Updates to this story
NASA's future is looking very uncertain, with its Shuttle tank provider ending production and the US Senate passing a bill to cancel the space agency's Constellation programme.
The first bit of bad news for NASA came with the announcement that Lockheed Martin, which makes Space Shuttle external tanks, will end production of the components after 37 years of operation at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.
The company sent its final tank to the Kennedy Space Centre on September 27, one of 136 external tanks it created over the last few decades. The tank will be used in one of NASA's remaining Space Shuttle launches. NASA is only authorised to launch three more Shuttles, one on November 1, another on February 26 next year, and a further final launch at an unannounced date.
“The Space Shuttle has provided a pathway for America’s leadership in space exploration,” said Manny Zulueta, vice-president of Lockheed Martin and site executive of the Michoud Assembly Facility. “Working alongside NASA on the External Tank has been a gratifying and historic experience for our employees.”
The end of production has resulted in more than half of Lockheed Martin's staff being made redundant. At the beginning of this year it had 1,438 employees, but now it has roughly 600. Some of this number are only being kept on as part of the launch and landing elements of the fnal Space Shuttle launches, which means their jobs could be in jeopardy soon afterwards.
NASA is also being forced to cancel its Constellation programme after the Senate passed a bill this week, which limits NASA's spending to $58 billion over the next three years. The Constellation project intended to send astronauts to the International Space Station, the Moon, and Mars, but Obama wanted the plans cancelled as part of attempts to address the global economic crisis. He is set to sign the bill cancelling the programme soon.
What next? Perhaps nothing. Maybe it's time to turn all this space exploitation over to private sector. Have the Pentagon absorb what it needs, and let the rest go. Maybe restructure Nasa as pure space exploration, stop having them be the Pentagon's satellite maintenance department.
Or maybe just can all of it, and let the Chinese have it all.
With all the retro-fitted safety measures, a given Shuttle launch incurs $1.5-2,000,000,000 (given prelaunch measures, launch staffing, launch materials, launchpad cleanup, post-launch safety measures, in-space safety measures, provisional return measures, and more). This stands as incredible compared to similar costs of $35-50,000,000 for the Russian manned-only function. Shuttle gets more payload, but at over 40x the cost. Non-human payload can be done for $20-100,000,000 by proven American rockets. Even at that, in the last 15 years, Russian safety is far-better-than the Shuttle.
Constellation was fallout from low-budget development processes. It didn't improve enough to continue to justify non-commercial investment. The WTO ruled that Constellation investment was a significant part of the not-allowed cash-transfer from Washington-to-Boeing in the EADS counter-suit. Perhaps Constellation investments weren't always about developing a new spacecraft.