NASA unveiled a 13-year, $104 billion blueprint Monday for sending humans back to the moon as early as 2018, using modified space shuttle rockets to loft an Apollo-like capsule into space.
Space analysts said the design was decidedly retro, hearkening back more than three decades to the Cold War’s moon race.
But they said the new design was safer and more realistic than the current space shuttle, which is scheduled to be retired in 2010 after nearly 25 years of service and two disastrous shuttle losses.
“It is very Apollo-like, but bigger. Think of it as Apollo on steroids,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration head Michael Griffin said in Washington, D.C.
The new capsule, known as the Crew Exploration Vehicle, will be significantly larger than the cramped Apollo capsule, with seating for as many as six astronauts instead of three.
The new vehicle, slated for its maiden launch in 2012, initially would be used to resupply and transfer crews from the international space station after the shuttle is retired, NASA officials said.
Unlike the winged shuttle, which is mounted on the side of the rocket, the capsule would sit atop the rocket, away from falling debris and potential engine fires that destroyed the shuttles Columbia in 2003 and Challenger in 1986.
NASA officials estimated the new craft would be nearly 10 times as safe as the space shuttle. The agency estimates that a space shuttle will be lost about every 220 missions. The new vehicle will be designed to go more than 2,000 missions without a calamity.
In 2018, NASA would launch the first back-to-the-moon mission with new lunar landers and other components that would allow for as many as four astronauts to stay on the surface for as long as seven days. The Apollo missions, which cost $150 billion, focused primarily on landing astronauts on the moon for a day or two and then returning them safely to Earth.
The blueprint unveiled Monday is part of a broader initiative launched by President Bush 18 months ago, in which he called for returning humans to the moon as a steppingstone to a manned mission to Mars, perhaps as early as 2020.
Elliot Pulham, president of the Space Foundation, a nonprofit space exploration advocacy group, called the blueprint a “challenging yet realistic plan” that doesn’t “break the bank.” But questions about how NASA could sustain public interest and win funding from Congress for more than a decade dogged Monday’s unveiling.
Some observers worried that huge federal spending in the future on priorities such as rebuilding New Orleans could undermine funding for any major space initiatives.
But Griffin said the nation could afford the cost because he would not seek any new money for the agency’s annual $16 billion budget.
Instead, spending within NASA’s human spaceflight program would be redirected to pay for the endeavor, he said. About $4 billion to $5 billion a year is now allocated for manned spaceflight.
Measured in constant dollars, the $104 billion price, spread over 13 years, represents 55 percent of what the eight-year Apollo program costs, Griffin said. The objective, he said, is to “pay as you go and what you can afford.”
“There will be a lot more hurricanes and a lot more other natural disasters to befall the United States,” Griffin said. “We must deal with our short- term problems while not sacrificing our long-term investments in our future.”
