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John Glenn advocates delaying space shuttle retirement |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Thursday, 08 May 2008
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 Both a former US Senator and a legendary astronaut, when John Glenn speaks about NASA, people have a tendency to listen. Glenn not only was the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth, but also is the oldest astronaut, having rode the space shuttle into orbit in 1998 - at age of 77. Glenn was present at the unveiling of the restored HD NASA footage earlier this week, where he called on a NASA funding boost to extend shuttle flights and continue work on the International Space Station.
The space shuttles are planned for a retirement in 2010, following the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003. The replacement crew launch system, Orion, is not projected to come online until 2014 at the very earliest, leaving NASA reliant on Russia for access to the ISS.
Additionally, NASA is only committed to funding the ISS until the end of the program in 2017, with funding drawdown projected to begin in 2015. By that time, NASA will have invest more than US$100 billion in the station, nearly 64% of the total cost. At $157 billion, the ISS is the most expensive object ever built, topping the $25 billion for China’s Three Gorges Dam and $14.7 for Boston’s Big Dig interstate tunnel project, and $11.5 billion (inflation adjusted) for the Channel Tunnel between England and France.
Glenn, along with Senator Bill Nelson (FL – D), criticized the decreased funding that NASA has received in recent years for science and technology projects. While NASA hasn’t explicitly had funding taken from its science programs, federal directives to develop the Constellation system coupled with unadjusted funding have forced NASA to shift funding from their various science initiatives to Constellation. Nelson and other Congressmen have attempted to squeeze extra funding into successive multi-trillion dollar US federal budgets, but have been shot down every time.
“The shuttles may be old, but they’re still the most complex vehicle ever put together by people, and they're still working very well,” Glenn said.
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