The likely termination of the Constellation moon project points to the constraints on the once ambitious space program that accomplished so much in half a century.

July 17, 2010|By Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Sandusky, Ohio — In a cavernous structure at NASA's Plum Brook Station near Lake Erie, a concrete chamber five stories high rises from the ground. Its walls are 2 feet thick to withstand the blast of powerful gas-operated horns strong enough to destroy human organs.

The $150-million facility was built to contain the next-generation manned spacecraft for the Constellation program, NASA's project to send humans back to the moon. It is the largest acoustic test chamber in the world, created to buffet the spacecraft with intense sound waves, simulating the stresses of launch.

 The only problem is that the Constellation program almost certainly will be dead within months.

President Obama in January proposed cancelling the troubled moon program, and a key Senate committee voted this week to kill Constellation.

Despite the apparent kiss of death, construction continues at Plum Brook Station and other NASA centers and at private aerospace companies across the nation, where more than 14,000 people are still working on Constellation. Under pressure from Congress, NASA has been spending an average of about $9 million a day on the project.

After accomplishing so much in space for half a century, the nation now appears to lack not only the resources to mount a major human space program, but also the political will to eliminate the thousands of jobs connected with it.

"It is a sad spectacle," said Loren Thompson, a longtime aerospace policy expert in Washington, referring to the dual-edged political sword that has constrained the once ambitious U.S. space program. "It is devolving into everybody trying to protect their home turf."

Veteran space industry observers say the manned space program is in deeper trouble and greater turmoil than at any time since the U.S. landed men on the moon more than 40 years ago.

"The choice is: Do we have a space program or a jobs program, because we can't have both," said Jeff Greason, president of XCOR Aerospace Inc. in Mojave and a member of a presidential panel that delivered a scathing assessment of the space program last year.

Politicians cannot agree on long-term goals for the human spaceflight program, and the vast network of NASA facilities and private contractors is unable to make plans that keep pace with political action in the capital.

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