In 2003 NASA released it's plan for human space exploration, the plans were really that it had no plans.

Space Shuttle Launch

One of the first things that NASA is giving priority to is new forms of propulsion. After all if you want to be able to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time you have to be able to travel much faster that we are currently capable of. At our current speed capabilities, traveling to the nearest star would make the Columbus look like a speed demon when traveled to the new world.

The following are clips from NASA regarding their policy towards human space flight and human suitability for space flight.

We have discussed these points before. Right now there is a big problem with traveling for any length of time in space. The problem is radiation. If a radiation proof rocket were used to travel to Mars it couldn't carry enough fuel, our current technology would render it too heavy. It was suggested that a room be build inside the ship that would be radiation proof and at the sign of a solar flare the crew could go into it. This is not a viable solution, because if you don't get into there fast enough you will receive too much radiation or if you have to remain in the room too long, it is just not equipped for this. Another recent option being investigated by NASA is putting astronauts in a deep sleep while they travel. This would make it much more simple to radiation proof the containers they are in. The true answer to this problem lies in new ways of blocking radiation. Of course, for planetary travel, speed could accomplish the same thing. If you could reach Mars in a day or less you wouldn't have too much of a worry about exposure. If you read the NASA paragraph posted about you can't help but get the idea that NASA has no intention of sending anyone anywhere until these problems are solved. But the worst part is that it doesn't look like NASA is really doing anything to solve them.

Oh, its true that everywhere on the net you see stories about how we are going to have humans explore this planet and that and even go to other star systems. The truth of the matter is that with today's technology astronauts will be luck to be able to get back to the moon. I am beginning to believe that the hope of space exploration lies with private companies such as Scaled Composites, Inc headed by Burt Rutan. His company was the winner of the $10,000,000 prize for building a civilian space ship that could go into space and return two times in two weeks. What makes this so amazing is the fact that the project cost only $25,000,000, as opposed to $6.74 Billion in 1971 dollars which was spent toby the government for the same purpose. Of course the shuttle is quite a different animal from the Rutan vehicle named "Space Ship One". Rutan's vehicle cost only $5,000,000 more than an F-16. If a private company could accomplish this who know what advances could be made in shielding, for example. Maybe shielding could be accomplished by some form of electrical barrier. Or maybe physicists can figure some way to rearrange atoms in materials to make them dense without adding weight or a technology might be developed using nanites to create shields by moving from one side of a ship to the area being radiated, allowing the ship to only require half or one third the weight of shielding that would be normally required. I firmly believe that dedicated private companies, and not the huge ones that are run like governments themselves, can solve most, if not all, of our current problems with manned space flight if given the chance.

Space Probe Phoebos

The problem with NASA is that it is a bureaucracy. Every thing it does costs way more that if it was done by any where else. Any where nongovernmental that is. I think that this stems from the fact that its main mission was to beat the Russians to the Moon at any cost. And it did cost, it cost allot. When things are done at NASA they are done on a grand scale. When they decided to send probes on the cheap, cheap was $300,000,000. Space agencies in other countries are beginning to send up satellites and some are doing it at a fraction of what it costs us. Look at the Indian space program They recently announced that they will send a mission to the moon by 2008, total cost, $80,000,000 as compared to Apollo which cost 25 Billion Dollars thirty years ago.

Has NASA become too political? I don't know too much about this, but I do know that politicians are always looking for places to put political allies and give them big salaries. Maybe this is what happened to NASA, it would be interesting to find out. Along with this practice comes incompetence because the people are usually put into positions of leadership and they usually know nothing about the task and are ill educated toward it. All this causes costs to rise as contracts are awarded to their friends and corrections have to be made to their errors which in turn cause jobs to have to be redone. One of the reasons I think that this might be the case is the fact that the Challenger was ordered to take off, even though NASA was warned that it was too cold for the O Rings and they could fail. Another thing that sort of points to this, is the fact that in all these years an escape system has never been installed in the shuttle. It was pointed out in the last shuttle explosion that the occupants might have survived until the crash. An ejection system might have saved their lives.

President Bush allocated 15.1 Billion dollars for using the Moon as a base to launch missions to Mars. Already the 2005 allocation of $910,000,000 has been cut by $38,000,000 for that year. This may not seem like much of a cut but it is a warning that the rest of the money is not beyond being cut or eliminated.

It seems that until the last shuttle explosion NASA had only one true mission and that was running shuttles to the space station and keeping the space station functioning. This was purely a political agenda that used up almost the entire yearly budget. Maybe its time for a new smaller more dedicated agency.