NASA’s Safety Advisers Urge U.S. To Stick with Ares 1

Space News ^ | 1/18/2010 | Amy Klamper

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

As the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama prepares to propose changes to NASA’s human spaceflight program in the president’s 2011 budget request to lawmakers Feb. 1, an independent NASA safety advisory panel is warning the space agency against abandoning its current plans.

In an annual report issued Jan. 15, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel cautioned the United States against halting work on NASA’s Ares 1 rocket to fund unproven commercial alternatives.

“To abandon Ares I as a baseline vehicle for an alternative without demonstrated capability nor proven superiority (or even equivalence) is unwise and probably not cost-effective,” the report states.

Designed to launch the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle into low Earth orbit, Ares 1 is a key element of Constellation, NASA’s five-year-old effort to replace the space shuttle with rockets and spacecraft optimized for the Moon.

The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel report praises Ares 1 as a vehicle “designed from the beginning with a clear emphasis on safety” and notes approvingly “that Time magazine cited the Ares rocket as the ‘best invention of 2009.’”

The future of Ares 1, however, came into question last year when a White House-appointed committee led by former Lockheed Martin chief Norm Augustine urged Obama to consider dropping Ares 1 in favor of paying commercial firms to transport astronauts to the international space station.

NASA awarded a pair of contracts totaling $3.5 billion in December 2008 to Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences Corp. and Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to haul cargo to the space station aboard unmanned vehicles the companies say could evolve to carry people.

[PGR88]

“...As the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama prepares to propose changes to NASA’s human spaceflight program...”

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I suspect he will ask that NASA only use “low-carbon emissions” engines and that transvestites are equally represented in space.

[BamaBlue]

Interesting you post this...here’s an article from today’s Huntsville Times regarding the same subject...

http://blog.al.com/space-news/2010/01/post_30.html

Hope the White House doesn’t “ponder” too long...

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Thank you very much for the link.

[cripplecreek]

the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel cautioned the United States against halting work on NASA’s Ares 1 rocket to fund unproven commercial alternatives.

Shouldn't those "commercial alternatives" be funding themselves if they want to remain commercial?

[The Duke]

The Ares 1 is nothing more than a Space Shuttle solid rocket booster with a capsule strapped on top. This former NASA engineer fails to be impressed.

[Carl LaFong]

0bama and the Dems have zero interest in space exploration. Forget it.

[Brilliant]

Obama could care less about the space program. He’s taking his eye off the ball.

[Nachum]

The list, ping