Report: Obama to Ramp Up Human Space Program

Science magazine is reporting tonight that President Obama has made his decision about the future of the U.S. human space flight program, with a plan to turn over space taxi services to the International Space Station to commercial companies and to direct NASA to spend its money and resources developing a heavy-lift booster for human missions to the moon, asteroids and the moons of Mars.

Citing unnamed sources, the magazine reports that Obama will ask for a $1 billion boost in NASA’s 2011 budget to jumpstart the new launcher and to expand the agency's Earth-monitoring science satellites.

The plan also includes a larger role for international partners, who will be asked to provide a lunar lander and modules for a proposed moon base, according to the Science report.

Obama presumably discussed his plan during a meeting with NASA administrator Charlie Bolden on Wednesday. The decision follows a report by an Obama-appointed advisory panel that laid out options for the U.S. manned space program. The panel determined that the agency’s current plan, built around returning astronauts to the moon by 2020, is severely under-funded and years behind schedule.

The report has sparked heated debate among Congress, the White House, NASA and aerospace contractors.

"Obama chose from several options presented to him by NASA, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy," Science writes. "Those options included keeping the budget flat and delaying a new launcher, building a heavy-lift launcher with an additional $1 billion for the agency, ramping up NASA’s annual budget by $3 billion for an aggressive program, or abandoning space flight altogether and reducing NASA’s budget. The president's decision to go with the second option is a major departure from his 2010 budget plan, which called for a 5% increase in 2010—the boost just approved by Congress—but then remaining flat through 2014."