Last Wednesday, the world’s largest rocket, Ares 1-X blasted off on a test flight from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The 100-metre tall rocket weighs about 816 tonne and is designed to replace Nasa’s space shuttle. Soon after lift-off, the rocket name after the Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Mars, rapidly rose in the eastern sky and reached an altitude of about 28 miles.

At this point, the rocket’s booster separated from the mock upper stage crew module. The booster deployed parachutes and splashed down about 150 miles away in the Atlantic, where it was retrieved for analysis. The flight lasted about six minutes from launch to splashdown. As the ageing Shuttle fleet is set to retire in 2010, what is the future of space exploration?

First, let us look at the larger picture. The Ares launch is a part of Nasa’s Constellation project, which aims to return humans to the moon by 2020 and eventually to Mars. Ares I will carry Orion, the six-person craft that will take astronauts to the International Space Station, while Ares V will boost the four-person Altair Lunar Lander into space.

While Ares I-X might be a small step, the success came at a price tag of $300 million. Some people are convinced that the launch of the Ares rocket might not be a step forward by the space agency. An independent committee established by President Barack Obama issued a study last week that proposed alternatives to Ares using commercial rockets to send astronauts into orbit. The committee’s report on space plans concluded that without boosting the agency’s budget by about $3 billion annually, it can’t adequately conduct ‘meaningful human exploration’ of space, according to a released summary of its findings.

“The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. It is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources,” the report’s summary said. The argument raised in the report is to use easily available and easy to use commercial rockets rather than investing time and resources in inventing a new rocket. Speaking after releasing the report, the committee chairman Norman R Augustine said “While this presents some risk, it could provide an earlier capability at lower initial and lifecycle costs than government could achieve.” The Obama administration is pondering over the report to decide the next step.

The former president of aerospace giant Lockheed Martin said, “the goals of the Constellation program launched in 2004 by president George W. Bush were too much to chew for Nasa”. The Constellation project that emerged following the 2003 loss of the shuttle Columbia carrying Kalpana Chwla and other astronauts needs additional funding above the Nasa budget of $18 billion a year.

Moreover, the International Space Station, to be completed by 2010, is at risk of being de-orbited in 2016 on Nasa's current budget. If the space agency chooses to keep the station flying until 2020 without a budget boost from Congress, one way to recoup the cost, the committee noted, would be to scrap Ares 1 altogether and rely on commercial launches. Some others put the funding lifeline at a year less for ISS.

What transpires on the future of Ares I series will also decide the future of the ISS project. Russia, India and China are planning their own lunar missions and Russia and India agreed in 2007 to send an unmanned mission to the moon and build a laboratory on the lunar surface. China has also sent astronauts into space and is aiming to land a man on the moon by 2020.

NASA may not be the only boat in the sea of space exploration, as others step up their ambition. Because of a lack of funds, would we see US astronauts strapped on to an Indian rocket for a blast-off into space in 2020? It’s a distinct possibility as Nasa is likely to lose out on its current edge to other space programs the world over.

Varun Dutt is knowledge editor at Financial Chronicle and a doctoral scholar at Carnegie Mellon University, PA