Reporter’s Notebook: Where do we go from here?
In our “Reporter’s Notebook” series, we feature first-person accounts of News Office writers on life at the Institute.Mars may be the ultimate destination for the U.S. human spaceflight program, but getting there anytime soon is unrealistic and not in the best interest of NASA resources. That was one of the messages Professor Ed Crawley, the Ford Professor of Engineering in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, delivered last Friday at an MIT forum that examined the findings and implications of the Augustine Commission — a 10-member committee that recently conducted an independent review of planned U.S. human spaceflight activities.Crawley served on the blue-ribbon commission of aerospace experts led by former Lockheed Martin Corp. CEO Norman Augustine. The panel’s final report, delivered to Congress in October, recommended that NASA consider flights to asteroids and other near-Earth objects as part of a long-term plan to set foot on Mars.“We realized Mars is...