[X] My Assistant

[Drkskywxlt]

Since the VSE came out a few years back, I've seen occasional references to the need of having precursor missions to Mars seperate from the robotic exploration program to test such technology as in-situ resource utilization, long term radiation levels, etc. Has anyone heard any more concrete plans for such missions? I've not yet seen anything in NASAs budget that seems to be working in that direction (besides some Earth-based research).

[Mariner9]

I've got my share of concerns about the current Griffin - VSE project, but I've also got more hopes for it than all the other abortive attempts at new spaceflight initiatives of the last 20 years. Anyone remember the National Spaceplane? Or how about Venture Star? Or the Orbital Spaceplane?

Of all of those, the Orbital Spaceplane at least was technically feasable, but it didn't really lend itself too well to anything other than Earth orbital flights.

While Orion is rather short on imagination, at least it is long on versatility. It can do either ISS resupply, or Lunar flights. In fact, the entire VSE frame work has a lot more versatility to it than the Shuttle did. Basically the shuttle was, well... the Shuttle. After 25 years of operations it still does exactly what it started out doing.... up, down, up, down... with fixed payload limits in both size and weight.

Now, with VSE we essentially get 4 new vehicles. Two new boosters, and two new manned ships. The Ares V doesn't have to only lift lunar payloads, it can lift heavy payloads of any type. The LSAM descent stage can be modified to carry something other than the crew module (cargo, habitat, whatever).
When using the Ares 1, the Orion service module can be fitted with a pressurized payload cannister and take unmanned cargo to the station (already deleted for budgetary reasons, but easy enough to re-instate later). So we end up with an expandable and more versatile system than if we were building Shuttle-2.

Admittedly all of this takes money, and a lot of it. But in the case of the Shuttle program, everytime you had to spend a couple billion on an upgrade, you got ...uh... a slightly higher tech version of the shuttle. Anytime you develope a new piece of this system, you get a truely new capability.

So while I've got my doubts that this is going to be smooth sailing, at least there is enough flexability in the approach that there are a lot of choices on how to move forward. And with the Russians and ESA collaborating on ACTS ( think Soyuz-on-steroids ) I see little chance of Orion being completely canceled, no matter who is President.