How can we achieve routine, affordable, and safe transportation to and from space? It is the goal of this site to assist in answering that question.

Enabling future space transportation systems growth requires improving multiple elements and their processes. This includes the flight vehicle, the spaceport, and the organization. It requires all of these be optimized, together. Customers, developers, designers and operators working from a whole systems perspective, building on the lessons of the past - that is our emphasis in the next generation of designs for access to space.

• Space Transportation Systems Affordability, Responsiveness, Reliability and Safety

• Space Transportation Systems Operations
  • Models
  • Simulations
  • Data
  • Analysis
  • Tools, Surveys

• Spaceport

• Space Solar Power

• Highly Reusable Space Transportation Study

The NASA Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS)

Within Reach, Within Us (video)

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Bio

NASA Kennedy Space Center

Update Log

January 8, 2009

• White Paper (revised): Making the Case for a NASA Advanced Supply Chain Management Initiative, Edgar Zapata, NASA KSC.

July 25, 2008

• Space Station Assembly Sequence Animation

July 10, 2008

"Space exploration enriches and strengthens humanity’s future. Searching for answers to fundamental questions such as: ‘Where did we come from?’ ‘What is our place in the universe?’ and ‘What is our destiny?’ can bring nations together in a common cause, reveal new knowledge, inspire young people and stimulate technical and commercial innovation on Earth. ...The Global Exploration Strategy is key to delivering these benefits."

Download report > here or here.

June 24, 2008

Added to SRM Balancer -

• (9) Paper presented at the SpaceOps 2008 Conference, hosted and organized by ESA and EUMETSAT in association with AIAA, "Space Transportation System Availability Requirement and Its Influencing Attributes Relationships", Russel E. Rhodes, Timothy C. Adams, and Carey M. McCleskey, NASA, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, 32899. Download (.pdf).

From Abstract: "The relationship of selecting a reliability requirement will place a constraint on parts count to achieve a given availability requirement or if allowed to increase the parts count will drive the system reliability requirement higher."

From Conclusion: In summary, system-development work that focuses on inherent reliability, MTBF with an emphasis on parts count, and maintainability will improve performance, safety, and operational affordability. Performance is improved when fewer and better parts are used as well as provide the additional benefit of less weight. Safety is improved as hardware that does not fail during integration, checkout, and servicing inevitably will perform better in actual use. Affordability is also improved with every improvement in inherent reliability, maintainability, and focusing on reduced parts count as better overall performance makes each flight more productive and allows for additional flights due to shorter process or production intervals. Ultimately, hardware that fails during processing, regardless of redundancies, will not function well in a long flight. All that is lacking for improved technology is the investment up-front (e.g., focus on improved generic technology that numerous subsequent users can take advantage of to justify their initial investment, such as the example of selecting the best technologies mention above). This payback could be across the entire economic growth perspective and not limited to a single system use.

March 31, 2008

• "The EZ-NASA Model". This work developed a simple dashboard model that helps to visualize numerous NASA budgetary scenarios. Use of the EZ-NASA Model can help understand the macro-level constraints common to many scenarios. The goal is to understand and bring about those scenarios that assure the generational endeavor of exploring beyond Earth, that are robust to future events, are achievable, and allow for the continued expansion of the human presence beyond Earth.

“Elsewhere, I have written that a careful analysis of what we can do at NASA on constant-dollar budgets leads me to believe that we can realistically be on Mars by the mid-2030's.” – NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, Space Transportation Association Luncheon, Jan. 23, 2008

March 21, 2008

• Available inside the KSC firewall only: NASA KSC "Estimating & Cost Engineering", construction, non-recurring cost focused, containing a wealth of information. Point-of-contact: Glenn Butts, NASA KSC, glenn.c.butts@nasa.gov. > http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/nasa-only/finance/COST_EST/Index.htm

March 12, 2008

• Small screens and even news on today's big screens usually misses conveying the awe of a Shuttle launch, never quite capturing the event, the vibration, especially the audio. This clip does an excellent job capturing the feeling, conveying the beginning of yet another voyage in the human endeavor, like ships leaving Genoa or Palos long ago...