MIT White Paper on NASA FY11 Budget

In a White Paper titled U.S. Human Spaceflight: The FY11 Budget and the Flexible Path, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Edward Crawley and David Mindell support the Obama Administration’s proposals for NASA’s human spaceflight plan - the “embodiment” of the 2009 Augustine Committee Report’s Flexible Path option. Although viewing some of the proposal’s criticisms as understandable and arguing that the agency should address key questions before moving forward, the authors recommend that “NASA should not attempt to define dates certain and destinations certain,” but should support a new strategy. The budget proposal, by supporting the idea that “technology capability and resource availability” should guide the nation’s space exploration program, they believe reflects the Committee’s finding that the Constellation Program, mired from the start by lack of funding, was set on a path to failure. The proposal further adopts key measures discussed by the Committee, such as the extension of the International Space Station (ISS) and reliance on commercial providers for crew transportation to low Earth orbit (LEO). Crawley and Mindell argue that the cancellation of the Orion capsule is “reasonable,” and suggest constructing a “very lite” version for crew rescue from the ISS – precisely what the President later announced in his April 15 speech. The authors conclude that the Flexible Path, as outlined in the FY2011 budget request, represents a “logical progression” that will accrue the nation several benefits, including enabling renewed exploration beyond LEO to a variety of destinations in the Solar System and delaying human missions to large bodies like Mars “until after technology has had a chance to catch up,” synthesizing human and robotic exploration, and fostering new opportunities for international engagement. This plan, which they call the “best strategy of a generation for human exploration of the solar system,” would allow the United States to build upon its investments and reassume its leadership in human spaceflight.

Laura Delgado
Intern, Space Initiatives