Many readers are aware of the cancellation of NASA’s Constellation project that was developing a new rocket system that was to take astronauts back to the Moon, near Earth asteroids and ultimately Mars. The Augustine Commission had concluded that the project was underfunded and would reach the moon perhaps a decade behind schedule.

Consider that President John Kennedy announced our Moon mission in 1961 and that within seven years, U.S. Astronauts had orbited the moon and landed on the moon seven months later. Why has there been such a slow down in our rocket development?

My feeling is that development of new U.S. rocket systems parallels the paralysis of our commercial nuclear power plant industry. Many in our country are very emphatic against change or any innovation, seeing it as a threat or menace. (This outlook has prevented the United States from building new types of nuclear reactors.)

Back in the 80’s and 90’s, and even this decade there were occasions where an alternative to the Shuttle was proposed. But each time, the Congress picked the “safe” choice of continuing with the unstable Shuttle. Then in the waning years of the Shuttle, Constellation was announced as a new grand project to energize NASA.

Why did Congress and previous presidents continue to support the Shuttle, even with its obvious problems? It all boils down to jobs. The Shuttle relied on a great number of NASA personnel, far more than the Russian manned rockets.

Our Shuttle flights cost about $500 million each while the Russian manned flights cost about 1/10th as much. So the funds for Constellation will be used to support new rocket technology so private companies can develop the rockets to send U.S. astronauts back into space. I hope this approach will work.

Do we need a manned presence in space? As long as we have the International Space Station, we need a way to get Americans up there (after all, we paid for most of it). Beyond that, I would like to see more semi-autonomous robots in orbit to maintain our satellites and telescopes. (By semi-autonomous I mean systems that can make most decisions on their own, not needing continuous monitoring by humans.)

Developing these kinds of devices would be a boon to many enterprises from drilling the deep sea floor for resources to maintaining nuclear waste repositories.

It has disappointed me that we have not used balloons to hoist large telescopes that could have been used on the edge of the atmosphere for weeks at a time. We also need additional space telescopes both far ahead and far behind the Earth (along Earth’s orbit) to give us a better way to spot block size asteroids that may hit us.

Semi-autonomous robots could go out to these asteroids and deflect them. (Not by using nuclear bombs but setting off detonators that would alter their paths.) Robots would not have to return, allowing more payload to achieve deflection.

Late yesterday, we had a new moon, triggering Chinese New Year today. It is the beginning of year 4708, the Year of the Tiger. The moon should be seen as a slender crescent low in the 6:30 p.m. western dusk tomorrow if weather permits. Each night, we will see more of the moon’s lighted shape as it moves eastward from Aquarius through Pisces and into Aries.

Our February program at the Frostburg State Planetarium is “Quick Intro to the Universe” with free showings on Sundays at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. The Planetarium is in Tawes 302 near the Compton Science Center and Performing Arts Center. There will also be tours of the Science Discovery Center at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. All these presentations are free to the public. There are many places to park nearby.( No parking permits are needed on Sunday as there are no classes then.)

To request a free Planetarium bookmark, please leave your name and mailing address at (301) 687-7799.

Bob Doyle invites any readers comments and questions. E-mail him at rdoyle@frostburg.edu . He is available as a speaker on his column topics.