It would seem that shuttle supporters have won a victory in their efforts to last keep all the remaining missions on the manifest despite the looming September 2010 deadline for its retirement—and chose an unusual means of announcing it. “White House tells me the president will fly all nine remaining shuttle missions – even if it means flying the shuttle an extra year,” said Sen. Bill Nelson (or at least someone representing the senator) via the microblogging service Twitter. Nelson didn’t say anything else, although Florida Today provides a little more detail: that news came out of briefings with the White House over the last two days, although the White House still believes that the remaining missions can be flown by the end of FY 2010.
I’m glad the WH is going on the record on this *before* the Hubble mission next week.
But it’s always been clear that the manifest — including AMS-02 — would be flown out.
This is why the Senator fought to put a marker down for FY2011 funding to pay for that extended duration (but not quantity) of flight operations. ANd the Senator should be praised for this.
The issue is, of course, can we find an extra $3 billion to pay for it. My prediction is that, ultiimately, if NASA gets an extra $3 billion in FY2011, others in Congress will want some of that to go to science and other interests. And the shortfall, whether it’s a few hundred million or $ 3 billion, will come out of other human spaceflight, because it has to.
Which means it comes out of Constellation.
Which further compounds in inaffordability and unsustainability of ESAS.
How many more body blows can Ares 1 take? There may not be much left for Mr. Augustine to review…
If the Administration feels that the remaining nine Shuttle missions can be flown before the end of calendar 2010, their inability to comprehend reality extends further than the economy, all the way to preparations for Shuttle missions. The chances that we can fly that many even by December 2010 is very remote.
Where will that additional money to fly Shuttle come from? We have borrowed billions from our grandchildren and will almost certainly borrow this from them as well.