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 already written up a summary of the differences between the different architectures here. In order to get a better sense of what each architecture would look like, I’m planning to write up a timeline for each one. The timelines are based on the choices made by the committee and their budget projections. The first architecture in the list is the program of record (POR), adjusted to fit the projected budget. This architecture is not recommended by the committee, but is presented for reference as the default case.

2010

The first commercial cargo deliveries to the International Space Station (ISS) begin.

2011

In March, the Space Shuttle is retired after delivering all the currently planned components to ISS. After this point, all U.S. astronauts are carried to ISS aboard Soyuz space capsules, provided by international partners.

2016

ISS is retired. The budget provides funding for a propulsion module which will bring ISS to a controlled re-entry. Some of it will burn up in the atmosphere, the rest will be disposed of in the ocean. NASA has no capability to send humans to or maintain humans in outer space.

2018

Ares I and Orion become operational in December. NASA can send astronauts to LEO, but has no capability to launch experiments or to explore beyond the Earth. This will be the state of NASA human spaceflight for a decade.

2028

The Ares V heavy-lift vehicle becomes operational in June. However, no exploration hardware will have been developed, and none will be in the planning stages. The Earth Departure Stage (EDS) of Ares V might be operational at this point, but no technology has been developed to support extended missions in free space.

References

• “Integrated Options for Human Exploration Discussion“. Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee. 12 August 2009.
• Ride, Sally; Crawley, Ed; Greason, Jeff; Behmuk, Bo. “Scenario Affordability Analysis“. Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee. 12 August 2009.

More in this series:

• The Program of Record
• ISS Focused (Constrained Budget)
• ISS Focused (Increased Budget)
• ISS/Shuttle Extension
• Deep Space (Ares V “Light”)
• Deep Space (Commercial HLV)
• Deep Space (Shuttle Derived)

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