ABSTRACT
Affordable and reliable access to space is a fundamental and necessary requirement to achieve the loftier goals of expanding space exploration. It also plays an important role in achieving the near-term benefits of space-based technologies for mankind. The development, performance, and reliability of liquid rocket propulsion systems have played and will continue to play a critical role in this mission. However, the cost of development of a typical propulsion system in the past was on the order of a few billion dollars. The design approaches using nondeterministic technologies as well as deterministic design space exploration approaches show promise in significantly reducing the development costs and improving the robustness and reliability of newly developed propulsion systems.
