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NASA Uncertain How To Proceed In Developing Deep Space Module (examiner.com)
MarkWhittington writes: One of the provisions of the new NASA spending bill, which provided a hefty $1.3 billion boost to the space agency's budget, is a mandate to build a prototype habitation module for deep space exploration by 2018. Space News suggested that NASA is uncertain how to proceed with this sudden largess. Quite some time has passed since the space agency has gotten more money than expected and been told to speed up the development of an item of hardware. Usually, the opposite happens, with accompanying delays and increases in overall costs.
The model has worked poorly in what regard? SpaceX is actively delivering cargo to ISS for about 40% the per launch cost of ULA (without reuse) and has meet certification to deliver crew. A whole Dragon launch is going to cost NASA about as much as a single seat on Soyuz, and the whole COTS program, yielding two launch vehicles and two automated transfer vehicles cost about the same as a single Shuttle flight. The NASA final report on the program basically goes through every combination of phrases meaning "unqualified success" in the English language in describing the results of the program.
Shiny New Australia.
A deep space module needs to be able to maintain a crew for years without resupply. That means bulky life support spaces - either a huge amount of food and oxygen storage or a farm module - along with enough spare parts to repair any and all possible faults that might occur. With the habitable parts wrapped up in heavy radiation shielding. You're not getting that up in one piece - it's going to have to be assembled in orbit using a modular design, probably involving a few habitation and life support modules connected up to non-habitable supply modules. Skylab is about the biggest you can launch in one piece, and it's far too small to go to deep space. A manned craft for deep space is going to look a lot like a smaller and more linear version of the ISS.
The article talking about a 'habitation module' isn't helpful. Surviving for years without supplies doesn't need a module, it needs a whole complex of modules that fit and work together.