Exploration: Past and Future Contributions of the Vertical Lift Community and the Flight Vehicle Research and Technology Division

: Fulfillment of the exploration vision will require new cross-mission directorate and multi-technical discipline synergies in order to achieve the necessary long-term sustainability. In part, lessons from the Apollo-era, as well as more recent research efforts, suggest that the aeronautics--and specifically the vertical lift--research community can and will make significant contributions to the exploration effort. A number of notional concepts and associated technologies for such contributions are outlined.