posted 02-23-2016 01:56 PM               

• Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), targeted for 2018, sends an uncrewed Orion on a distant retrograde orbital flight around the moon.

• Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2), targeted for 2021 but to fly no later than 2023, sends a crewed Orion on a distant retrograde orbital flight around the moon.

No other specific missions are manifested, though NASA has funded studies for extended Orion missions in lunar orbit that would prepare crews and hardware for longer journeys out into space, including to Mars.

posted 02-23-2016 07:10 PM               

Although any future human trip to the Moon is still at least a decade away, behind the scenes, the next-generation lunar lander has already appeared on the drawing board—or more precisely, on a computer screen in Russia.

posted 02-23-2016 08:21 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2), targeted for 2021 but to fly no later than 2023, sends a crewed Orion on a distant retrograde orbital flight around the moon.

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posted 02-24-2016 10:43 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Fra Mauro:
While I support the Orion/SLS program, the flight rate and budget schedules make this program dillusional.

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posted 02-24-2016 10:31 PM               

Mars is a pipe dream at this point. It has become a sales pitch thrown around by NASA to justify just about everything they do. The ARM is a joke and will be canceled, regardless of who next occupies the White House, because it has morphed into a project that has nothing to do with going to Mars.

There is a national tug of war between the "commercial" supporters vs. the "government" (read SLS) supporters. Some think that if we simply canceled one the other would thrive. Nonsense. SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin, and Virgin aren't leaving suborbital or LEO anytime soon. And now some claim that SLS has no destination.

And the justification for this lack of a workable flight rate, even by Bolden himself, is the lack of a lander? So the simple answer is build a lunar lander and that will provide SLS with a realistic goal and a reasonable flight rate? Maybe so.

But what is really needed is a realignment of near term goals to fully utilize SLS. If the national leadership can fully realize the potential that SLS brings and the history that produced it, maybe then they will move toward a new exploration of the moon. Leverage the experience working with the commercial companies and our international partners, spread the cost of the lander among partners or even follow the Commercial Crew model and have competitors contend for the contract.

That same lander design, or components of it, might be suitable long term for use in the moons of Mars, so the lunar architecture is not a side street or dead end.

posted 03-12-2016 06:47 AM               

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Originally posted by 328KF:
And why is that? Lack of real leadership and interest, pure and simple.

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1. the logistics are expensive.
   
2. There are no real resources to claim to justify the expense.
   
3. Without a killer app or something with an ROI, there is little reason for industry to go there.
   
4. Without industry, there is little reason for governments to go there.

Say all what you want about the intangible reasons to go into space, they are not enough to justify the cost and it is reflected in the government funding levels. NASA's funding is more based on jobs that it will provide than the soft power it projects. That is why NASA went from mission driven to capability driven.

posted 05-12-2016 09:16 AM               

A funding bill for 2017 approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee April 21 sets aside at least $300 million of the $2.15 billion provided for SLS to continue work on EUS. That bill has not been taken up by the full Senate, and the House has yet to introduce a companion spending bill.

Honeycutt suggested he assumed the higher spending levels would continue to be available for EUS, which will complete a preliminary design review by the end of this year. Citing "favorable appropriations" for the program this year, he said, "our plan now is to fly EM-2 with the Exploration Upper Stage."

posted 03-28-2017 01:23 PM               

During his presentation, Gerstenmaier presented slides outlining the assembly of a "deep space gateway" and subsequent testing of a "deep space transport" system in the vicinity of the Moon. The sequence of missions would culminate in a crewed mission to orbit Mars, but not land, in 2033. Although Gerstenmaier did not identify the funding needed for such a series of events — which would certainly be considerable and require support from the Trump administration — Tuesday's presentation nonetheless offered an insightful peek into NASA’s future plans.