专家建议太空探测商业化

Experts asked to review the US human spaceflight programme have given strong support to the use of commercial services to launch astronauts.

被要求回顾美国载人太空飞行规划的专家强烈建议使用商业服务来将宇航员送入太空。

Ares 1-X: Work on the "program of record" continues

The Augustine panel published its final report on Thursday and said America could find cheaper, faster successors to the shuttle in the private sector.

The US space agency is developing two new rockets and a crew capsule.

But the committee has told President Barack Obama that these systems no longer meet the US's immediate needs.

Speaking at a press conference in Washington DC, lead members of the panel said that if crew transport services to the International Space Station were passed to the private sector, it would free Nasa to work on more difficult and more exciting objectives.

"We think this is a time to create a market for commercial firms to transport both cargo and humans between the Earth and low-Earth orbit," said Norm Augustine, the panel chairman and a former CEO of Lockheed Martin.

"While that is certainly not simple, it is much easier than going to Mars. We think Nasa would be better served to spend its money and its ability - which is immense - focusing on going beyond low-Earth orbit rather than running a trucking service to low-Earth orbit (LEO)."

Favoured solutions

The panel published its summary findings in September. The full report adds considerable detail.

It will be used by President Obama, his chief scientist Dr John Holdren, and the new Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden, as they seek to put the agency on a sustainable future course.

Nasa-watchers have long complained that the organisation is being asked to do too much on insufficient funds; and the Augustine panel has determined that only an additional $3bn annually will see America carry out meaningful space exploration beyond low-Earth orbit.

Nasa is currently working to produce two new rockets - known as Ares 1 and 5 - and a new crewship called Orion. These are intended to replace the shuttle but have the capability also to take astronauts back to the Moon.

However, the Augustine panel said this "program of record", although well managed and technically competent, no longer fitted to the timescales over which it was needed and to the budgets it had been given.

The committee cited what it saw as the paradox（似非而是的隽语,自相矛盾的话） of Ares 1 and Orion entering into service in 2017, which, on current plans, was a year after the termination of the space station. And because no lunar-landing capability would be ready by then, the Orion spaceship would have nowhere to go.

But if the space station's life was extended (which the panel supported), the diverted funds would only further delay Ares 1 and Orion.

The panel said it had provided Mr Obama with "options or alternatives" not "recommendations", but it was clear from the Washington press conference that the committee had favoured paths for the president to pursue.

These included asking Nasa to oversee the development of a less sophisticated capsule than Orion that could possibly be launched on an existing, but upgraded, rocket. This course could see crew transport services enter into service in 2015 that cost the taxpayer some $5bn to develop.

This sum would be about the same as, or slightly less than, developing Ares 1 but the ongoing costs to Nasa for missions to LEO would be much more favourable.