Is NASA's Ares doomed?

Bring back the Saturn V! It's a proven technology with the highest lifting capacity ever. Why not upgrade this design?

Copy Russians.

I see a revolt coming ...

copy the russians?

sorry, but the russians were never able to even finish their moon rocket.

This piece left me disgusted. I hope everyone involved understands that this thing is our last best hope of continuing to have any manned space program at all.

Ladies and gentlemen, please get your act together.

This piece left me disgusted. I hope everyone involved understands that this thing is our last best hope of continuing to have any manned space program at all.

Ladies and gentlemen, please get your act together.

A symptom of the nation as a whole. Over the past 40 years we have drifted into mediocrity.

@cybrbeast; that is what I expected them to do to save money. My experience w/ engineers though is that they HAVE to have the newest and best toy instead of what is best for the overall mission.

"Bring back the Saturn V! It's a proven technology with the highest lifting capacity ever. Why not upgrade this design?"

That would be very wise of them, but (correct me if I'm wrong) NASA LOST THE BLUEPRINTS.

LOL!

-Axemaster

In any case, the mission to Mars will probably never take off. Rockets get exponentially larger with power requirements.

We seriously need to develop high impulse nuclear rockets. These ion drives are fine for unmanned probes, but in terms of anything practical for human spaceflight they are complete crap. If we had started out using nuclear from the beginning we wouldn't be in this stupid mess. It would all be figured out by now and going to the Moon, while not trivial, would be easily within reach.

"Bring back the Saturn V! It's a proven technology with the highest lifting capacity ever. Why not upgrade this design?"

That would be very wise of them, but (correct me if I'm wrong) NASA LOST THE BLUEPRINTS.

LOL!

-Axemaster

OK sorry folks, I just checked and need to debunk myself. This is not true. The blueprints were not lost. Here's a good link:

http://www.space....313.html

-Axemaster

Turn project management over to a defense contractor or to Burt Rutan.

NASA is filled with unmotivated "lifers" and bureaucracy. Government programs need a competition model, support two groups and once every so often dissolve the underperforming group and divide it's resources under the winning group that gets split into two new competing groups.

OR, have NASA step back into a supporting role and fund SPACEX, their getting the job done with a fraction of NASA's budget.

"We have been doing design work and development the way it has always been done. I mean, this is among the very hardest things that human beings do,"

yeah give him a break, this IS rocket science.

The problem with NASA is that it is a truly *MASSIVE* bureaucracy. They chose Ares because it was Griffins brain-child, not because it was the best choice. Being that NASA is a huge bureaucracy, it has massive inertia, and there is almost no chance of changing it's direction now that it is down the path of Ares. They will plod along and make the Ares 1 work, though IMHO it will most likely fall short of predictions. What NASA needs is a huge shake-up of the current dysfunctional culture. Competition from China and India may do that. If not then perhaps NASA should just go away and the funding put toward X-prize style goals for the private sector.

One small step for man... One giant leap backward for innovation. Serious, we go from a capsule on a rocket, to landing like a glider, back to a capsule. Why are we not taking off like a plane, and landing like one. Is there no balls left in anyone to be innovated? I weep at our techno know-how. Let's keep throwing money away on 50 year old technology.

What the hell are they, crazy?????
Do they think astronauts are all expendable like marshmallows?

hey its america for f%^#$ sake, everything must be big, noisy and have terrible fuel cosumption, therefore i present to you .....*drum roll* Ares 1!!!!

fire Michael Griffin, and give the job to Tony Stark :-)

Quote:

"At the highest levels of the agency, there seems to be a belief that you can mandate reality, followed by a refusal to accept any information that runs counter to that mandate," said Finckenor, whose farewell letter to his colleagues denouncing NASA management was posted (without his permission) on NASAWatch.com, an independent Web site.

this also appears to be the case with many of the comments here.

Buy a licence from Ariane and make it ready for humans. Technically this might be easy, just the politicians might not get it. Northrop has experience, they alreay won the Airbus tanker contest until the Boeing lobby stopped it.

George Bush has taken our country backward, he might take our space program backwards.

Give the budget allocated to NASA to Burt Rutan. Private industry is our only hope for a future in space. Governments need to get out of the game.

My brother was an electrical engineer on Saturn. Before he died, he said that NASA could not build Saturn again. For one thing, it doesn't meet safety standards now required (That it WORKED 100% of the time is irrelevant). I grew up in Huntsville. NASA died (it's still flailing around but it's dead - notice the smell?) when the politicos got involved and moved HQ to Houston. NASA is too big, unfocused, and no longer run by real ENGINEERS. A PhD is fine (even I've got one) but grease under your finger nails beats chalk dust every time.

"Is NASA's Ares doomed?"

I think NASA is doomed...

The expensive but right solution is to use the Ares V - man-rated but with less thrust, i.e., derated to lift 60K pounds to LEO in place of the Ares I.

Ok enough is enough. Time to regroup. Recall all our people from the floating hunk of junk. Slowly sell off the contracts for current missions to private contractors, sell off the property to private contractors, and most importantly SELL OFF THE MANNED SPACE FLIGHT to private contractors.

I can't say what I'd like to about the current quality of NASA's administration and scientists, and I honestly don't like to see anyone lose their jobs...but these people need to go.

There is NOTHING good I can say about the agency at this point. I believe it is totally unredeemable and needs to be privatized albeit government funded (at least for a while longer).

I know what nasa should do! Drill a hole all the way from one end of the earth to the other. Then drop a space ship down it. The ship will pick fall and pick up more and more speed untill it pops out the other end and shoots into space. Mmmmkay problem solved.

During the Apollo program we spent a whopping 4% of the budget on space exploration. Let's spend at least 5%, fix NASA, and get on with my hopes that humanity will survive after Earth is: used up, overpopulated, nuclear destruction etc.

In the 1970's we built what is in effect a dangerous and very expensive "Winnebago". Most know it as the space shuttle. It made sense to buld a reusable "space transportation system" Only (major) problem is certain new technologies had to be invented. Congress kept cutting the budget, mandates and capability changed, resulting in something that would have made Rube Goldberg proud.The available budget was not adequete for the huge developement problems a totally reuseable vehicle would present, with not enough time and resources to do it right. As it usually has, NASA succumb to the politicians saying "do it on our time frame with not the money you need but what were going to give you".

Had the U.S.continued to build upon known systems with gradual improvements and use expendable rockets utill we could build a decent true "delivery truck" (can you say "Soyuz"?), today we would have something better then the most expensive and dangerous use of "duct tape". The shuttle has roughly a 1 in 100 chance of not coming back in one piece. Bottom line? #1, You NEVER launch people on top of a big bomb with out an automatic escape system. #2, You can gradually impove capacity, range and flexibility. And a variant can be used for manned and unmanned transportation.

The government needs to lay the groundwork and really push the private sector in getting into space. In the short, and intermediate time frame, its the most practical/economical method.For at least the next ten years we need a combined CONSISTENT government/private effort to put humans back in space, starting w/ orbital access and the moon and STAY THERE.

Mars will still be there.But the need to both develope the Ares lifter NASA wants, and also at the same time LISTEN to the people working on their own time for a rocket they think is just better is a no brainer. In time it's going to get very crowded w/every country et.el. staking their claim. We need very quick use-ability and, private sector incentives for cost control to take advatage of the maximum effective,economic
process. This is to important to come in second.

In any case, the mission to Mars will probably never take off. Rockets get exponentially larger with power requirements.

We seriously need to develop high impulse nuclear rockets. These ion drives are fine for unmanned probes, but in terms of anything practical for human spaceflight they are complete crap. If we had started out using nuclear from the beginning we wouldn't be in this stupid mess. It would all be figured out by now and going to the Moon, while not trivial, would be easily within reach.

In any case, the mission to Mars will probably never take off. Rockets get exponentially larger with power requirements.

We seriously need to develop high impulse nuclear rockets. These ion drives are fine for unmanned probes, but in terms of anything practical for human spaceflight they are complete crap. If we had started out using nuclear from the beginning we wouldn't be in this stupid mess. It would all be figured out by now and going to the Moon, while not trivial, would be easily within reach.

Yes we need nukes. No question, old technology thats much better in 50yrs. Only problem are the yahoo's(not the web site) that break out in a rash when you say the "N" word...

This piece left me disgusted. I hope everyone involved understands that this thing is our last best hope of continuing to have any manned space program at all.

Ladies and gentlemen, please get your act together.

A symptom of the nation as a whole. Over the past 40 years we have drifted into mediocrity.

@cybrbeast; that is what I expected them to do to save money. My experience w/ engineers though is that they HAVE to have the newest and best toy instead of what is best for the overall mission.

I also work engineers a lot and if the newest is better and more economical then it makes sense to go that route. Would you want to use the Apollo era computers?

copy the russians?

sorry, but the russians were never able to even finish their moon rocket.

True, and they have "Buran", or their "shuttle-ski" in Gorky Park used as a jungle gym. No, I'm not kidding. But they are able to at least get to orbit on a consistent, frequent basis.

I just don't get it. When we required the Saturn 5, it was produced fairly quickly. When the need for the shuttle (or next generation) we innovated and got it done. So there in essence, has not been any R&D applied to its replacement for the past thirty years?
Since NASA cannot handle any job more than monitoring current systems, perhaps we should upgrade our space program and allow NASA to go the way of the Saturn 5 and declare it's obsolescence.

I know what nasa should do! Drill a hole all the way from one end of the earth to the other. Then drop a space ship down it. The ship will pick fall and pick up more and more speed untill it pops out the other end and shoots into space. Mmmmkay problem solved.

Well friend, no. Were talking about a complexity that is far far greater then going to the moon, Mars, or the deepest part of the ocean, just the technology is unbelieveable. I don't want to be proven wrong on this. Were talking so very complex and mabey very dangerous.

Why go to the moon? Haven't we been there already? Why go to Mars? Isn't it rather cold and inhospitable there?

I love science fiction and, when I was kid, I liked to watch Star Trek. All those glorious fantasies about colonizing space! It's all part of our primordial Western mythology: find new lands, send people there, overcome the barriers and the pesky people who already live there, etc. It dates back to the nomadic pastoral people who invaded Europe when the Roman empire fell. They were always going "West", into new lands.

Let's be realistic. Sending people into space is motivated by a fantasy. Sure, it's a powerful fantasy, a popular fantasy. It's compelling. But it's not based on good economics. Sending people into space is expensive, and requires overcoming a lot of physical obstacles like gravity, vacuum, radiation. That costs a lot of money.

If you want to advance science, spend some money sending robotic spacecraft. You get a lot more science per dollar spent. There is no good reason to risk human life packing people into large tin cans on top of piles of combustible materials and lighting the fuse.

Alejo Hausner

I know what nasa should do! Drill a hole all the way from one end of the earth to the other. Then drop a space ship down it. The ship will pick fall and pick up more and more speed untill it pops out the other end and shoots into space. Mmmmkay problem solved.

Well friend, no. Were talking about a complexity that is far far greater then going to the moon, Mars, or the deepest part of the ocean, just the technology is unbelieveable. I don't want to be proven wrong on this. Were talking so very complex and mabey very dangerous.

Overlooking the fact that it would be extremely difficult (impossible with current technology) to dig or navigate such a hole, there would actually be no point in doing it anyway. No net energy would have been gained from the fall by the time it got to an equal distance on the other side of the center (of mass.) This is because once it is on the other side of the center it begins to be pulled more and more strongly back towards the center (until it gets to the surface on the other side.)

Alejo Hausner your a goof...I guess you never heard of Space City in Russia, China's plan to colonize the moon, recently India getting a rocket into orbit...its not western mythology.

There is more energy and resources in space than on earth..one day it will be cheaper to mine and manufacture in space. And guess what..no environmental damage done to earth if done off world. Space is harsh and vast and if you pollute an already dead planet or asteroid who cares. There is limitless expansion, overpopulation would be a thing of the past. And if we get out there, people who never leave the comfort of a clean climate controlled environment would think weather on earth is nuts and why get grimy and possibly catch a virus...or get bitten by a mosquito.

So get with the program, this is where we have to go..up and out, rather then being stuck in 40 years of being down and out with NASA and a broke Russian space program.

How much more proof does the world need that the US is a spent power? It is a new millennium and the US is sooooo yesterday! The world's most powerful economy brought to its knees by the failing of 4 companies!! US is just hot air and fluff and the chicken has come home to roost. Arrogant Americans have no place in this new world order. G'bye fossils !!

for NASA (among others) "There are lies at every level" so I have no clue as to what to believe about the Ares program.
(research; the derivation of "Ares", who gave the program that name, what recent "culture" was hell bent on controlling the world, what culture now controls NASA/JPL, what relationship is there between the name and the mission, what is the mission a stepping stone for)

Unless there are radical changes, the Apollo Program will be the country's last great advance in manned space flight...
It's sad, 40 years later and no progress forward - China will get there before we can return...

Are you European? If you are how does it feel to have YOUR economy brought to it's knees by the failing of four AMERICAN companies??

Europeans have been backing the wrong horse for a while now. But, that is starting to change. Now the Asians want to have the Euro as the base currency for bilateral trade. South and Central America want the same too. Living the good life with cheap sovereign funds can only last so long. The collective stupidity of the Americans in this crisis is bewildering and Europe is guilty by association too. Now the world realizes that the US is made of marshmallow. It has been a drag on the rest of the world for too long. Eating up resources like there's no tomorrow and polluting the world to extinction.

Even though it seems that Ares is a piece of junk, I think it if it is possible, once they have built a base on the moon, it should be used as a launching pad, since the gravity is much lower and there is no atmosphere it should be possible to send a larger spaceship to mars than is possible on earth.

Actually there is a great alternative to the Ares... It's called the Jupiter Launch System... those disgruntled engineers at NASA have their own plan and its a good deal more solid than the Ares program.
http://www.directlauncher.com/

Bring back the Germans

I just don't get it. When we required the Saturn 5, it was produced fairly quickly. When the need for the shuttle (or next generation) we innovated and got it done. So there in essence, has not been any R&D applied to its replacement for the past thirty years?

You forget, they had a Nazi genius back then. Now all they have are Americans...

Simple, elegant designs are always the best. The low-tolerance, analog world actually worked pretty darn well. We got to the Moon using a scaled-up version of Robert Goddard's design, with the equivalent of a Commodore 64 flying the thing. We have overcomplicated Newton's Laws and made them into something that resembles the Tax Code.