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The Orlando Sentinel has what is apparently a draft of NASA’s roadmap for the VSE.

Perhaps unavoidably, given that it’s a government program and it’s being run by an agency with an aversion to both risk and new thinking, the VSE is looking more and more like Apollo II…even down to the Apollo-like capsule (capsule?) riding on a Saturn-like rocket and crew access to the surface with a LEM-like lander.

Unlike Apollo, however, the crew is larger, the planned surface stays longer, the planned activities on the surface more constructive and interesting, and there is a follow-on destination as part of the package. So, perhaps it would be more accurate to think of it as a “back to the future” Apollo redux, picking up where Apollo 17 left off and forgetting the long national nightmare that has been the Shuttle program.

Posted on July 31st, 2005 under Space Policy. Comments: 5