NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Welcome to the KSC Next Gen Site _____[Questions? Comments?]
Home It's about routine, affordable, and safe access to and from space...

How can we achieve routine, affordable, and safe transportation to and from space? It is the goal of this site to assist in answering that question.

Enabling future space transportation systems growth requires improving multiple elements and their processes. This includes the flight vehicle, the spaceport, and the organization. It requires all of these be optimized, together. Customers, developers, designers and operators working from a whole systems perspective, building on the lessons of the past - that is our emphasis in the next generation of designs for access to space.

Within Reach, Within Us (video)

Within Reach, Within Us, Video in mpg format 4 MB

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Bio

NASA Kennedy Space Center

Update Log

February 4, 2010

  • Developing a Robust, Adaptable NASA Human Space Flight Strategy Factoring Budgetary and Technological Uncertainty or "The Primer" to NASA & Contractor Costs, October 10, 2009 (Post-Augustine Commitee)

September 4, 2009

  • The Unseen Cost: Industrial Base Consequences of Defense Strategy Choices, July 2009, by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA)

August 17, 2009

  • Shuttle Shortfalls and Lessons Learned for the Sustainment of Human Space Exploration, Presented at the 45th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference, AIAA 2009-5346, 2-5 August 2009, Denver, Colorado by - Edgar Zapata, NASA, Kennedy Space Center, Florida & Daniel J. H. Levack, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Canoga Park, California & Russel E. Rhodes, NASA, Kennedy Space Center, Florida & John W. Robinson, The Boeing Company, Huntington Beach, California

August 14, 2009

July 13, 2009

June 10, 2009

June 2, 1009

  • Space-Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security, Phase 0 Architecture Feasibility Study, Report to the Director, National Security Space Office, Interim Assessment, Release 0.1, 10 October 2007 (download, 3.6MB .pdf)

"Preventing resource conflicts in the face of increasing global populations and demands in the 21st century is a high priority for the Department of Defense. All solution options to these challenges should be explored, including opportunities from space.

In March 2007, the National Security Space Office’s Advanced Concepts Office presented the idea of space-based solar power (SBSP) as a potential grand opportunity to address not only energy security, but environmental, economic, intellectual, and space security as well. First proposed in the late 1960’s, the concept was last explored in the NASA’s 1997 "Fresh Look" Study. In the decade since this last study, advances in technology and new challenges to security have warranted a current exploration of the strategic implications of SBSP. For these reasons, my office sponsored a no-cost Phase 0 Architecture Feasibility Study of SBSP during the Spring and Summer of 2007."

May 26, 2009

"The Joint Confidence Level Paradox, A History of Denial", by Glenn Butts, NASA Kennedy Space Center, and Kent Litton, SAIC/Craig Technologies (download, 3MB .pdf)

"The authors provide Historical Evaluation of Cost and Schedule Estimating Performance During NASA's Tenure as an Agency - Following which they introduce an optimum Hybrid model for more accurately calculating Cost and Schedule estimates in NASA's Complex systems engineering environment."

May 4, 2009

A brief analysis exploring the change in the U.S launcher success record relative to the rest of the world after the Shuttle and the Delta II systems are retired. This is a record of successfully attaining orbit, not spacecraft reliability once on orbit. The Bayesian "Probability of Success" or "p.o.s". is k(lv) +1/n(lv) +2 (see attached table), so that the risk of a launcher without much of a track record is accounted for and a launcher with, say, and 0 and 1 record, isn’t given a zero probability of success.

The original data, minus the graph/sorting, and the subtraction effect/analysis is credited to Ed Kyle and http://www.geocities.com/launchreport/reliability2009.txt, the "SPACE LAUNCH REPORT, ACTIVE LAUNCH VEHICLE RELIABILITY STATISTICS" as of April 29, 2009.

February 17, 2009

(Revised): The ez-NASA Model, A Tool for Strategic Insight

February 3, 2009

Counting the Links in the Supply Chain, as published January 2009 in NASA's Rendezvous Magazine.

OR - NASA internal web only - the article at Rendezvous Magazine.

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Space Station Assembly Sequence Animation