HOUSTON Soaring cost overruns in NASAs International Space Station project have prompted the agency to curtail a number of key projects here at Johnson Space Center (JSC), including advance work on future human expeditions to Mars.
Faced with a $4 billion cost overrun in the station project, outgoing JSC Center Director George Abbey issued what amounted to several stop orders last week on projects other than ongoing space outpost construction and NASAs space shuttle program.
It is not known whether these directives will be adopted by Roy Estess who was named Acting Director of JSC following Abbey's reassignment. Estess, who remains the director of Stennis Space Center (SSC) in Mississippi, will serve at JSC until a replacement director can be found.
An advanced "Bio-Plex" facility that was being developed to conduct long-term studies to help gauge the effect of lengthy round trips to the Red Planet on future astronaut explorers.
"All of those projects were near and dear to Georges heart," a senior Mars project researcher at JSC told SPACE.com.
Deferring the research efforts all considered Abbeys "pet projects" "must have really hurt," said the researcher, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The stop work orders were personally issued by Abbey last Thursday during visits to various project offices here at JSC, NASAs "Center of Excellence" for Human Space Flight programs. The memo was sent to senior JSC staff on Friday.
Beyond the work stoppage with Mars-related projects, Abbey also asked senior staff here at JSC to conduct a study to determine the appropriate size for NASAs astronaut corps based on NASAs plans for the ongoing assembly of the international station, which now is scheduled to be completed in mid 2006.
Sources said that study might prompt NASA to postpone the selection of a new astronaut class, a process the agency traditionally goes through every two years.
A project that enables college students to fly aboard NASAs KC-135 microgravity training aircraft also will be curtailed once current commitments are met, the sources said.
The memo, meanwhile, indicated that additional cost-cutting measures are in store here at JSC, which employs 3,000 civil servants and some 12,000-contractor personnel.
The centers $4 billion annual budget is the largest of any NASA field center and covers the cost of planning and conducting space shuttle missions, space station assembly and research on future human space travel.
That amount is the lions share of the $5.5 billion NASA spends each year on human spaceflight projects.
"The center is committed to controlling costs and will continue to look for other cost-saving measures," Abbey said in the memo.
"The recent budget assessments performed by the space station and space shuttle programs have highlighted the challenge and requires all of us to implement actions that will allow us to perform our activities within our budget constraints," he added.
The implementation of the cost-cutting measures, meanwhile, "is of the highest priority," the memo said. "They must, however, be performed with no compromise to safety."
Scott Hubbard, Mars exploration program director at NASA Headquarters, said his work in shaping an armada of robotic orbiters and landers to study the Red Planet remains on track.
Hubbard told SPACE.com that a reformulated Mars program -- after back-to-back Mars orbiter and
-- is ongoing. He is working with both the space agency's human spaceflight and life sciences offices on what next steps need to be taken "to further integrate human exploration with the robotic program," he said.However, there have been some moves at NASA Headquarters to bring human Mars exploration "down to Earth." A recently released Cooperative Agreement Notice ties long-range human treks back to the Moon, and toward Mars and the asteroids with space commercialization technologies.
That notice was modified after its release early this month. The modification basically states that NASA's near-term focus is on Earth orbit and near-Earth space technologies.
Technologies for Mars (or other interplanetary targets) will not be selected at this time, a NASA source close to the cooperative agreement said.
Abbey was unavailable for comment. Considered one of the most powerful agency managers, he declined two separate requests from SPACE.com this week for interviews regarding his reassignment.
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