<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">======================================</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">A new vision for people in space</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">--MIT report outlines goals for future of human space program</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">======================================</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">For Immediate Release</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">MONDAY, DEC. 15, 2008</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Contact: Teresa Herbert, MIT News Office</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">E: <a href="mailto:therbert@mit.edu">therbert@mit.edu</a>, T: 617-258-5403</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">PDF report available at <a href="http://web.mit.edu/mitsps">http://web.mit.edu/mitsps</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A team led by MIT researchers releases today the most comprehensive independent review of the future of the nation’s human spaceflight program undertaken in many years. The report recommends setting loftier goals for humans in space, focusing research more clearly toward those goals, and increasing cooperation with other nations and private industry.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">After conducting preliminary briefings with various stakeholders in Washington, team members say it has been enthusiastically received by political leaders, a National Research Council panel, and the Obama transition team, among others.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">“We need to rethink the rationales for human spaceflight,” says the report’s lead author David Mindell, professor of engineering systems and director of the program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT. He says that after the Washington briefings, “we sensed a great deal of uncertainty in DC about how to proceed with the Bush vision and human spaceflight in general. Our paper speaks to those problems in a clear way and offers some new ideas.”</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Key recommendations from the MIT report include:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">1.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Congress and the White House should reduce the “too much with too little” pressure on NASA by ensuring that resources match expectations. They should begin a public conversation on the ethics and acceptable risk of human spaceflight at current levels of support and ambition.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">2.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>NASA should continue to support commercial and European development of crew and cargo alternatives, particularly for cargo return.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">3.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>The United States should develop a broad, funded plan to utilize the ISS through 2020 for research, including development of technologies to support exploration for both moon missions and long duration Mars flights.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">4.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>A new human spaceflight policy should clarify the balance between the moon, Mars, and other destinations. It should be more, not less ambitious. A new policy should also review the Constellation (shuttle replacement) architecture to ensure compatibility with long-range exploration missions.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">5.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>NASA should re-establish a fundamental research program focused on science and technology for human spaceflight and exploration.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">6.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>The United States should begin engagement with China on human spaceflight in a series of small steps, gradually building up trust and cooperation, until a solid foundation for a comprehensive agreement could be built.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">The report offers “primary objectives” for sending human beings into space as those that can only be accomplished through the physical presence of human beings and are worthy of significant risk to human life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Says Mindell, “we argue for including notions of risk, human experience, and remote presence into the fundamental rationales for sending people into space. The results show that the United States might want a rather different human spaceflight program from the one now planned.”</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">And it is essential that whatever goals are set for human spaceflight, the funding should be adequate to meet those goals. “Trying to do too much with too little is exactly what caused the last two shuttle accidents,” he says.</font></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></p><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Among the report’s major conclusions are that the United States should be cooperating more on human spaceflight, both with other nations — including China and India — and with commercial ventures such as private rocket companies. The nation should also set ambitious goals for long-term exploration, and make sure that near-term work is geared toward those ends. In addition, a comprehensive strategy of basic research is needed to lay the groundwork for these longer-range goals.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">The report, called “The Future of Human Spaceflight,” was prepared by the Space, Policy and Society Research Group at MIT, which Mindell directs. The group includes MIT aeronautics and astronautics professor and former space shuttle astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman; Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics Laurence Young; Aeronautics and Astronautics Professor Dava Newman; Jerome C. Hunsacker Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems Annalisa Weigel; lecturer in science, technology and society Slava Gerovitch; postdoctoral associate Scott Uebelhart; graduate students Eph Langford, Teasel Muir-Harmony, Sherrica Newsome, Zakiya Tomlinson and Rebecca Perry; Lawrence McGlynn, president of Insurance Services of New England; Asif Saddiqi, assistant professor of history at Fordham University; John Tylko, vice president at Aurora Flight Sciences; and John Logsdon of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Reporters can obtain a PDF version of the full report by contacting the MIT News Office or at <a href="http://web.mit.edu/mitsps">http://web.mit.edu/mitsps</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"># # #</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Written by David Chandler, MIT News Office</font></div> </div></body></html>