NASA Advisory Council, April 2015

The NASA Advisory Council (NAC) considered a number of findings and recommendations during its April 9-10, 2015 meeting.  Several were adopted, including a finding that the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) should be modified so that the spacecraft makes a round-trip journey to Mars instead of an asteroid.  One on which consensus could not be reached concerned whether the technology development effort for sending people to Mars is adequately funded.  SpacePolicyOnline.com published two articles on April 10, 2015 summarizing the actions at NAC:

• NAC Adopts Finding to Redirect the Asteroid Redirect Mission — to Mars
• NAC Gets Stuck on Mars Technology Development Finding