Nasa needs its annual $18bn budget boosted by $3bn if astronauts are to conduct meaningful missions like trips to the Moon and beyond, a panel warns.

一个专家小组警告，美国航空航天局年度预算将增加30亿美元--达到180亿美元才足以使宇航员进行诸如登月、太空航行等更有意义的活动。

Nasa had been hoping its Orion ship would take it back to the Moon

The panel, convened¹（聚集，集合） by the White House to review human spaceflight plans, has delivered its summary findings.

It says the spaceship and rocket programmes being developed to replace the shuttle are not presently viable²（能养活的，能生育的）.

The group has given President Barack Obama a series of options to help him shape the US space agency's future.

But the panel, led by retired³ aerospace⁴ executive Norm Augustine, says only a funding increase can truly get Nasa back on track.

"The committee finds that no plan compatible with the [Financial Year] 2010 budget profile permits human exploration to continue in any meaningful way," it said.

"The committee further finds that it is possible to conduct a viable exploration program with a budget rising to about $3bn annually⁵ above the FY 2010 budget profile."

Longer delay

After the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster, former President George W Bush proposed retiring the orbiter fleet in favour of using an Apollo-like capsule and rockets to take humans back to the Moon by 2020.

But this programme, known as Constellation⁶, has had to battle technical and budgetary woes⁷（悲痛，苦恼）, meaning that its entry into service originally intended for 2012 will now be at least three years late.

And it is the Augustine panel's assessment⁸ that this delay will probably turn out to be longer still, perhaps leaving a gap of seven years between the final flight of the shuttle and the first mission of its successor.

"The committee did not identify any credible⁹ approach employing new capabilities¹⁰ that could shorten the gap to less than six years," the summary report notes.

"The only way to significantly close the gap is to extend the life of the shuttle programme."

This is one of the five broad options presented by the panel to President Obama.

Most involve the cancellation¹¹ or modification¹² of Constellation as currently envisaged（面对，正视）. Most see a greater role for the private sector¹³ in launching astronauts to low-Earth orbit.

And most also call for an extension of the International Space Station project to 2020, well beyond the currently planned end point of 2016.

Nasa already has spent some $8bn developing Constellation. The proposed Ares I rocket and its crew carrier called Orion are both at an advanced stage.

Orion has just passed its preliminary design review and a test version of the Ares 1 stands ready at the Kennedy Space Centre for a demonstration¹⁴ flight in October.

Many commentators¹⁵ have speculated that the Ares 1 will be cancelled, but they suspect Orion will live on, perhaps launching on a vehicle with a design which relies more heavily on space shuttle technology.

The Augustine panel will deliver its full report later this month. President Obama will consult（商讨，查阅） his new Nasa Administrator¹⁶ Charles Bolden and chief scientist John Holdren before responding. A new vision for Nasa is expected to be outlined in October.