Frustrated lawmakers on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee may force a public debate on U.S. human spaceflight plans as they prepare a new authorization bill for NASA this summer. Their efforts may actually bring an important discussion about what the U.S. is doing in civil space out of closed government meeting rooms and into the view of taxpayers, who ultimately will fund it. At issue, as stated with unusual clarity by science-panel leaders in a May 21 hearing, is the best way to send humans to Mars.
Members of both parties were lukewarm at best in their assessment of the space agency's new plan to capture a small asteroid and divert it into lunar orbit for astronauts to study from an Orion capsule. Rep. Steve Palazzo (R-Miss.), chairman of the House Science space subcommittee, said he worries the asteroid-capture plan is “a detour” on the way to Mars. Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland, ranking Democrat on the space panel, warns that “before we look at interim steps, we need first to understand what it takes to get to Mars.”
“As our space program prepares for the next step to Mars, Congress must ensure that there is a strategic plan in place,” says Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the full committee.
Smith notes Congress has repeatedly endorsed using the lunar surface as a “training ground” for human missions to Mars, as with this concept (shown above) of inflatable habitats proposed by Bigelow Aerospace, and he cast the hearing as an investigation into how capturing an asteroid would play the same role.
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