9.19.2005
Apollo, reinvented
Actually, it's been hard not to "think of it as Apollo on steroids," as Mike Griffin suggested. According to NASA's plan, officially unveiled today (leaks? what leaks?), the new lunar exploration vehicle "will be shaped like an Apollo capsule, but it will be three times larger, allowing four astronauts to travel to the moon at a time."Will the new spaceship make the Vision a reality? Is the plan at all realistic? Forget that silly shuttle sitting idle again with no launch date, we're off to the moon by the end of the next decade, then on to Mars and beyond? To many, for a load of fiscal, political and other reasons, it sounds like a long shot. But when, for the public sector, and now, private spaceflight ventures as well, has space travel been anything else? (Still, it seems so strange that going to the moon is but a vision again. I had a dream we were there already, didn't you?)
Here is a fact sheet on the exploration architecture and new spaceship.
Meanwhile, as you're orbiting your favorite space blogs and zines, don't miss Daniel Handlin in The Space Review, Where do we go from here? Making the Vision for Space Exploration a reality: "Clearly the issue in returning humans to the Moon is not technical. The problem is getting and sustaining the will to undertake the journey."
And Rand Simberg does the math and thinks NASA's plan is nuts.
By the way, for you up-and-coming space lawyers who represent or want to represent clients who do or want to do business with NASA, dig into the space agency's explorations systems acquisition portal for information about crew exploration vehicle procurement and related hot stuff. (While it lasts?)
