Do NASA's Missions Cost Too Much?

摘要

In recent years and particularly in recent months, NASA has been excoriated on two counts: Space science projects have become very expensive and, on top of that, they are overrunning. The facts are incontrovertible; however, the excoriation shows a fundamental lack of understanding - besides being unfair. The large cost of current projects is simply the result of the historical fact that the simple and relatively easy exploration has been done. After the Moon, if we want to make significant progress our spacecraft must reach Mars, then Jupiter and beyond. Every time a few hundred million kilometers of distance is added, the difficulties and the costs increase.