Mr Michael Griffin, the new chief of NASA, has been
working at a rapid pace to try to get the agency back
on track for the return of the shuttle and started
toward the new explorer craft down-select and award of
a contract.
Mr Griffin says he will use the tank and the solid
booster motors from the current shuttle system and
build the CEV around that system.(My guess would be
with some type of flexibility to migrate to a
different launch configuration later on.) Then he
plans to use a heavy lift motor for the large unmanned
payloads that will be needed to support the ISS and
manned exploration of the Lunar surface.
Sounds good, but we all know where the devil is in
this build program. The year 2010 is coming fast and
2008 is coming even faster than that and with little
of the final draft of the engineering for the CEV, Mr
Griffin is hoping he can get the CEV project under
construction and at a point of no return before 2008
comes. If Mr Griffin can get NASA committed to his
vision of the CEV before 2008 and he isn't chief
at NASA in 2010 he still has his idea of the CEV
imposed on the future.
What happens in 2010 when the shuttle retires if the
CEV is not ready on time?(Most likely won't be.) The
same thing that's happened in the past; we'll beg,
borrow, buy or rebuild our way back into space.
Is the product that will come from Mr Griffin's build
program going to be THE CEV or A Shuttle Mark II? I
guess we'll just have to wait and see what comes out,
but at this point does it really make an difference?
We need new launch crafts by 2010 so we can either
rebuild a limited number of the old style shuttles or
the new Giffin Mark II, but I'm not sure what we're
going to get is a CEV. If I'm right, that means that a
one-off Manned Mars Mission(1-off 3M)is out for now
and a new Lunar Lander will have to be built for any
return to the moon. irsouth2