Future
The Space Shuttle was retired in 2011. The VAB could be used to some extent for assembly and processing of any future vehicles utilizing Launch Complex 39. As of early 2012, NASA is offering tours of the VAB for "a limited time." In the future, the VAB will be used to prepare commercial launch vehicles, and for the use of NASA's new Space Launch System.
The NASA FY2013 budget includes $143.7 million USD for Cost of Facilities (CoF) requirements in support of Exploration programs including Space Launch System (SLS) and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV). NASA will begin modifying Launch Complex 39 at KSC to support the new SLS. NASA will begin with major repairs, code upgrades and safety improvements to the Launch Control Center, Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and the VAB Utility Annex. This initial work will be required to support any launch vehicle operated from Launch Complex 39 and will allow NASA to begin modernizing the facilities, while vehicle specific requirements are being developed.
Read more about this topic: Vehicle Assembly Building
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“At sixty, I would like to give my future back its vistas of uncertainty.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“The future is just as much a condition of the present as is the past. “What shall be and must be is the ground of that which is.””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)