Just last week the Obama Administration announced an independent review of NASA's human space flight plans. The stated goal is to ensure a "safe, innovative, affordable, and sustainable" path to achieving the nation's vision of human space exploration, a vision that was first articulated by President Bush in 2004. This review is to be conducted by an elite panel of space experts and chaired by Norman Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin.

Mr. Augustine is well-known and has chaired many high-level panels on matters of national urgency. He is obviously a strong and appropriate choice to lead this effort. His panel will consist of 10 carefully-selected experts from various areas of the space community and have roughly 90 days to deliver an insightful and realistic list of findings and recommendations.

This is a daunting task and one that will surely lack the technical depth and time required to create a new and innovative vision for human space exploration. Given the short time and limited talent pool available for panel activities, the most that we can hope for is a review of existing options and an assessment of plans and programs that are already in place.

The story of the Titanic comes to mind. NASA is already five years into the Constellation Program and has spent nearly $7 billion on the current architecture. Many major space hardware contracts are in place, each with costly change provisions and termination penalties. The daily burn rate is in the 10-million-dollar neighborhood.

Although the Augustine panel will undoubtedly be very impressive, it is clear that every member will be aware of the limited impact that such a commission can have on a program that is well-established and has spent so much money in creating a culture of "Constellation Believers and Contractors," not to mention the cost and schedule impact of changing the course of human space exploration.

Nevertheless, there is also little doubt among many space experts that the program is fatally flawed. The Ares I launch vehicle design still faces serious challenges in terms of performance, cost and schedule.

There is a projected five-year gap in the nation's ability to launch humans, from the Shuttle retirement in 2010, until the scheduled introduction of an operational Ares I / Orion in 2015.

If the Commission does not succeed in changing the Constellation Program, America will likely have to depend on the Russians to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) during the gap.

The chance that this gap will exceed five years is a subject of great discussion, but looking at the history of space program development, the odds are that this gap could be 10 years, or more.

And, what about the inevitable cost overruns, changing economic environment, and political will to continue the pursuit of Constellation as originally envisioned? Add to this many other familiar bumps in the road ahead.

The real question for the Commission seems to be: Can the panel stop the leak in the ship's hull in order to continue the journey or simply rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking ship?