Aug 17, 2009
Posted by Ray Katz in NASA, current
Ares 1-X ready for test, oblivion
Ares 1-X: Ready to go...away?
NASA has the Ares 1-X assembled and ready for a test flight on October 31st. Happy Halloween…because the scary thing is that the rocket may be heading for oblivion.
With an impossibly tight budget and a commission scheduled to make recommendations for the future of NASA’s manned flight program, many think the rocket will be discontinued.
Marshall Space Flight Center—which is doing research and development for Ares—would reportedly still be busy if the Ares was killed. But such a move would put NASA’s manned spaceflight program in reverse. NASA simply doesn’t have the budget to go forward.
Stay tuned…but it’s not looking good.
We will be lucky if we get the Ares I partial replacement (it can only carry crew, not cargo) for the space shuttle (if the Augustine Committee and President Obama do not kill it – like they are already talking of killing manned moon base plans and the Ares 5 which would enable heavy lifting and the Altair moon lander and Earth/moon transit vehicle) . If we don’t have the ISS as a destination we have nowhere to send manned space missions (heck, if they cancel the ISS we might as well stay home and throw in the towel). Already decisions have been made which will reduce us to a third rate non space faring agency. We will have to beg/buy/borrow rides (7 years) from the Russians and China is able to send men into space, too, as we plan to retire the space shuttle in 2010 and won’t have the Ares until 2017, if ever. Look how well outsourcing everything to India and China has worked for us. If he cancels the Ares I, we will go from a leadership position to a non space faring Obama banana republic. China is planning to develop it’s plan for the moon, and they will do it even if we don’t or do it. So, I guess there will be human colonization on the moon, space, and the stars, it just won’t be us unless we change direction. We can have our wonderful robotic exploration space agency chronicle the expansion of their civiization. Think of how much money we’ll save letting them have the rest of the universe. Our only other hopes are idealistic creators like Chang-Diaz with his VASIMR rocket, Burt Rutan with Space Ship One, and Elon Musk with the Falcon (cargo) and Dragon (crew) vehicles. Once they appear to be viable, then, perhaps, they can be opened to public investment and the unlimited resevoir of human greed can be harnessed to make profits and increase their activity.