Space Exploration Workshop Charts Online

NASA sets out systematically to conquer space.

I wonder if we will hear anything from the "let's just build a big rocket instead" tendency?

From what I saw of the charts, I am not impressed with the flagship technology part. They just do not have the guts to tell the truth...you need nuclear reactors in space to go to Mars. They talk about technology demos on the ground for a non-nuclear system to develop technology. What is that? Then they talk about SEP. Again, that is not getting us to Mars. It might be cool, but it is not practicle for deep space. So, I see this as just a big waste. There is no cohesive plan that ties all of this together and political correctness will not let them do what needs to be done..test in space nuclear power/propulsion.

It looks like these folks did a lot of work to lay out the kind of projects that need to be pursued. Its not a program at this point; just a series of project studies.

They did not really lay out the kinds of spacecraft configurations or propulsion systems yet. Discussions about testing small inflatable modules on ISS. Talk about a large hydrocarbon/oxygen engine for the booster and extensive studies of engines and booster configurations hoping for an HLV approval sometime before 2015.

No doubt US human space flight as we have known it is ending and something different will take its place in time.

Only worrisome statement today was that in order to reduce costs all projects would be done across multiple centers, with management spread across multiple locations. That might be a politically astute approach, but it is likely not a cost effective one.

As a systems engineer, I am horrified at the lack of a cohesive vision displayed in this effort; as a taxpayer, I am furious at the idea that billions of $$ will be given to these nincompoops for their hobby-shop wish lists. As a safety engineer, when I see "NASA will set standards ... to maintain the necessary level of safety" on the heels of an RFI asking someone, anyone, "How do you make a vehicle human rated?", I have to wonder if right hand knows what left is doing. I know Bryan O'Connor is smarter than this.

Even worse is the xPRM Study Team: they want an unspecified number of $800 million flights to: Define engineering boundary conditions beyond LEO? Identify hazards? "Provide knowledge to inform the selection of human exploration destinations"? WHAT!? Is NASA saying they don't know what hazards exist in space, and they can't figure out where they might want to go without churning through millions of dollars?
And that doesn't include this crown jewel of idiocy: "Foster participatory exploration opportunities", which, as near as I can decode, means getting people outside the agency to cough up intellectual property free of charge, since NASA is apparently admitting bankruptcy on that score. Considering that the first goal of this team is to turn the team into a permanent office, I'm not anticipating a surge in participatory excitement.
This briefing talks a lot about "tranformational. game-changeing technologies" -- the same mantra from the CAIB report 7 years ago. NASA has been repeating itself; NASP, SLI, X-33 all suffered from the same lack of proper systems engineering, which has turned the current POR into a POS.
While, IMHO, the Bush VSE was not well articulated, it did establish a clear objective: first, go back to the moon. The part that was missing from VSE was the reason to go back -- not to plant flags or pick up a few rocks, or even to explore, but to end up with permanent human colonization of the Moon.
In that sense, it is about jobs, because no colony can be successful until it is self-sustaining. To that end, the government's role should be to foster economic growth, because true "commercial space" won't exist until the customers are more than just NASA and DoD.