NASA Builds a Cheap Standardized Space Probe

TangAddict writes "Dr. Alan Weston, who previously invented bungee jumping, led a team of scientists at NASA Ames Research Center to build a $4 million spacecraft in less than two years. The Modular Common Spacecraft Bus is designed to accept payloads of up to 50kg. and can be used for a variety of missions including a rendezvous with asteroids, orbiting Earth or Mars, and landing on the moon. When NASA officials saw the first flight test, they offered Weston and his team $80 million to use their design for the LADEE mission, which will gather dust and atmosphere samples from the moon in 2011."

Comments

Re:NASA cutting costs? Hardly.

[QuantumG]

Not everything in this world is the result of a conspiracy. I never said or implied it was.

There are national security concerns for anything involving space flight. Any release of technology has to be approved by an export control officer. Wow, kinda sounds like people are conspiring to keep that information secret.