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Uncategorized Monday, February 14th 2011 at 3:52 pm

My Other Ride is the NAUTILUS-X Spaceship

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While NASA struggles to define its new role in the wake of Constellation’s cancellation and the impending retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet, some of its engineers are refusing to sit idly by. Mark Holderman and Edward Henderson, both engineers at the Johnson Spaceflight Center, have designed the Non-Atmospheric Universal Transport Intended for Lengthy United States X-ploration Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle, or NAUTILUS-X. For a paltry $3.7 billion and 64 months of work, this craft could take us to the Moon, Mars, or any mission within 24 months of flight time.

NAUTILUS-X aims to use proven existing technologies and experimental designs in a modular, reconfigurable design to be assembled in space. From Yahoo News:

The Nautilus X would consist of a variety of ridged and inflatable modules, solar dynamic arrays, any of a number of mission specific propulsion modules, a manipulator arms, docking ports for Orion or commercial space craft such as the SpaceX Dragon, landing craft for destination worlds and (this is the key) a centrifuge that would simulate partial gravity to maintain the health of the crew for long duration space missions. There would be logistical modules, a radiation mitigation system, facilities for a hydroponic farm, and hangers for landing craft and EVA pods.

The NAUTILUS-X would initially serve as a stopover station for missions to the moon. It would also carry its own landing craft for surface expeditions. Anchored at the L1 Lagrange point, the area of space where the Moon and Earth’s gravitational effects are canceled, space craft would dock with the NAUTILUS-X and use its landing craft to journey to the moon. Proving itself in this context, a propulsion system would make the NAUTILUS-X a true space-faring vehicle.

Of course, the NAUTILUS-X only exists on paper, and it will probably stay that way. But the child in me cannot help but get excited over this craft, and long for the day when human dedication will match our aspirations.

Download the PowerPoint rundown on the NAUTILUS-X.

(Yahoo News and SpaceRef via i09)

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  • Terz81

    When President Unable leaves office;
    I predict a second Booster will end up being designed and built and it will resemble the Ares I
    Just like the Saturn V you had the Saturn .
    As per capsules the Government should have looked at the Gemini the Astronauts perferred
    it over the Apollo, and there was bigger versions designed the biggest was called Big G
    it could carry twelve astronauts.

  • Terz81

    I like how they keep calling the space launch system a mega booster!
    There have been other boosters that were designed and money actually spent on.
    Recently I just learned of the largest they actually considered  It was called Sea Dragon
    it was so large that it was designed to be launched from the sea, it would have been towe out to sea by the U.S.S. Enterprise it had ballest tanks in the first stage that would be flooded so as to right the booster than it would have been loaded and ready for launch.
    Than you have the Super Nova rockets The Saturn V and saturn I were part of the program
    one was so large and powerful it would have had thirty F-I engines they said if it had been built and launched from the cape the thrust and energy delivered from the thirty conventional engines would have equaled a nuclear blast it would have vaporized the launch tower and melted the launch pad, Than you have the Nexus Booster the first stage I think was 200 Feet
    in Diameter if built it would put in orbit between 1,000 to 2,000 short tons, it was designed
    to put the Orion Project into space or the Nerva Project into Space. in one shot.

  • Keotaman

    Should be:
    “The Nautilus X would consist of a variety of rigid and inflatable modules”  instead of: “The Nautilus X would consist of a variety of ridged and inflatable modules”

    Can’t Yahoo News employ proofers, if not actual writers?

  • Herald the Marksman

    Dude, please learn the difference between “then” and “than”.