NASA vision not getting funded, experts find

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An ambitious vision to take people to the moon and Mars may fall apart before it even gets off the ground because of uncertain planning and inadequate funding, several experts said on Thursday.

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An ambitious vision to take people to the moon and Mars may fall apart before it even gets off the ground because of uncertain planning and inadequate funding, several experts said on Thursday.

A congressional report said NASA's replacement for the space shuttle, the Constellation Program, is in jeopardy, and members of Congress as well as at least one former astronaut agreed at a hearing on the issue.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said the Constellation program, scheduled to begin by 2015, is troubled by engineering, funding and mechanical issues.

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For instance, the program was meant to use heat shielding from the 1960s Apollo program, but experts apparently could not replicate the material.

Both the planned Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle and the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle are in danger, according to the report from the investigative arm of Congress.

"If something goes wrong with the development of the Ares I or the Orion, the entire Constellation Program could be thrown off course and the return to human spaceflight delayed," the report reads.

It noted that existing test facilities are insufficient for testing Ares I's new engine, including troublesome vibrations. Both vehicles also have had "weight issues," the report said.

"All these unknowns, as well as others, leave NASA in the position of being unable to provide firm cost estimates for the projects at this point," it reads.

Earlier this week, U.S. space agency officials told Congress that between 5,800 and 7,300 jobs would go over the next three years as the space shuttles are retired, most at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The shuttles are scheduled to be grounded by 2010.

FALLING SHORT

"From its beginning, NASA's Exploration initiative has suffered from chronic under-funding, with a 'once-in-a-generation' project to develop a new space transportation system 'shoehorned' into a NASA budget that in some years hasn't even kept pace with inflation," said Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat who heads the House of Representatives subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics.

The 2009 budget request for the Constellation program is $3 billion, NASA's Richard Gilbrech told the subcommittee hearing.

"NASA recognizes that challenges lay ahead for the agency, and we are making progress in managing these challenges," he said in testimony submitted to the panel.

But former astronaut Kathryn Thornton, now a professor at the University of Virginia, said costs linked to retiring the shuttle had not been accounted for in NASA budgets.

"Each year since 2004 when the Vision was announced, the NASA budget has fallen short of that required to achieve the mandated exploration goals and milestones," she said in submitted testimony.

"In short, there is a mismatch between aspirations and appropriations that no amount of spin can disguise," she added.

More than just U.S. pride in leading space exploration is at stake.

"Today, the global space economy exceeds more than $220 billion annually, and that figure is growing rapidly each year. NASA is a small, but integral component of this critical global economic engine," the GAO report reads.

Aerospace companies such as Alliant Techsystems, Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne, Boeing Corp and Lockheed Martin have won billions of dollars in contracts from NASA.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Will Dunham and Sandra Maler)