NASA needs to increase its annual average funding by $5 billion to almost $24 billion for the next decade. This sum will be enough for the space agency to achieve its 2020 Moon and International Space Station goals and keep the Space Shuttle fleet flying to 2015 without cutting science and aeronautics budgets, says a US Congressional Budget Office analysis.
The office took into account NASA's forecasted budgets and assumed a 50% cost overrun based on its 2004 cost analysis of 72 past NASA programmes.
NASA plans manned Moon missions by 2020 and its partners want to use the ISS until then. Extending the Shuttle's life is one option for bridging a five-year gap between its planned 2010 retirement and first flight of the Ares I and Orion crew launch and exploration vehicles.
In November 2008 a budget office analysis concluded that costs of Orion-Ares could spiral by $7 billion and its first manned flight may be two years later than planned in 2017.
Source: Flight International
