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Editorial: NASA needs clearer mission, more money

 
Published July 2, 2015

Officials at NASA downplayed the explosion of an unmanned cargo ship this week with their usual platitudes and vague reassurances. But this latest setback reflects the halting state of a space program that lacks vision and money, and one that is entirely too dependent on the private sector, Russia and other players outside the government's control. The nation needs to reassert NASA's mission and give the agency the funding it requires to recapture its position as the undisputed leader in space.

The disintegration of the 200-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket, built by the private firm SpaceX, only minutes after lifting off from Cape Canaveral on a resupply mission to the International Space Station marked the third loss of a cargo ship to the space station in the past eight months. Though the astronauts have enough food and water to last until October, and a Russian cargo ship is set to launch today, the accident reveals the space program's modest capabilities and reliance on outsourcing.

NASA was quick to say the three most recent accidents were unrelated. And until Sunday, SpaceX had a perfect record with the Falcon 9, with 18 successful launches since its debut in 2010. But supplying the space station with an unmanned flight nearly half a century after Americans first landed on the moon should be routine. As important as it is, the accident investigation will sap time, attention and resources from moving forward and create a narrower margin for error with the next cargo flight.

Exploring in the unforgiving environment of space will always present daunting challenges. That's why NASA's vision needs to be robust and clear. President Barack Obama vacillated early in his tenure before calling on the space program to envision a manned mission to Mars. But the money to pursue that lofty goal has not materialized. The focus instead has shifted to replacing the shuttle program with a new commercial crew capsule to ferry astronauts to the space station, thus relieving the need to buy seats on Russian Soyuz capsules. America's space conversation is sadly unimaginative, with more chatter about space tourism for billionaires than a real strategy for putting Americans into deep space. NASA's budget of about $18 billion is not expected to increase markedly before 2020.

Private contractors have long played a major role in America's space program. But NASA needs to be more of a driving force in setting this nation's agenda in space. Getting bogged down by nuisance problems in low-Earth orbit is not a confidence-builder, and it hardly inspires excitement in NASA's manned exploration plans. There is nothing wrong with helping to build a strong commercial space industry; few states have as large a stake in that effort as Florida. But NASA needs to get a firmer grip on the many moving parts of the space program and better define what frontier America will explore and when.