Comment by otto | Hacker News Reader

Comment by otto | Hacker News Reader

The author seems to be a bit misinformed.

because there are only a few shuttle missions left. After that, nada. Nothing. Zilch.

True, there are only a few more shuttle missions(http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle). However this isn't the end of manned space exploration, check out the Orion spacecraft(http://www.nasa.gov/orion/). NASA recently tested MLAS(http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/missions/mlas.html).

Oh sure, NASA talks about designing a space plane- but they’ve been talking about designing a space plane since before Neil took his ride- and I ain’t seen one yet.

NASA has worked on this, many pilots of the X-15 qualified as astronauts, though I would not consider this a space plane either. Several Single Stage to Orbit ships have been built(none of them coming close to orbit)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-stage-to-orbit).

NASA isn’t going back to the moon, not any time soon.

Bah! Constellation program, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Constellation)

It bothers me that posts like this with such misinformation exists. Does NASA not have enough publicity to get this information out there?

> Bah! Constellation program, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Constellation)

Ares and Constellation are dead, except in name. The NASA budget has been reduced to a level that is incompatible with completion of the program. I've read NASA insiders acknowledging this on semi-public message boards.

See this, for example: http://www.spacepolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/grif...

> But work at the staff level continues out of view of the nation’s elected leadership, and in the recent passback to NASA from the Office of Management and Budget, the news is not so good. After a small increase this year, Exploration Systems at NASA goes down by $3.5 billion over the next four years. When combined with earlier reductions of almost $12 billion during the Bush Administration, well over $15 billion has been extracted from the Exploration Systems budget in the five short years since the new space policy was announced. Funding for lunar return in the Constellation program was already less than $4 billion in the years prior to 2015. This was to be allocated to early work on the Ares 5 heavy‐lifter, and the Altair lunar lander. With only a half‐billion dollars now available, this work cannot be done.

Constellation is unlikely to meet it's deadline - if it completes at all (not enough impetus or funds).

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