NASA ponders future of human space exploration

Just because we don’t have a ride to space doesn’t mean we’re not thinking about sending a human there again, NASA said on Friday, in so many words.

The national space agency announced the creation of the Human Exploration and Operations mission directorate, a new organization that will focus on International Space Station operations and human exploration “beyond low Earth orbit.”

The group will be made up of two previous missions directorates, the Space Operations and Exploration Systems directorates, and is in response to the agency’s new role as a leading facilitator of private sector space flight.

Former Space Operations associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier will head the new organization.
Among the new directorate’s responsibilities:

• Space station support;
• Commercial crew and cargo developmental programs
• Construction of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, a spacecraft designed to travel beyond low Earth orbit
• Development of a new heavy lift rocket, known as the Space Launch System

The administrative and personnel transition is expected to take several weeks, though the directorate is already operating under the new name.

“America is opening a bold new chapter in human space exploration,” NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. “We are recommitting ourselves to American leadership in space for years to come.”