Final options from the Augustine Committee
Thanks to the committee’s Twitter feed and some folks over at NASASpaceFlight.com, I was able to piece together the final options that will appear in the committee’s initial report, to be presented to the White House on Friday. In its final report, the committee will not recommend one particular option, but will simply present the facts. Each of these options represents the combination of several architectural choices, adjusted for budget and schedule. Some architectural choices were discarded entirely. Several options will be presented as “for reference only”, but may be selected by the President anyway, as they are the only ones to fit within the budget. Here is the final list:
- 2: Program of Record (POR), adjusted for risk, constrained to the FY10 budget (for reference only, not executable)
- 3B: ISS focused, commercial crew, constrained to the FY10 budget (for reference only, no exploration program)
- 3B$: ISS focused, commercial crew, “plus up” budget
- 5$: Lunar sorties, shuttle derived, “plus up” budget
- 6$: Deep space, dual Ares V light, “plus up” budget
- 7$: Deep space, commercial HLV, “plus up” budget
- 7S$: Deep space, shuttle derived, “plus up” budget
I’ll attempt to boil down the differences in this table:
| Recommended | ISS life | Crew to LEO | HLV | IOC | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 2015 | Ares I | Ares V | 2028 | |
| 3B | 2020 | Commercial | Ares V | 2028 | |
| 3B$ | • | 2020 | Commercial | Ares V | 2023 |
| 5$ | • | 2020 | Shuttle/Comm. | STS-derived | ? |
| 6$ | • | 2020 | Commercial | Ares V “light” | 2023 |
| 7$ | • | 2020 | Commercial | Commercial | 2021 |
| 7S$ | • | 2020 | Commercial | STS-derived | 2022 |
Related posts:
Tags: architectural choices, deep space, exploration program, hlv, space shuttle
August 25th, 2009 at 6:56 AM
Augustine Committee presents Obama with space exploration options…
The Augustine Committee, examining the future of the U.S. space program, has nearly completed its report. The committee has come to a number of troubling conclusions.
The Augustine Committee has concluded that not only is the current plan to send astr…