A Sustainable Rationale for Human Spaceflight

摘要

The August 2003 report of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) noted that, "all members of the Board agree that America's future space efforts must include human presence in Earth orbit, and eventually beyond." As justification for this point of view, the CAIB offered only President George W. Bush's remarks on the day of the Columbia accident: "Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on." In parallel, the CAIB was critical of "the lack, over the past three decades, of any national mandate providing NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) a compelling mission requiring human presence in space." In the absence of such a mandate, "NASA has had to participate in the give and take of the normal political process in order to obtain the resources needed to carry out its programs." In this give and take, "NASA has usually failed to receive budget support consistent with its ambitions. The result... is an organization straining to do too much with too little."