NASA Internal Email: Shuttle Extension Assessment

Courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel

From: Coggeshall, John C. (JSC-MA)

Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 4:23 PM

To: Larochelle, Joseph K. (JSC-OM); Fuller, Sean M. (JSC-OC); Gensler, Janejit T. (JSC-OM3); Feldman, Holly (JSC-OM); Overton, Thomas L. (KSC); Ford, Clark D. (KSC); Magendie, Brian (MAF-NASA_MAF)[Lockheed Martin Space Systems Com; Dwyer, Kenneth J. (JSC-MV6); Jackson, Melodie M. (KSC); ‘Lemoine, Patrick K. (KSC)[USA]’; Davidson, Dennis R. (JSC-MM)

Cc: Lyons, Douglass E. (KSC); Phillips, Pepper (KSC); Wyche, Vanessa E. (JSC-ZD); Castle, Robert E. (JSC-ZD); Beck, Kelly B. (JSC-DA); Rasco, Dorothy S. (JSC-MM)

Subject: Shuttle extension assessment

The SSP program in conjunction with Cx and ISS have been asked by the administrator to put together some manifest options to assess extending shuttle flights to 2015. SSP would like to have some options developed for review by senior management by the end of September. The result of the review might be a formal budget assessment of a option(s).

We will start by using the manifest team to put together a option(s). I would like to start getting some initial thoughts next week. What I want to do is focus in on initially is what would make sense given the current conditions with ISS and Cx. We have been encouraged not to focus on a certain set of assumptions or costs. We will probably develop multiple options. In my initial discussions with John these are the things I would like to think about

– We can’t just spread out the 10 flights to 2015, that does not support ISS requirements

– We will need some new ETs and that’s the long lead item so we may need a little “stretching”.

– We will have to put orbiters in OMDP

– We don’t want to get in the way of Cx development by holding on to facilities they need (HB3, MLP, Pad , Crawler, Engine Test stands etc)

– Flight rate is not given

– Don’t necessarily need all 3 orbiters either

We want to focus on helping bridge the gap of US vehicles traveling to the ISS as efficiently as possible.

Joe LaRochelle will have some preliminary ISS requirements for us next week, and Ken is going to work on OMDP thoughts.

Thanks, and this should actually be fun. Well as fun as anything gets if you’re a manifest dweeb.

John Coggeshall / 281.483.0487

JSC-MA / Manifest and Schedules