The recent debate on human space exploration, as highlighted most effectively by the report from a White House-chartered review panel led by Norm Augustine, has illustrated the fundamental issue. Such lofty goals have two features that make them very difficult to accomplish: They take a long time, and they cost a lot of money. But there is a mechanism that would work. No matter how we decide to implement such a program, it must be planned not for a year or two, or even for a decade or two, but for perhaps for a century. And trying to set its total cost before the technical issues have even been identified, much less resolved, is simply fiscally irresponsible. This is clearly evidenced by the wild fluctuations in NASA’s projected budget for human spaceflight through 2020: The latest indications are that it will be $28 billion less than the $80 billion approved four years ago.

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