The Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, often known as the Augustine Committee, held another public meeting today to discuss the final scoring of each option. I previously posted timelines for most of the options, here listed with their line numbers as specified in the summary report.
In a change from the August 12 meeting of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, NASA's Ares I project appears to still be on the table. In their Summary Report, it is included in their Option 3: Baseline Program of Record, which projects a human return to the surface of the Moon in the mid 2020s. This option would require an additional investment of $3 billion per year in NASA's exploration program. In the interest of evaluating this option, I'm going to review what Ares I is supposed to do and the progress it has made, and then look ahead to… Read More
Over the past couple of weeks I have written several posts about the alternative architectures proposed by the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, also known as one of the Augustine Committees. Most recently I posted timelines of each architecture:
Next: ISS Focused (Constrained Budget)
The Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee has drawn up several alternate architectures for NASA to pursue its mission of sending astronauts beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). At the final public meeting, the members presented and then discussed all of the architectures that would be presented in their final report. This presents an opportunity for the space community to digest and decide on a course of action before the President and Congress even have a chance to read it. I have… Read More