N
no_way
Guest
Let me be clear, i have nothing agains VSE, i have nothing against NASA exploring or anything like that. But i do think that ESAS ( as in, implementation of VSE ) is the most braindead and wrong way to go about it.<br /><br />Proof:<br /><b>NASA Urges Closing Lunar Robotics Office (Source: Aviation Week)</b><br /><i>Among the actions NASA recommends in its FY-07 operating plan is shutting down the Lunar Precursor and Robotic Program Office at Marshall Space Flight Center, where a whole generation of unmanned orbiters, rovers, hoppers and penetrators was under consideration as scouts for a human landing on the moon. Management of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), a piggyback pair of impactors to be carried on the 2008 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), will be pulled into NASA headquarters, but the rest will be dropped in keeping with the agency's decision to focus on replacing the space shuttle with the Orion/Ares I stack.</i><br /><br />Space.Com article on the same topic:<br />http://www.space.com/news/060316_nasa_moonlander.html<br /><br />So, NASA wanting to build and operate their own launchers is basically killing the actual exploration itself already. <br />Regardless of what VSE outlined ( we will send a robotic mission to moon each year, beginning in 2008 .. )