On April 15, President Barack Obama will visit Florida to host a White House Conference on the Administration’s new vision for America’s future in space, the White House today announced. The President, along with top officials and other space leaders, will discuss the new course the Administration is charting for NASA and the future of U.S. leadership in human space flight. Specifically, the conference will focus on the goals and strategies in this new vision, the next steps, and the new technologies, new jobs, and new industries it will create. Conference topics will include the implications of the new strategy for Florida, the nation, and our ultimate activities in space.

NASA is planning to investigate making inflatable space-station modules to make roomier, lighter, cheaper-to-launch spacecraft, it reveals in its budget proposal released on 22 February. The agency is considering connecting a Bigelow expandable craft to the ISS to verify their safety by testing life support, radiation shielding, thermal control and communications capabilities.

NASA needs to go somewhere specific, not just talk about it, skeptical U.S. senators told the space agency chief Wednesday. President Barack Obama's proposed budget kills the previous administration's return-to-the-moon mission, sometimes nicknamed "Apollo on steroids." That leaves the space agency adrift without a goal or destination, senators and outside experts said at a Senate Commerce science and space subcommittee hearing, the first since Obama unveiled his new space plan this month. On top of that the nation's space shuttle fleet is only months away from long-planned retirement, an issue for senators from Florida, where NASA is a major employer. And while the new NASA plan includes extra money - $6 billion over five years - for private spaceships and developing new rocket technology, NASA shouldn't be just about spending, the senators said. It should be about John F. Kennedy-like vision.

Although it might seem like a headline from The Onion, the story's actually true. NASA's being forced to cut four million dollars from the Mars rover project. In order to meet that requirement, they'll have to put one rover, Spirit, to sleep — a "hibernation" period. The team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) will also have to put the other rover, Opportunity, on a diminished work cycle. But in actuality, they won't be cutting what Opportunity's doing — they'll just be spreading it out over a longer period of time.

NASA's emerging exploration plan will call for safely sending humans to Mars, possibly by the 2030s, and de-emphasize exploration of the moon, the agency's leader said Tuesday. “That is my personal vision,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “I am confident that, when I say humans on Mars is a goal for the nation, not just NASA, I'm saying that because I believe the president will back me up.” Bolden cited appearances set before congressional committees on Feb. 24 and 25 as a deadline for creating the “beginnings of a plan” for human exploration. At those hearings, Bolden said, he will be able only to give a range of dates for a Mars trip because scientific questions, such as mitigating radiation exposure and bone loss, remain unanswered. But he confidently said the 2030s, even the early 2030s, were viable if given a reasonable and sustained budget.

President Obama has decided to abandon plans to return to the moon and focus on a much more ambitious effort -- a manned trip to Mars -- instead. A return to the moon would have been possible within this decade, but going to Mars will require cooperation among space-faring nations and is likely 30 years, give or take, into the future. The president's new budget request provides US$3 billion over five years for "robotic exploration precursor missions that will pave the way for later human exploration of the moon, Mars and nearby asteroids," Bolden explained. "These missions will inform us of the most interesting places to explore with humans, and validate our approaches to get them there safely and sustainably." Also included in the proposed $3.8 trillion budget are funds for developing new engines, propellants, materials and combustion processes, as well as cross-cutting technologies such as communications, sensors and robotics, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said.

Defending a budget that effectively cancels a program that would have returned humans to the moon by 2020, NASA's top official said the space agency is looking beyond the lunar surface—to Mars. In a statement, NASA administrator Charlie Bolden noted that the $3.8 trillion federal budget proposal handed down earlier this week by President Obama provides $3 billion over five years in funds "for robotic exploration precursor missions that will pave the way for human exploration of the moon, Mars, and nearby asteroids." Bolden said robotic exploration is an essential precondition for manned missions to Earth's closest celestial neighbors. "These missions will inform us of the most interesting places to explore with humans, and validate our approaches to get them there safely and sustainably," said Bolton.

"Apollo on steroids"? Forget about it. Back to the moon? Not anytime soon. NASA's new vision for space exploration is less specific on a destination, but more focused on making room for new technologies and new players in spaceflight. Some critics in Congress say they'll fight to keep some elements of the moon plan in place - but one of the most influential critics says it would be "very difficult" to change NASA's new course. In its budget request, released today, the White House is seeking $19 billion for the space agency during fiscal 2011, which is a slight increase from the current fiscal year's $18.7 billion. But over the next five years, NASA says it will have $6 billion more than previously planned, with most of that going to support technology development and commercialization. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told reporters that the increase represented "an extraordinary show of support in these tough budgetary times."

NASA will probably not build an outpost on the moon as originally planned, the agency's acting administrator, Chris Scolese, told lawmakers on Wednesday. His comments also hinted that the agency is open to putting more emphasis on human missions to destinations like Mars or a near-Earth asteroid. NASA has been working towards returning astronauts to the moon by 2020 and building a permanent base there. But some space analysts and advocacy groups like the Planetary Society have urged the agency to cancel plans for a permanent moon base, carry out shorter moon missions instead, and focus on getting astronauts to Mars.

On the seven year anniversary of the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, the Obama administration will unveil NASA’s budget. According to inside sources the president has decided not to include a $ 1 billion boost to the space agency. As NASA struggles to accomplish the tenets of the Vision for Space Exploration this further lack of funding will at best only further delay plans to return astronauts to the moon before pushing on to Mars. The Augustine Commission in its report to the president stated that NASA could not develop the Ares I rocket, which would be used to carry the crew into orbit. To adequately do so would require the funding that NASA had been promised – but later denied. Alongside the Ares I there would also be developed the heavy-lift capable Ares V – which would be used to hoist key flight hardware, lunar landers and the necessary upper-stage. With this shortfall in funding the fate of both vehicles is placed into doubt.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will unveil the U.S. space agency's spending priorities for 2011 during a Feb. 1 announcement at NASA headquarters here, according to administration officials. President Barack Obama's 2011 budget request is expected to realign NASA's human spaceflight activities and investments to foster development of commercial systems capable of ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station. The request is not expected to include a much-sought after billion-dollar boost to aid NASA's funding-hampered human spaceflight efforts. NASA currently plans to retire its three aging space shuttles this year after five more missions. But plans to use the shuttle fleet's replacement – NASA's new Ares rockets and their Orion crew vehicles – for an eventual return to the moon are still in flux.

President Barack Obama will ask Congress next year to fund a new heavy-lift launcher to take humans to the moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars, ScienceInsider has learned. The president chose the new direction for the U.S. human space flight program Wednesday at a White House meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, according to officials familiar with the discussion. NASA would receive an additional $1 billion in 2011 both to get the new launcher on track and to bolster the agency’s fleet of robotic Earth-monitoring spacecraft. According to knowledgeable sources, the White House is convinced that scarce NASA funds would be better spent on a simpler heavy-lift vehicle that could be ready to fly as early as 2018. Meanwhile, European countries, Japan, and Canada would be asked to work on a lunar lander and modules for a moon base, saving the U.S. several billion dollars. And commercial companies would take over the job of getting supplies to the international space station.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised questions Wednesday about boosting NASA funding, in competition with other budget priorities, and pursuing a Mars trip. The California Democrat also said any boost in funding, as recommended by a recent commission, would have to be measured against other priorities to create jobs. “I, myself, if you are asking me personally, I have not been a big fan of manned expeditions to outer space, in terms of safety and cost,” Pelosi told reporters a roundtable on legislative accomplishments this year. “But people could make the case; technology is always changing.” President Barack Obama, who met Wednesday with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, is weighing how to support the agency. A recent report from the U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Commission recommended phasing in a $3 billion boost in funding in order to pursue spaceflight safely, but Obama hasn’t signaled what suggestions he will adopt.

The recently released report from the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee (AKA: The Augustine Commission), Seeking a Human Space Program Worthy of a Great Nation, states that "A human landing and extended human presence on Mars stand prominently above all other opportunities for exploration. Mars is unquestionably the most scientifically interesting destination in the inner solar system. It possesses resources which can be used for life support and propellants. If humans are ever to live for long periods with intention of extended settlement on another planetary surface, it is likely to be on Mars." The Mars Society is in perfect agreement with this statement and we hope that NASA will pursue a program that will realize this goal as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, the Augustine Commission report then goes on to state that we are not ready to go to Mars with current technology and we can go nowhere in the next decade, even with the expenditure of over a hundred billion dollars. While challenging, sending humans to Mars is possible with current technological expertise and we could have humans on Mars in the 2020s.

To get to the moon and then eventually go on to Mars will take much more money and technology than the U.S. space program has now, according to a report released today by an independent panel convened, at White House request, under former aerospace executive Norman Augustine. The Augustine Commission made several recommendations today for NASA: