Posted by Ray Katz in NASA, current, private
NASA administrator: Ares would be safer
NASA's planned successor to the retiring space shuttle
Charles Bolden, the NASA administrator thinks the soon-to-be-canceled Ares rocket would be safer for astronauts to fly than the alternatives.
“My gut tells me Ares would be safer than anything else” was General Bolden’s response to a question about the safety of the various options. Under President Obama’s space plan, NASA would be responsible for the safety of astronauts aboard vehicles designed, built and operated by private companies.
President Obama wants to cancel all development and operation of manned spacecraft, and have our astronauts hitch rides to the International Space Station aboard foreign or private spaceships. Currently, there are no private spaceshipsto do the job. And, the only foreign spacecraft suitable to the task is Russia’s Soyuz.
Instead of developing and flying manned spacecraft, as America has done since 1961, NASA will do research on how we would be able to send astronauts to an asteroid or Mars..in the event that the country ever decides to make that effort.
Also included in Obama’s plan is the notion of building a heavy lift vehicle in 5 years which…one assumes…will never carry astronauts and probably be canceled by some future president.
Like Ares.
