Will Obama See The Red Planet from Florida?

President Barack Obama will be playing to a skeptical NASA pro-space audience come April 15, 2010 at the Kennedy Space Center meeting venue and the much larger Interstate 4 Florida population between Tampa and Cape Canaveral. Thousands of pro-space voters help determine the Florida presidential electoral college votes of 2012. Nevertheless, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson predicts the President will boldly set a new goal of sending American astronauts to Mars.

Think about it - could it be tougher than a health care bill? Going to Mars that is, NOT Florida if you are Obama. The president will advocate a viable space plan that incorporates a bold NASA plan with recognition of the commercial space niche coming of age and ready to very competitive in global space markets.

Nelson, a one-time NASA spaceflight participant during his tenure in the Congress, noted support for a heavy-lift booster. President Obama may have been for an Ares V-like booster for some months ---but not articulated through NASA FY 2011 budget documents. Some view the president as likely to include more inspired space propulsion systems for a dramatic 'Dash Out' option.

Many space advocates have suggested a possible compromise of space interests between the New Frontier civil exploration-research model and the NewSpace aggressive for-profit model. A so-called WIN-WIN may be where NASA cedes low Earth orbit (LEO) and perhaps the Moon to private transport providers like SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. while NASA pushes beyond LEO to asteroids and the moons of Mars rapidly with NASA astronaut explorers.

The Moon is being well mapped for surface topography, geology and hydrology by a small army of American, European, Indian, Japanese and Chinese remote sensing scientists. With water found at both the north and south poles, the economics of the Moon has significantly changed in the past few years. There is now significant international interest in the H2o and the He3 embedded in the lunar regolith.

At the same time, American, European, Russian and Chinese unmanned mission plans to Mars are now underway to supplement the recent European and American orbital and surface operations on The Red Planet. A propulsion technology generational leap beyond chemical rockets for a human-rated spacecraft for Mars in the next decade is needed. Such an advanced spacecraft could set human beings on interplanetary journeys to Jupiter's moon Europa and several of the Asteroid Belt objects between Mars and Jupiter before mid-21st Century and the return of Comet Halley in 2061.