New challenges for NASA

Dallas Morning News: If there is a more difficult moment for NASA to announce a $104 billion project to return to the moon by 2018, we're hard-pressed to imagine it.
The space shuttle fleet is grounded indefinitely for a problem that engineers can't seem to fix. Congress is squeamish over the federal deficit, the Iraq war and the unknown price tag for rebuilding the Gulf Coast.
For NASA, space exploration often has been easier to master than the vagaries of congressional politics and Americans' tendency to quickly lose interest in scientific tasks that lack immediate payoffs. NASA's long-range plan is not a budget buster, but that doesn't lessen the political risks facing the space agency to deliver results on time and on budget.
NASA's prime challenge is to sustain support for spending billions on a next-generation spacecraft when Americans have their eyes cast elsewhere and won't see results for several years. That's perhaps as much of a political and managerial challenge as it is an engineering obstacle.
Juggling act
NASA began struggling with this juggling act after a deep recession undermined support for the agency and ended the Apollo moon missions three decades ago. With the new mission, which administrator Michael Griffin aptly described as "Apollo on steroids," NASA can and must resurrect its image.
It must end questionable projects and show the discipline to effectively focus resources on its return to the moon in a management culture that embraces safety, scientific curiosity and fiscal responsibility.
"Failure is not an option" is the phrase associated with the extraordinary feats required to return the Apollo 13 spacecraft crew safely to Earth. It's an equally apt description of NASA's new challenge.