CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA will send humans beyond the International Space Station (ISS) in this generation, NASA Deputy Administrator Fred Gregory said Tuesday night.
"We're leaving low Earth orbit, and we're going to do it as soon as we can," Gregory said, marking a bold move for this administration.
Both the space shuttle and station fly in low Earth orbit, about 240 miles above the planet's surface.
Gregory spoke at the 7th Cape Canaveral Spaceport Symposium at the Radisson Resort at the Port in Cape Canaveral.
"We're going to move out of the stodgy old NASA, and we're going to move into the future," Gregory said. "And were going to do it when all of us are still alive."
Gregory talked of going to the moon, an asteroid or Mars and using the space station as a stepping stone. When humans go this time, Gregory said, they would be doing more than planting flags and footsteps before making the return trip home. They would conduct science research while they are there.
He said that many challenges remain before this can happen, and NASA is addressing some of these. Next year, for example, ISS- and ground-based research will address long-term health issues associated with radiation in space.
Psychological challenges, like boredom, also exist for future astronauts. "Do you put them to sleep or do you give them a lot of comic books?" laughed Gregory. He said he didn't want Kennedy Space Center to turn into a "ghost town of gantries" like it was when he was a shuttle astronaut training here in the 1970s.
The way to keep that from happening is to plan.
"I am convinced we will no longer be susceptible to the boom and bust periods of the spaceports of the past," he said.
The fleet of 26 satellites that currently watch Earth will grow to help climatologists learn more about what's happening with Earth's weather and climate.
Also, NASA's planetary voyagers will continue to explore new worlds, but they would have to start at Cape Canaveral or another spaceport.
Kennedy Space Center Director Roy Bridges presented him with a painting of some planets that he hoped would remind him to "get us out of low Earth orbit."
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