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NASA urging the ESA to build its own manned spacecraft |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Saturday, 07 June 2008
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 When it comes to getting into space, there’s no such thing as too many options. At least, that’s what NASA is trying to convince the European Space Agency to start thinking. With the US space shuttle fleet due to retire in just over two years, the world will suddenly be limited to using Russian spacecraft to get humans into space. China has developed the technology, but due to their go-it-alone approach, they aren’t apt to start playing nice and sharing seats into orbit.
The urging is following on the ESA’s successful launch of the Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle, an unmanned cargo ship that delivered 20 tons of supplies to the International Space Station in April, entirely on autopilot. There are plans in the works that explore the possibility of developing the ATV system into a full-fledged crew transport system, but it would require extensive modification to the craft.
As it stands right now, the ATV is a pressurized module that can me launched into space and automatically pilot itself to the International Space Station. That’s pretty much it; it has no life support systems, no seating, and most important for astronauts, no way to get back to Earth without turning into a 3000 degree fireball.
Speaking in front of European space researchers and executives in France, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said, “It would be a small step” to develop the ATV into “an independent European human spaceflight capability.
“We welcome the development of independent European capabilities in space to provide redundant systems in the event of failure of any on partner’s capabilities,” he said, in reference to the fact that the ESA, NASA, and Roskosmos are the only space agencies with the capability to launch and dock craft to the ISS.
Once the space shuttle fleet is retired in 2010, it won’t be until 2015 at the earliest that the replacement Orion CEV system will be operational. In the meantime, NASA, the ESA, and JAXA will all be reliant upon Russia to launch humans into orbit, a service that they charge millions of dollars for. Coupled with Russia’s smaller Progress cargo ship, NASA is looking at paying hundreds of millions of dollars to the Russians in order to maintain access to the $158 billion orbital station into which it has sunk $100 billion in parts, labor, and transportation (with the exception of a few Russian components, the space shuttle has been the only construction delivery method for the ISS).
Costs for developing the ATV system into a manned capsule are estimated to be around $3-4.5 billion. Even so, the time period required to design, build, and test such systems would likely put a manned spaceflight-capable ESA at the very end of the US flight gap, or even after Orion flights begin.
Griffin has for a long time been pushing the ESA to work more with NASA, even encouraging Europe to get in on the US plans for Mars exploration, an endeavour in which French President Nicolas Sarkozy want to be involved. NASA is working towards getting back to the moon by 2020, under direction from President George W. Bush, with the agency then setting its sights on Mars. Griffin admits that “NASA has neither the resources nor the desire to do [it] alone. I am personally committed to the idea that this enterprise should be international in scope.”
Even with European interest in such missions, there remains one sticking point: the price tag. Right now, the combined space budgets for the countries involved in the European Space Agency amounts to about US$9.24 billion a year. NASA’s annual budget is US$17 billion.
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