A group of secretive rocket designers have defected from NASA's rocket-building team to spearhead their own forbidden project. They spend their evenings designing Jupiter (pictured), a moon rocket they think will work far better for less money then NASA's current moon rocket, Ares, set to bring some people to the moon in 2020.
i09: The Moon Rocket Project NASA Doesn't Want You to Know About
::The folks advocating for Direct 2.0 say that right out of the gate, their program is already four years ahead of the approved NASA initiative, Ares I. They imagine that they could have us flying Apollo 8 type Moon overflights 2 years before the first manned Constellation flight currently planned.
Now I'm no rocket scientist. (Despite the hours I spent playing around with a Space Station construction simulation on the PCjr of my youth.) But the story this maverick group of rocket jocks has to tell seems pretty compelling.
Their plan includes the reuse of about 95% of the existing Space Shuttle (STS) hardware and infrastructure, vs. what they say is the NASA plan to pitch all but 5% of what we have today.
These engineers make the point that back in the 70's, NASA went for years demolishing infrastructure and not flying... which was disastrous. They want us to avoid the same mistakes this time around.
They believe that in addition to being significantly cheaper, and safer than the 2 vehicle plan NASA is working on... that their plan means no 3 and a half year workforce gap would be necessary. (Imagining aerospace engineers working as a the world's smartest baristas between programs.) These folks are pretty motivated.
Dig deeper for yourself by watching their presentation, and the video does a good job of illustrating the plan too.
NASA's response to the buzz around Direct 2.0 seems to be, "we're committed, moving on."
Gosh... It feels like we've heard that before.
