NASA needs to make a number of crucial improvements in its Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP) if it wants to land humans on the moon and Mars, according to a new National Research Council report.
In an interim report released on Friday, a NRC review committee said that NASA is underfunding research in key areas and has left “mission critical tests” out of its schedule due to budgetary and time constraints.
“Although near term budgetary pressures are clear, the need for adequate testing is a recurrent theme in program failure reports and should be addressed,” the reviewers wrote.
The committee found that NASA was focusing too much of its technology development on getting astronauts back to the moon. “The committee did not find evidence that the extensibility of technologies to the exploration of Mars is a routine consideration. A possible consequence is the development of technologies that will not be extensible to the full VSE,” the report states.
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In a potential blow to NASA’s human spaceflight efforts, the National Research Council released a report today calling on the space agency to conduct more research on cosmic radiation before sending astronauts to the moon and Mars. NASA should not lower its radiation exposure standards to reach these goals.
The Committee on the Evaluation of Radiation Shielding for Space Exploration’s report (PDF) said the “lack of knowledge about the biological effects of and responses to space radiation is the single most important factor limiting prediction of radiation risk associated with human space exploration.”
As a result, prolonged operations on the moon could be curtailed. Mars exploration, which would require long transit times and stays on the the surface, could be ruled out entirely until scientists and engineers develop better ways of protecting astronauts.
The committee’s chairman, James van Hoften, told Reuters that NASA doesn’t fully understand the radiation risk, nor is the agency adequately funding research into how to properly protect astronauts. NASA is using old data, including research done on Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors.
Continue reading ‘NRC to NASA: Don’t Lower Radiation Standards for Lunar Missions’