved some way in the space shuttle program. Many will lose their jobs, or, in the best case scenario, be reassigned. The president spoke of expanding research at NASA, but it’s not clear what that will mean in the short term.
This lack of continuity means NASA will lose a lot of talented people with highly specialized technical skills who will now look for new jobs. The exceptional team of personnel responsible for the shuttle program took decades for NASA to assemble and the loss of institutional knowledge will be immeasurable. The human resource is the most important element involved in space exploration, and NASA and the nation will be severely impacted by this decision.
One of the options presented by the Augustine Commission to the president this past summer continued the space shuttle program until 2015. With this option U.S. leadership is maintained, there is continuity in our human spaceflight activities and the space station is supported. This option also provides NASA the time to develop a new vehicle without disrupting our ongoing human spaceflight program. It is disappointing that this option was not selected.
The lack of a space shuttle also severely compromises the future of the space station. The space shuttle remains the only way to get heavy and large payloads to the station and return large and heavy payloads back to Earth. The Russian Soyuz can ferry our astronauts to the station, but it lacks the capacity to transport large payloads to the station and from the station to Earth.
President Obama’s decision to reach out to private companies to expand our capabilities to transport cargo and astronauts to space could well be of benefit in the long term. But none of the vehicles being considered by these companies will have the capability and flexibility available with the space shuttle.
President Obama’s speech was largely positive and he sounded upbeat about NASA’s future. I hope his optimism is on target. We’ll need it, as NASA moves forward into a “brave new world” without the space shuttle.
George Abbey, the institute’s Baker Botts Senior Fellow in Space Policy, is the former director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.