Crunch Time at the White House: No Moon Landing in the Next Decade by America?

President Barack Obama is not expected to significantly boost the projected funding profile for NASA's manned spaceflight program in the next few years, despite warnings from a blue-ribbon panel that the U.S. space agency needs between $3 billion and $4 billion more annually to send astronauts back to the Moon, according to sources with ties to the administration, reports Amy Klamper for SpaceNews.

Instead, White House and NASA officials are scrubbing NASA's 2010 budget proposal, and the assumptions made by the blue-ribbon panel it underpins, for potential cost savings over the next decade that could help fund some means of sending astronauts beyond low Earth orbit as soon as 2020. One possibility being weighed by the administration is abandoning the idea of astronaut landings on the Moon in favor of missions that would take astronauts on close flybys of heavenly bodies such as asteroids. More reported by NBC News video.

OPTIONS:

1. Spend some $2.5 billion over the next five years to develop a commercial crew transportation system to low Earth orbit with the $2.5 billion proposed for commercial crew transportation potentially being tapped from existing manned exploration budgets over the next five years;


2. Shifting NASA's acquisition strategy for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle from a traditional government procurement to one that is commercial in nature that could yield significant savings in the near-term;


3. Hand space station operations over to a private contractor, potentially saving $500 million to $1 billion per year; and,


4. Lift options being weighed include a shuttle-derived vehicle — other than Ares 1 and Ares 5, both of which are shuttle-derived — or a commercially developed rocket fueled by kerosene.

The White House is expected to submit an amended 2010 budget request for NASA's exploration program by mid-September, 2009. Space industry workers and space advocates within the United States and around the world await the important presidential exploration decisions soon forthcoming. UPDATE: Wall Street Journal report.