Plotting A New Course for NASA

Folks Thanksgiving is almost here. I give thanks for the Space Shuttle and all
it accomplished.

In two days Thanksgiving will be over and black Friday will be upon us. Time
to draw up our shopping plans for the next venture.

If we presume that NASA is not completely restructured into the space equiv.
of NACA (my first choice, with active private ventures seeking to do HSF and
HSE (human space exploration) what would be the preferred alternatives to task
a socialist space bureaucracy?

Time to ask ourselves what can a $19B dollar annual budget buy us besides a
budget busting rocket to nowhere (SLS)?

Here are two proposals I'd like to put on the table.

1) HSE / Non-HSF : Tele-operated Robotic Lunar Explorers

I've mentioned this one to death. It's eminently do-able, can leverage
existing LVs and is nowhere near a budget buster. Puts NASA square on the
education track and gets our young folks directly involved in lunar
exploration operating dozens, possibly hundreds of low-cost, solar powered
robotic lunar rovers.

It has passed the sci.space.policy smell test in that when I first proposed
the idea it was more or less met with silence.

2) HSE / HSF : Nautilus-X type craft as the next generation space station.

Plans are out there. Gradual build-out in LEO using CCDev contracts. Provide
extended HSF stays after ISS retirement. But the idea is that it would not
*stay* in LEO but be useful as a solar exploration vehicle. Capable of
providing tours of the inner planets, with landing options to follow. But the
beauty of it is all that can come later. First build-out in LEO enables
another space station destination (this time US owned and operated) and gets
the operational kinks out of extended space stays with interplanetary
exploration as the long term mission objective. Nautilus-X isn't as big or
grandiose as the ISS in its initial configurations, build-out can be gradual.
The design allows for modular extensions along a central truss. The fact that
NX can go *outside* LEO for long stays I consider to be a critical enabling
technology we should not ignore. Plus it maximizes investments already made in
COTS/CCDev by providing a destination for these cheaper access to LEO options.

3) Nuclear propulsion option for Nautilus-X

After initial expenditures to build out Nautilus-X have been completed and
Nautilus-X shifts into the orbital/cis-lunar laboratory study phase, money
freed from build out is used to develop a nuclear propulsion option that would
allow NX to move through the inner solar system swiftly enough to reduce crew
exposures to both Van Allen and solar-cosmic radiation as well as to reduce
costs by minimizing consumption of non-renewables.

Whilst developing the nuke plant, NX in a much smaller configuration could use
a chemical rocket and act as the transfer vehicle for short missions to GEO
(to install those darling SPS prototypes) expanding to translunar study tours.

If the NX design is truly modular, you would not build out the Mars excursion
version to go to GEO. You'd start with the much smaller version (think
initially of the boxcar items in the front only) that could be easily
propelled with a chemical rocket to get a crew through the Van Allen belts
quickly enough to minimize their risk. (Plus the boxcars would also provide
some amount of shielding.) Apollo proved there is a way to get this done.

Happy Holidays Everyone.