NASA Needs $3 Billion More a Year, Panel Tells Obama

NASA needs an extra $3 billion a year to send astronauts back to the moon or to deep-space flybys of Mars or asteroids and avoid an “unsustainable trajectory” of surroundings goals without adequate funding, a panel told President Barack Obama.

The space agenda “is perpetuating the perilous perform of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources,” the U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee said in a summary of its report. The panel is lead by Norman Augustine, former chief executive of aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.

With the space shuttle program winding down, the U.S. is seeking a new mission for astronauts that might include a return to the moon, a goal set for 2020 by former President George W. Bush. Astronauts haven’t traveled beyond about 300 miles from Earth since the last Apollo mission to the lunar surface almost four decades ago.