NASA Announces Deep Space Exploration Vehicle

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, at podium, is flanked by Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, Bill Nelson, D-Fla., John Boozman, R-Ark., Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, and Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., as he speaks about the design of a new Space Launch System during a press conference, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2011, at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington. The new system will take the agency’s astronauts farther into space than ever before, create high-quality jobs here at home, and provide the cornerstone for America’s future human space exploration efforts. Photo Credit: (NASA/Paul E. Alers) photo via Flickr

Deep Space Exploration Vehicle Announcement (201109140003HQ)

See more: NASA HQ photo on Flickr

Contrary to what some have claimed, said or asserted, America’s space program is not dead. The Deep Space Exploration Vehicle will take manned spaceflight further and deeper into outer space than any previous program.

We have been extremely fortunate to have had the Space Shuttle program to last as long as it did. It went well beyond it’s projected life expectancy. And while in a very real way it did not provide the hoped-for benefit of cost savings – it was a phenomenally expensive program to operate – it did provide useful service to continue space exploration, continue Earth science research, physics experiments, repair the Hubble Space Telescope, to launch and build satellites, and to build and repair the International Space Station.

And like any other vehicle or thing, it had a life expectancy. The Shuttle long outlived it’s life expectancy.

So, yeah… I think we got our money’s worth from the Shuttle.

Caption via Flickr:
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, at podium, is flanked by Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, Bill Nelson, D-Fla., John Boozman, R-Ark., Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, and Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., as he speaks about the design of a new Space Launch System during a press conference, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2011, at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington. The new system will take the agency’s astronauts farther into space than ever before, create high-quality jobs here at home, and provide the cornerstone for America’s future human space exploration efforts. Photo Credit: (NASA/Paul E. Alers)