As to how much more convenient, we aren’t talking about having it as easy as boarding a plane. Engineers at the Johnson Spaceflight Center, however, have come up with the Non-Atmospheric Universal Transport Intended for Lengthy United States X-ploration Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle, or NAUTILUS-X for short, where this idea took $3.7 billion to conceive and 64 months of work – the main task? To bring any human to the Moon, Mars, or other mission within 24 months of flight time. Sounds too good to be true? Perhaps it is due to the utilization of proven existing technologies and experimental designs in a modular, reconfigurable design that made everything possible. Of course, this is still an idea on a piece of paper, but we long for the day when it becomes reality.
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