German Lang. Media: Followed by a Moonshadow
The bigger but not big enough (for new flights to the moon) budget of the Nasa was news today in the German language media, too. All the headlines were variations of one theme “No return to the moon” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) – because $6 billion for five years is not enough for another moon mission as it was proposed by Obama’s antecessor. The new focus is now to ensure the workflow of the International Space Station beyond 2015 – with the help of private companies. Obama’s aim is to enable them to develop an independent transport system with the ability to reach the ISS and other targets in the orbit (as it was successfully done in the past with the company Space X and their Falcon transport system, which Nasa assigned for 12 flights to the ISS, recently). “The Nasa says good bye to its maxim, to develop transport systems in cooperation with industry but to always keep the management” comments NZZ author Christian Speicher. It is also the end for the Ares-1 rocket and the Orion space capsule. Speicher writes, that this does not come by surprise, because the Augustine commission’s evaluation of the Nasa programs already explained, that Nasa’s projects and resources differ greatly and are not “sustainable”, quotes Speicher. The article explains, that the commission’s advice was to either freeze the Nasa’s budget (and to abandon any plans to leave earth’s orbit) or to add $3 billion per year. Obama chose to raise the budget, though in accordance with the deficit. But the new strategy will have to stand to strong opposition in the congress. But a way back to Bush’s space policy isn’t possible (writes Die Welt), because there are just not $50 billion available until 2020.
Zeit-online‘s article used the “Moon mission cancelled” headline for going into detail about Obamas plans to cut the deficit – but not much information about Nasa or the space program.
The Rheinische Post (online) focused on the involvement of private companies in Nasa’s future programs: “With the space cab to the moon?” The article quotes not only Mike Gold from Bigelow airspace, who obviously likes the idea of more privatization, but also cites a critic, the “New York professor Paul Light”, who warns, that once gone knowledge might be expensive to get back.
Spiegel.online headlines “Russians praise new Nasa budget“, because of the decision to focus on the ISS, quoting Alexej Krasnow, the head of the Russian space program Roskosmos. Now, the ISS project could be extended until 2028, he said.
Die Welt (Anatol Johansen) quotes the harsh critics of the former Nasa directors Michael Griffin (“in the near future, the US won’t be a major player in crewed spaceflight”) and Scott Horowitz (“inacceptable to risk the whole crewed spaceflight program for embryonic transport systems”).
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Horst Rademacher) not only starts with a nice headline (slightly changing the famous German poem and song of Matthias Claudius “Der Mond ist aufgegangen” to “Der Mond ist ausgegangen”) but also gives a huge overview of the history of the US space program and how it got into trouble.
Also: Süddeutsche Zeitung, Wiener Zeitung, Tagesspiegel, Die Presse, and much more…
- Sascha Karberg
