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7.2 News 612-3 MH Colin NEWS NATURE|Vol 451|7 February 2008 the Bush request. “The NIH’s absolute zero increase is going to strike very deeply into the heart of American research,” he says. The Moon: destination Over at NASA, things are looking up for those who look down. The agency is budgeting to reinstate three climate sen- or distraction? sors that had previously been removed to the pilot mission for the next genera- tion of weather and climate monitors, the A high-level meeting next week will offer sci- chief executives, a handful of former NASA National Polar-orbiting Operational Envi- entists a chance to re-examine NASA’s com- associate administrators and, most impor- ronmental Satellite System. And following mitment to human exploration of the Moon. tantly perhaps, the advisers to two of the a recommendation from the US National The 12 February workshop is organized by presidential candidates. Academies, the agency is planning to start the Planetary Society, a space-exploration Given the budgetary constraints, some of five new Earth-observation missions in the advocacy group based in Pasadena, Califor- the participants want alternatives to Moon next six years, including a satellite to meas- nia. It is timed to come four years after Presi- missions. One target would be the near-Earth ure soil moisture set for a 2012 launch, and dent George W. Bush called for a return to asteroids, some of which are within the range a laser altimeter to measure ice thickness the Moon in his Vision for Space Exploration of the Ares 1 rocket that is under development in 2015. Three other new missions, as pri- (VSE), and a week after the last of the budget for the VSE. Because of the asteroids’ low oritized by the academies’ report, will be requests with which he might have furthered gravity, they could be landed on with a slightly announced soon, at a cost of $910 million that vision (see page 610). As such, it might modified version of the Crew Exploration over five years. thus mark the opening of the post-Bush era in Vehicle, being developed as a replacement for NASA’s budget request also includes space exploration. “We have a window to the Space Shuttle. Other pro- $344 million in the next five years for three Conceived in the wake of posals would take a crew not small lunar missions to be launched by 2014 the Space Shuttle Colum- discuss whether the lunar to natural targets but to arti- — a dust monitor and two geophysical sta- bia disaster, the VSE’s goals programme has been ficial ones, such as the James tions for the Moon’s poles that will form were to finish the Interna- constructed correctly.” Webb Space Telescope, an part of an international network. Asked tional Space Station (ISS), infrared replacement for the whether the new lunar science represented replace the shuttle, return crews to the Moon, Hubble telescope that will orbit considerably a renewed commitment to Bush’s vision of and eventually explore Mars. But the expense farther from Earth. These missions would offer future Moon exploration, NASA associate of shuttle operations and ISS construction has a chance to practise the long trips required for administrator for science Alan Stern said: led to cuts in the VSE’s budget, as well as in that interplanetary travel without incurring the “You could say, empirically, it does.” for space science. “The Vision for Space Explo- costs of lunar landings. Finally, NASA announced that work ration doesn’t have enough public support to Some see a subtext here — a desire to avoid would begin on the next major astrophysics generate the budget it needs,” says Planetary building expensive lunar infrastructure and flagship launch: the Joint Dark Energy Mis- Society director Louis Friedman. “We have an instead focus on something more exciting. sion. The project, also funded by the DOE, adequate window to discuss whether the lunar “The real reason Mars advocates like asteroids was ranked first by a recent National Acad- programme has been constructed correctly.” is because we aren’t going to build a base on emies report and may fly by 2015. ■ On the list to attend the two-day, invita- an asteroid,” says James Muncy, a space-policy Eric Hand, Meredith Wadman, tion-only meeting at Stanford University in consultant and former adviser to the Reagan Rachel Courtland, Mitch Waldrop California are 50 prestigious figures includ- and current Bush administrations. The Plane- and Jeff Tollefson ing astronauts, former aerospace-industry tary Society has long pushed for Mars missions, Carbon burial buried The US Department of Energy has doubled to $1.8 billion in recent “It’s hard for me to see this not pulled out of a flagship project to years, and last week the department delaying overall progress.” DOE build the first ‘clean’ coal-fired pulled out of the deal after failing to In the project’s place, the power plant in the United States, a reach a new funding agreement with administration says it will help move that will kill the project unless its private partner, the FutureGen companies add carbon-capture and supporters can rouse Congress on Industrial Alliance, which consists -sequestration equipment to new its behalf. of more than a dozen energy or existing coal plants that have at The FutureGen project companies. The energy department Soaring costs mean the FutureGen least 300 megawatts of capacity. was intended to demonstrate had been slated to pick up three- power plant may never be built. Officials say this will ultimately save technologies for capturing and quarters of the bill for the 275- taxpayers money while allowing the burying carbon dioxide from megawatt plant. says Howard Herzog, a carbon- technology to spread more quickly. coal-fuelled power plants; it was “I’m disappointed because sequestration expert at the The abrupt decision has infuriated scheduled to begin operating in I thought there was a lot more Massachusetts Institute of members of the FutureGen alliance 2012. But its costs have nearly good than bad in the project,” Technology in Cambridge. and the project’s political supporters 612 NATURE|Vol 451|7 February 2008 NEWS McCain (who has been endorsed by Sean O’Keefe, the former NASA administrator who launched the VSE) and former Massachusetts Governor LOCKHEED MARTIN LOCKHEED Mitt Romney, was not intentional. Rather the Democratic advisers were included incidentally, as the Planetary Society is one of Garver’s clients and Levin is a member of its board. The Stanford workshop group is just one of many fighting for the attention of such people. “Theirs will be one more report added to dozens of other inputs that these transition The Crew Exploration teams are going to get,” says Alan Vehicle might not go to the Moon. Ladwig, a former NASA associate administrator who supports the cur- rent programme. “Unless one has the and one of the meeting’s conveners is Stanford private number of a presidential candidate, I professor G. Scott Hubbard, a former head of can’t imagine that it will have all that much of the NASA Mars programme. Hubbard says an impact.” that, although he personally wants to speed But the Stanford group has a precedent. up Mars exploration, there is no preconceived After Bush issued the skeletal version of the result for the workshop. But Mike Griffin, VSE in January 2004, many groups followed the NASA administrator, says in an e-mail to up with reports on how best to implement it. Nature that some of the workshop organizers In the summer of 2004, Griffin, then at Johns had a long-standing rejection of the Moon as Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Labora- a place to explore. “Balanced choices must be tory in Laurel, Maryland, and Owen Garriott, made,” Griffin says. “But they cannot be con- a former astronaut, produced their own report tinually remade if there is to be progress.” on the VSE, commissioned by the Planetary A new administration, though, does offer a Society. They shopped the report around chance to make new policy — and to appoint the White House and Congress, where it was new administrators. “This is absolutely the received favourably. By April of 2005, Griffin season for these things,” says Muncy. Lon was NASA administrator and his report was, Levin and Lori Garver, who are space-policy for the most part, subsequently implemented. consultants and advisers to Democrat presi- “I’m sure that some of [the workshop attend- dential-hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary ees] would hope to get on one of the transition Clinton, are the sort of attendees who might teams or get some kind of political appointment feed the results of the workshop into new pol- or return to NASA as a result of their activity,” icy. Hubbard says that the exclusion of advisers says Ladwig. ■ to major Republican candidates, Senator John Eric Hand on Capitol Hill. As recently as Although the energy components such as steel and December, when the alliance department and the alliance concrete, as well as labour, announced that the plant would had agreed to split any further pushed the price tag from $950 be located in Mattoon, Illinois, cost overruns evenly, Sell million to $1.5 billion, says the energy department called says the department objected Michael Mudd, the alliance’s the project a “cornerstone” of when the alliance insisted chief executive. He points out the administration’s vision for that the additional $300 million clean coal. But deputy energy “There was a lot that boosts total costs to $1.8 secretary Clay Sell says he more good than bad billion represents operating realized FutureGen was in costs that will be recovered trouble when the cost estimate in the project.” through electricity sales.
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