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There are older posts about this in the Lounge and Fan Works, but I'm interested in what the Science & Spaceflight audience thinks, and I think it's pretty clearly related to spaceflight. It also ties in to recent threads about manned vs unmanned exploration, which destinations should be prioritized, which technologies show promise, etc. (I discovered it today via a related link after someone else linked another story on the same site.) This PDF is a gigantic, extremely detailed chronological flow chart depicting a path from the status quo of 1989 into a future of space stations, off world bases, fusion propulsion, SSTO spaceplanes, and more. But rather than the science fiction author or KSP player you might assume, the author was an employee of Rockwell International's space division, before it was acquired by Boeing. http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/spaceflight/integrated-space-plan/ http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/rockwell-integrated-space-plan.pdf I'm curious how folks react to this attempt to create an overarching vision tying together all the challenges, opportunities, and dependencies of space exploration, historical relic though it may be. (It also amuses me to see a governmental contractor using such high-flown language as "Emergence of homo sapiens as an intragalactic species" and "Gaia proliferates". I have to wonder who they thought of as their intended audience.) It's wildly optimistic (lunar outpost established 2006-ish, includes a Shuttle-Centaur program), so we can take responses along those lines as a given. However, with some charitable interpretation you could argue that "second generation reusable spacecraft" is almost on time with SpaceX. Specific dates on the timeline aside, questions of interest include but are not limited to: Have any of the forecasts failed for reasons other than political will and funding---in other words, unanticipated technical barriers? Are there major critical paths or dependencies that are missing? Do documents like this have practical value, or are they pure feel-good PR? Does anyone know of a more up to date timeline maintained by a still-operating player in the space industry?
