White House Panel Backs Commercial Alternatives to NASA's New Rocket

By Tariq Malik
Managing Editor
posted: 22 October 2009
03:49 pm ET
This story was updated at 5:03 p.m.

The independent blue-ribbon panel that reviewed NASA's plans to replace its space shuttles said Thursday that the agency should consider using commercial vehicles to help achieve its goal, and perhaps nix the new Ares I rocket slated to fly future astronauts.

In a 155-page report entitled "Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation," the 10-member committee expanded on the five potential options it drew up over the summer for NASA's human spaceflight future, including more detail and data to be reviewed by President Barack Obama.

Committee chairman Norman Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, said NASA's plan to replace the space shuttle fleet with capsule-based Orion spacecraft and Ares I rockets — a prototype of which is poised to launch Oct. 27 — suffers from a lack of funding so severe the agency may now have the wrong vehicle for its mission.

READ MORE:   Space.com