The presidential panel that will present President Obama with options for NASA's human space flight program will transmit a summary report to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on Tuesday.Led by former Lockheed Martin Chairman and CEO Norman Augustine and known as the Augustine Committee, the panel also will deliver the summary report to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden.
The panel posted the following update on their web site today:
09.03.2009 - A Summary Report is in final preparations for transmittal to the Office of Science and Technology Policy and NASA on Tuesday, September 8, 2009.
A Final Report is expected to be delivered to the OSTP and NASA in mid- to late-September.
Here's a Florida Today recap of several options the panel is expected to present to the White House and NASA: SPACE Options.
You can also read the accompanying story here.
And, as always, we'd love to know what you think. Click comment below to weigh in with your own opinion.
3 comments:
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"Having minority reports weakens the impact of the product significantly, so my hope is that we won't have minority reports," [Augustine] said in a response to a question from NAC member Eugene Covert, an aeronautics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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This is the part that doesn't make any sense to me.
The Feynman minority report on Challenger made it into his committee report. Arguably the most memorable part of the whole thing.
Why not minority reports in the Augustine report?
Interesting there would be no minority reports, I agree. I'm sure there are dissenting and diverse points of view even inside the committee. Clearly, we saw a lot of tension between the points of view presented by Ed Crawley, Sally Ride and Norman Augustine. I think, in essence, the presentation of widely-varying options offered the committee an alternative to put before the president feasible options that represented most of the panel members' points of view.
Goodbye Space Shuttle. You have not served us well. You have been the demise of true human space exploration, and I know all will cheer when this over budget, over schedule failure is retired. Time to look to the stars and really challenge America with a space program that seeks to further human knowledge. Sorry, but ferrying astronauts and cargo to low earth orbit only challenges our budget, not our minds!
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