Jun 19, 2011

Posted by in Mars, NASA, current, moon

Constellation reborn

The planned successor to the shuttle program was dead. But it didn’t stay dead. Constellation, a program to return to the moon and go to Mars using a spacecraft called Orion and a booster called Ares, was criticized as too expensive and plagued with technical problems.

So, the program was ended. But a few weeks back, the Orion spacecraft was revived (albeit the name was dropped). And NASA announced it would be used for manned flight beyond earth orbit.

Today, we hear that Ares will also be revived (without the name).

This is good news, because the Ares-Orion combo is capable of doing great things in space; and they are the safest vehicles for manned flight ever. After decades of flying the very dangerous shuttle, this will be refreshing.

But NASA is in a precarious situation. Politicians are fickle. NASA may end up (yet again) insufficiently funded. Long -term programs, like ambitious manned spaceflight, require steady, dependable money.

  • Paulo

    these boosters are so bad for environment! i do not understand the choice of that engines.
    engines of solid-fuel engines are bad for the environment. the smoke of it show the reality

  • Anonymous

    The SRBs ARE bad news. Bad for environment. Very dangerous. (Remember Challenger). They are used because they are relatively cheap. I’d like to see them discontinued. Liquid fuel engines are better all around.