Matt Wronkiewicz's Weblog

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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). For a more complete summary, see "Future of NASA: Program of Record". The third architecture in the list is ISS focused, with an increased budget of about $3 billion per year.

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Previous: Program of Record
Next: ISS Focused (Increased 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). For a more complete summary, see "Future of NASA: Program of Record". The second architecture in the list is ISS focused, constrained to fit the projected budget. This architecture is not recommended by the committee because it… Read More

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

The final public meeting of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee was today, and it looks like they did their job extraordinarily well. They really kept their focus on the goal of extending human civilization beyond Earth, and this was reflected in all of the options they are considering. To summarize, their recommended options are: maintain ISS and give up on NASA exploration, spend a little more to explore free space, and spend a little more to explore the moon. All of these options included some common recommendations. First, they called Ares I unaffordable and redundant, and recommended dumping it. Given their findings,… Read More

I'm really looking forward to hearing the final public meeting of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee tomorrow. My hope is that the committee will come up with a set of options that lead us along the way to becoming a truly spacefaring society rather than distracting us away from it. Reading the summary of Dr. John Marburger's testimony last week here really sharpened my view of what we are doing and space and where we need to go from here. What are we doing in space? Not enough.

The greatest achievement of the 20th century, in… Read More

The Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee is currently assessing options for sending astronauts beyond low Earth orbit, given budget realities. As they requested input from the public, I sent them my thoughts on the options they have presented. Here is my letter:

My name is Matt Wronkiewicz. I am a computer programmer with little involvement in the space industry, but I am excited about both the possibility of visiting outer space some day and the potential benefits from its economic… Read More