"New Space Exploration Vision" Distributed to NASA Employees 16 Jan 2004

Mars Today ^ | January 22, 2004

[B-Chan]

Hey! I was fairly close!

[B-Chan]

My first guess at what this illustration depicts.

[Professional Engineer]

Nice graphics

[Brett66]

Here's some more speculation FWIW:

The station is the ISS, I doubt we'll be using that for staging missions beyond LEO because of it's skewed orbit. We'll use LEO rendezous at an orbit much more favorable than the ISS.

The module that's over the moon might be an L1 base. There doesn't seem to be any ion or chemical propulsion segments on it, yet there is a docking ring on the end.

That can with legs seems to be a lunar lander. Could be a manned or an unmanned cargo carrier.

The spacecraft just above the Earth is obviously the CEV with all the modules to take it to,possibly, an L1 base. At the very least, it will be going beyond LEO. That would be nice if a nuclear thermal tug was able to be used for our first excursions back to the moon. The timeline just may allow for use of that propulsion. If we could use a reusable NTR lander, that would even be better.

[CasearianDaoist]

At the far left? My guess is that is the LEO transfer commonent of the CEV. Don't know though...

[Frank_Discussion]

Possible, but it seems a little small. I would expect a couple more modules, but then again it could be just a bare-bones staging site.

[Frank_Discussion]

Interesting plan. I have different opinions, but factually it works out pretty good, so I won't argue. Well, except for one thing - no Soyuz. If the Russians wish to participate, let 'em rent space and send Soyuz for their needs, but don't make them integral to the NASA plan.

Soyuz is a very good spacecraft, and I'm glad we have access to it right now, but I believe CEV will be superior. I would rather see us build large fleets of CEV's and reap an economy of scale, instead of buying a dribble rate production run of Soyuz from the RSA/Energia.

[CasearianDaoist]

Yes, I think that all of these concepts are set in an early phase view.

[Frank_Discussion]

"The station is the ISS, I doubt we'll be using that for staging missions beyond LEO because of it's skewed orbit. We'll use LEO rendezvous at an orbit much more favorable than the ISS."

We could still use ISS if it were boosted to a higher orbit and repositioned at a shallower inclination. I know of a Plasma engine flight experiment is slated for launch to the station, and would do the job handily.

[Brett66]

Are they seriously considering that? Seems like we couldn't do that if we're going to rely on the Russians to supply the station.

[Frank_Discussion]

I'm saying it's possible. The flight experiment I'm referring to is really meant to evaluate a smallish VASIMR engine by using it for station-keeping duties. It is suited for push the station farther distances over time, if that becomes necessary.

[Frank_Discussion]

"Woah, nice dangling modifier."

Hey, no problem, those "dangling diapers" at 3:27am will do that to you... ;-)

Congrats on the new little one!