NASA in Turmoil as They Aim for a Moon Landing by 2020

Who knew a NASA director could be so politically controversial? Is this because of deep politics relating to "ultimate truths"-- or something relatively silly? Either way, it will be interesting to see what happens with this new moon quest. Will it be abandoned at some point-- or will we be treated to a higher tech fake moon landing?

Barack Obama's failure to appoint a new chief to run Nasa is fostering an atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty at the US space agency, a leading industry figure has told the Guardian.

The space agency, which is facing one of the toughest periods of its 51-year history, has been without a chief administrator since Michael Griffin stepped down in January, amid newspaper reports of heated arguments with the transition team, which Griffin denied in a memo.

The Obama team had originally hoped to replace Griffin with a retired fighter pilot, Scott Gration, but the nomination was blocked by opponents on Capitol Hill. Since then speculation on potential candidates has been rife, with the latest including Chris Scolese, the agency's acting administrator, and two former astronauts, Mae Jemison and Charles Bolden.

The state of limbo could not have come at a worse time, with Nasa facing fundamental questions about its future. With only eight space shuttle flights left on the books, and a retirement date for the entire fleet penned in for next year, it is not clear how the world's leading space agency will get its astronauts off the ground once the shuttle has been mothballed.

President Obama has inherited a vision for Nasa that would see the agency return astronauts to the moon in 2020, with a more distant goal of a crewed mission to Mars. To do so, Nasa's previous chief drew inspiration from the Apollo project to design two new rockets and a small capsule, collectively known as the Constellation project, which could deliver crews to the International Space Station by 2015, to the moon five years later, and eventually on to Mars.

But the Constellation project has come under fire from some quarters of the industry, who argue the new rockets are behind schedule, over budget and facing more serious engineering problems than anticipated. They want to see Nasa abandon the project, at least in part, and instead convert one of its existing satellite-launching rockets, the Atlas 5 or the Delta 4, into one capable of carrying astronauts.