Former Astronaut Glenn Criticizes Bush Space Plan

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2004-03-04 07:54pm

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... bases_dc_2

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. space pioneer John Glenn said on Thursday that President Bush (news - web sites)'s space exploration plan "pulls the rug out from under our scientists" and might waste too much money to ever put astronauts on Mars.

Glenn, a retired Democratic senator from Ohio and the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth, said NASA (news - web sites) should not abandon research on the International Space Station (news - web sites) and questioned the advisability of using the moon as a stepping stone to Mars.

His stinging rebuke of the Bush plan came in testimony before the presidential commission charged with developing a strategy for building a permanent base on the moon, then sending astronauts on to Mars. The commission met at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Glenn's home state of Ohio.

The octogenarian space pioneer's most cutting comments were reserved for NASA's plans to gut the International Space Station of a once-ambitious research agenda, limiting science only to studies applicable to the moon and Mars program.

"We have projects that are planned or in the queue now, projects that people -- academics and laboratories and companies -- have spent millions of dollars to get ready," Glenn said. "That pulls the rug out from under our scientists who placed their faith in NASA, and our scientists within NASA who devoted years and years to their work."

Glenn said basic research had always been part of the human space flight program, dating back to his own three-orbit flight in 1962: "We tried to get everything we could on to every flight back in those days."

He said cutting the research component of the space station program would save only about $2.5 million.

"I think we're voluntarily stopping some of the most unique, cutting-edge research in the history of the whole world. Now we're going to let other nations do it and they'll be able to benefit from it. I just don't think that's right. I think that's a mistake. For a few bucks, we could continue this research," he said.

NASA spokesman Glen Mahone said research aboard the space station will continue but will be limited to the effects of space flight on human physiology.

"We're going to do the research that's important for us to fulfill the president's vision," Mahone said.

Glenn said he would support returning to the moon for research purposes, but urged the panel to seriously consider whether building habitable moon bases as a stepping stone to Mars was cost effective.

"In effect you're making a Cape Canaveral out on the moon. It would be a smaller one, I'm sure, but it would be enormously complex," Glenn said. "It just seems to me the direct-to-Mars (route) is the way to go."

He warned NASA might "use up all our money on the moon and never get to Mars." One commission member, Neil de Grasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, called Glenn's testimony "refreshing in its candor."

Yeah baby!

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-03-04 08:17pm

My personal opinion: Forget Mars and just go for Alpha Centauri.

Just kidding. Glenn sounds about right.

Oddysseus · Post by **Oddysseus** » 2004-03-04 08:29pm

Shinova wrote:My personal opinion: Forget Mars and just go for Alpha Centauri.

Just kidding. Glenn sounds about right.

Igenerally liike to hear from Glenn on these issues. He hasa certain long term view he'd like to see proceed, putting us and more commercial services in space. NASA is suppose to be about learning and exploration, the Mars mission ends up at this point looking like a stunt.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-03-04 09:29pm

He's right about one thing. If we are going to the Moon, it should be to go to the Moon. Its only relevence to Mars would be possible training and experimentation to prepare for the much longer Mars mission.

If you really want to go to Mars, go Zubrin's Mars Direct and go direct to Mars.

But the International Space Station stuff is stupid. It accomplishes next to no useful science or research; it should be terminated as everything except a biolab for looking into long-term missions in microgravity, akin to Mars.

But for research and commerical development? Give me a break; damn thing is too much of a useless cash cow as it is.