US spaceflight legend John Glenn has weighed in on the current human spaceflight debate, releasing an 8-page paper outlining his feelings and a potential plan to allow US astronauts to keep launching on US vehicles. While Glenn supports President Barack Obama's plan to extend operations of the International Space Station and to forego returning to the Moon for the time being, he thinks retiring the space shuttles at this point is a mistake.
"The world's only heavy lift spacecraft and the U.S.'s only access to space should stay in operation until suitably replaced by a new and well tested heavy lift vehicle," Glenn wrote. "The Shuttle system is working extremely well, has had systems upgrades through the years, and has had "the bugs" worked out of it through many years of use. The Shuttle is probably the most complex vehicle ever assembled and flies in the harshest of environments. Why terminate a perfectly good system that has been made more safe and reliable through many years of development?"
But Glenn said the US also needs to develop heavy lift capability, and do it sooner rather than later. And while he supports the plan for NASA to contract with commercial companies to ferry astronauts and some cargo to and from the ISS, he also said NASA can't rely solely on commercial space vehicles, which at present are unproven in their reliability.
Keeping the space shuttle program going would cost about $1 Billion a year. "That is a very small price to pay for maximizing the benefits from a $100 Billion national investment, and may even be cheaper than the final bill from the Russians," Glenn said.
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