Main Engine Cut OffRobert Lightfoot, the Acting NASA Administrator, sent a memo to the agency on the possibility of putting a crew on EM-1. I discuss the potential fallout from this idea and where the SLS/Orion program may be heading in the future.
Marcia Smith of SpacePolicyOnline.com saw a draft of the 2017 NASA Transition Authorization Act, and it contains some very interesting changes from the 2016 version that bounced around Congress last year. I discuss what some of these changes may mean in the light of Commercial Crew delays, NASA RFIs regarding SLS and Orion, and continued Russian reliability issues.
I previously thought that SLS was more cancellation-prone, but I’m beginning to think Orion holds that title.
Marcia Smith of SpacePolicyOnline.com saw a draft of the 2017 NASA Transition Authorization Act, and it contains three very interesting changes.
Following up on last show’s topic, there are signs that NASA may be moving away from Orion in the future. I discuss how I see NASA modernizing their exploration roadmap, politically, in the next administration.
This is going to be an extremely interesting transition period. More of a “Let’s modernize this roadmap,” instead of a “Tear it all up!”
NASA released an RFI for small scientific payloads bound for the lunar surface, meant to “address strategic knowledge gaps” associated with human missions to the Moon. I talk about how this could indicate a shift of the SLS/Orion roadmap, and how NASA may be focusing on lunar surface missions in order to build more political capital for the program of record.
A commercial cargo-style program for getting payloads to the Moon would be wonderfully interesting. It would be well-timed to be used as NASA participation in the Moon Village idea that is talked about within ESA (and pretty much everywhere but the US).
It’s important to keep the budgets of NASA and other governmental agencies in context: NASA is spending billions per year on Orion’s development. Roscosmos is spending an average of $122 million per year on Federation.
The RFI seems to indicate that an extended Cygnus would be a great fit for the flight, as we’ve seen Orbital ATK talking up previously.