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
In Future of NASA: Analysis, I mentioned that I would be sending a message to President Obama concerning the options for human spaceflight included in the initial report of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee. Well, here it is:
Mr. President:
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write to you concerning the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee. I was very impressed by the public meetings and the documents released by the committee. Their deliberations have been thoughtful… 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:
Previous: Deep Space (Commercial HLV)
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 seventh architecture in the list is focused on exploration missions to deep space using a Shuttle-derived heavy-lift launch vehicle (SDLV), assuming an increased budget of $3 billion per year.
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