Shuttle Extension Would Cost $2B A Year

NASA would need an extra $2 billion a year to keep the shuttle fleet flying between 2010 and 2015, but doing so would impact plans to begin launching Ares 5 moon rockets by 2018, officials said today.

With presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama both signaling a desire to keep the shuttle fleet flying beyond 2010, NASA over the past two months has been studying what it would take to do just that. Both have said they would add $2 billion to NASA's budget to minimize the gap between the last shuttle flight and the inaugural flights of Ares 1 rockets and Orion spacecraft.

NASA shuttle program manager John Shannon told reporters today that the agency studied two different scenarios. One would simply extend the shuttle program through 2012 by flying out all external tanks and other hardware NASA already intends to build. The other would call for NASA to keep the shuttle fleet flying three shuttle missions per year -- presumably to the International Space Station.

Shannon said the bottom line is that NASA would need $2 billion a year -- "money that is not currently in the budget," he said.

He added that shifting $2 billion a year to the shuttle program from Project Constellation -- NASA's effort to return U.S. astronauts to the moon by 2020 -- would be "disastrous."

Shannon made his comments during preflight briefings for the planned Nov. 14 launch of shuttle Endeavour on an International Space Station outfitting and repair mission. The briefings are being weebcast live here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the NASA TV box on the righthand side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage of the briefings.

NASA engineers identified a number of challenges that would crop up if the agency was directed to keep the shuttle fleet flying between 2010 and 2015 -- the gap now projected between the last shuttle mission and the first flight of the Ares 1 rocket and the Orion spacecraft.

The Ares 5 rocket will be a Saturn 5-class launcher designed to carry Altair lunar landers and earth-departures stages that would link-up with Orion spacecraft in orbit for journeys to the moon and back.

NASA intends to start launching Ares 5 rockets in 2018, but to do so, the agency would need to start modifying Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39B by 2012. High Bay 1 of the Vehicle Assembly Buildiing also would have to be available for the build-up of Ares 5 rockets. Floor space at Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans also would be required.

NASA's space shuttle program would require those same facilities if the shuttle fleet continues to fly between 2010 and 2015. That's because Ares 1 rockets and Orion spacecraft will be assembled in High Bay 3 of the building and then launched from pad 39A.

Both the shuttle and Ares 5 programs would need engine test stands at Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Miss., Shannon said.

And Project Constellation is counting on an infusion of workers from the shuttle program in 2010, and there would be no opportunity to shift the work force if the shuttle continues flying, he said.