The Obama Administration’s revised manned space program doesn’t envision U.S. astronauts venturing beyond Earth’s orbit until at least 2020, and perhaps years later, according to the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The comments by NASA chief Charles Bolden to reporters over the weekend mark the most specific timeframe he has released so far for the forthcoming manned space program. Mr. Bolden said a new U.S. heavy-lift rocket is likely to become operational sometime within the next decade or two, though the agency hasn’t yet chosen destinations and is years away from picking the technologies necessary to build such a booster.
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