As the federal deficit grows, it may be difficult to find the $104 billion it will cost to send Americans back to the moon, say Launius and Marco Caceres of the Teal Group, an aerospace analysis firm. Caceres warns NASA’s competing priorities may have consequences, especially if corners are cut. The nation “is giving NASA all this difficult, visionary stuff to do but … not giving them the resources to do it,” he says. “Eventually it catches up with you and you have an accident.”

NASA took steps to shore up its most glaring weaknesses, ending its downsizing plan and hiring some new staffers to fill the biggest gaps. But not everyone believes the agency has come close to recovering its prior strength, and a GAO report released just three days before the Columbia mishap said the problems were persisting. At first blush, it seems obvious that safety “has got to suffer because they have fewer people,” said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst at the Teal Group, an aerospace research firm. “I’m not sure it’s as simple as that, but in hindsight, with this tragedy, that’s one of the first things you’re going to look at.”