Posted on 01/12/2006 6:50:54 PM PST by KevinDavis
Congressional pressure to avoid a gap in U.S. human space access is behind a NASA push to accelerate the first piloted flight of the planned Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV).
While President Bush originally wanted an operation CEV by 2014, the final RFP for the shuttle replacement called for a first flight with crew "as close to 2010 as possible, but no later than 2012, without compromising safety." The new document also drops requirements for a LOX/methane engine on the CEV service module as a placeholder for future extraction of the fuel from the atmosphere of Mars, and for delivery of unpressurized cargo to the International Space Station, although nothing would prevent the winning team from proposing them, according to a program spokesman at Johnson Space Center.
Officially a "call for improvements" to the original CEV bids, the long-awaited document specifies for the first time that the vehicle will be "an improved, blunt-body crew capsule shape" as called for in the exploration architecture released last fall (Aviation Week & Space Technology, Sept. 26, 2005). Final CEV dimensions remain in flux, the program spokesman says.
Teams led by Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are finalists for the job of building the CEV, which will run through 2019. The contract will fall into three parts - a cost-plus award fee element through "approximately 2013" that will cover design, development, test and evaluation (DDT&E) though first flight of the initial two CEV blocks; an indefinite quantity indefinite delivery contract for full-scale CEV production, and a sustaining engineering element that will include "any additional DDT&E necessary to complete development of the Block 2 Lunar variant."
This is a disappointment.
This means Mars is offically " on hold" I guess. I'd be happy to see men on the moon again let alone Mars.
I think this is a step in the correct direction. Mars isn't obtainable without heavy lift capability; methane fueling is irrelevant, and has been dismissed. That's good, as it shows a decline in the influence of Zubrin's pipe dream.
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