Jeff Foust asks: Are astronauts close to extinction?

Read The Future of Human Spaceflight in the MIT Technology Review. It talks about the Augustine Committee, a panel chartered by the White House, which issued in Oct 2009 its report on the future of space travel. And the news is bleak: while the Chinese are preparing for manned missions to Mars,

"The [US] human space flight program... is at a tipping point where either additional funds must be provided or the [human] exploration program first instituted by President Kennedy must be abandoned, at least for the time being."

The current plan is to retire the space shuttle by late 2010, and use Russian Soyuz spacecraft to reach the International Space Station (ISS) until the Ares I rocket (see picture) and Orion capsule are ready. The estimated ready date for Ares I /Orion is 2017. The ISS takes $2-3 billion to maintain yearly, and funding for that is projected at this point until 2015 - when another $1 billion would be the cost of safely dumping it out of orbit.

Foust also writes that

"...Satellites launched on expendable boosters allowed the United States to achieve strategic dominance in space. And Cold War motives disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union."

I'm not so much concerned that another country might soon achieve dominance in space - but that a foe might be capable to bring down our satellite infrastructure, thus eliminating our advantage. Here is an analysis by Geoffrey Forden:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/01/inside-the-chin/

Forden writes: "...if the short term military consequences to the United States [of a theoretic sneak attack by China on US military satellites] are not that bad, the long term consequences to all space-faring nations would be devastating. The destruction of the nine satellites hit during the first hour of the attack considered here could put over 18,900 new pieces of debris over four inches in diameter into the most populated belt of satellites in low Earth orbit. Even more debris would be put into geostationary orbit if China launched an attack against communications satellites. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the debris from each satellite would continue to “clump” together, much as the debris from last year’s test. However, over the next year or so—well after the terrestrial war with China had been resolved—the debris fields would fan out and eventually strike another satellite.

"These debris fields could easily cause a run-away chain of collisions that renders space unusable — for thousands of years, and for everyone."