What’s Next for Huntsville?

Over at Aviation Week, Frank Morring, Jr. takes a look at the situation down in Huntsville, where officials are grappling with uncertainties over exactly what type of heavy-lift vehicle they will develop should the Senate compromise on NASA’s budget be approved.

It seems there are several options for an HLV with various engines (RL-10, RS-68, and J-2X) in the running. A heavy-lifter derived from the space shuttle system is judged to be the fastest way to go. That could well be true, given Marshall’s long history with the program. It also reflects the institutional bias of Huntsville, which oversaw development of the space shuttle’s propulsion system. Shuttle-C always seems to be the answer. Whether it’s an affordable answer has always been the question.

Morring takes says that whatever is agreed upon, this marks a major change for the NASA center in Alabama.

That involves throwing out the carefully crafted approach to what then-Administrator Michael Griffin called the agency’s biggest challenge—managing the transition from the space shuttle to the follow-on Ares I and its Orion crew exploration vehicle—and finding the best way forward in today’s make-it-up-as-you-go-along space-policy environment.

Carefully crafted? Perhaps. Executable? Ahhhh…I don’t know. One thing is for certain, NASA didn’t manage the transition well at all. Which is why we’re in this hole.

Read the full story.