2009-10-21 06:26:55
By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn, Ap Aerospace Writer Tue Oct
20, 11:03 am ET
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. NASA's lofty new rocket arrived at the launching pad
Tuesday for a test flight next week that comes at a time when the future of the
country's spaceflight program is up in the air.
It's the first time in 34 years that a rocket other than the space shuttle has
stood at Launch Pad 39-B. NASA modified the pad for this rocket, which is
supposed to eventually carry astronauts to the moon.
But the White House may scrap those plans. A panel of aerospace experts that
provided President Barack Obama with a list of possible exploration options is
issuing its final report later this week.
The experimental Ares I rocket taller than the Statue of Liberty spent all
night traveling from the hangar to the pad. The four-mile trip took more than
seven hours.
The test vehicle will blast off next Tuesday on a 2 1/2-minute ballistic flight
to demonstrate how the partial first stage performs. It's costing NASA $445
million.
Thin and exceptionally tall at 327 feet, the Ares I-X looks like what will
carry astronauts into orbit, possibly by 2015. But much of it is a mock-up, and
no person or payload will be on board.
The shuttle, by contrast, is 184 feet tall. The Saturn V rockets that carried
men to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s were a record-setting 363
feet.
Shuttle program manager John Shannon said the Ares I-X is safe enough to launch
even though Atlantis is just 1 1/2 miles away on the other pad. The impact zone
if there is a launch explosion "just barely clips by" the pad holding Atlantis,
he said.
He noted that there's proven technology in the Ares' first-stage booster. It's
the same type of solid rocket booster used to propel space shuttles.
The booster will parachute into the Atlantic and be retrieved for analysis. The
rest of the rocket all false pieces weighted with ballast will crash,
uncontrolled, into the ocean.
The rocket is rigged with hundreds of sensors.
"My personal opinion is that if we really thought that I-X was going to have a
problem, that we're not ready to launch it, even on a test flight," Shannon
said late last week.
Atlantis, meanwhile, is scheduled to lift off Nov. 16 on a delivery mission to
the International Space Station. On Monday, NASA delayed the shuttle flight
four days to improve the chances of launching the Ares I-X next week. The same
team at Kennedy Space Center will handle both launches.
"It's neat to see where we're going next, what the next step will be, and that
when we stop flying the shuttle at some future point, that it's not the end,
but we'll have the beginning," Atlantis' commander Charles Hobaugh said from
the shuttle pad.
Six shuttle flights remain, all to the space station, and should be completed
by the end of next year.