Directions for future Earth-to-orbit vehicles

NASA is currently assessing several programmatic possibilities. The desire is to maintain the current capability for transportation to orbit provided by the Space Shuttle and the existing fleet of commercial vehicles, develop the Space Station Freedom, and initiate a new program of exploration of the Moon and Mars, called the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI). At the same time, the NASA budget is likely to be held to current levels. Cost estimates indicate that it will not be possible to satisfy all the goals without cost reductions. One of the concepts being considered for cost reduction is to replace the Space Shuttle and existing commercial vehicles with a new set of vehicles called the National Launch System (NLS). Several concepts have been studied, but none of the concepts studied to date provides the desired combination of cost/flight reduction, acceptable development cost, and technology readiness. An additional goal is to provide a path to grow the NLS capability into a heavy-lift capability for SEI missions.