Posted on 09/01/2014 1:34:40 PM PDT by lbryce
NASA has worked on some inspiring interplanetary projects in the last few years, but few have been as ambitious as the simply-named Space Launch System, a new rocket that will be the largest ever built at 384 feet tall, surpassing even the mighty Saturn V (363 feet), the rocket that took humanity to the moon. It will also be more powerful, with 20 percent more thrust using liquid hydrogen and oxygen as fuel. Last week, NASA announced that the Space Launch System, SLS for short, is on track to perform its first unmanned test launch in 2018. The larger goal is to carry humans into orbit around an asteroid, and then to Mars by the 2030s. After that, NASA says the rocket could be used to reach Saturn and Jupiter.
At the moment, even getting off the ground would be progress: since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, NASA has been left without any domestic capability to launch American astronauts into space; instead it has been purchasing rides for them aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft at high cost. While SpaceX and other private companies are working furiously to provide their own human passenger spacecraft for travel into Earth's orbit, NASA wants to go even further. The agency has begun testing models of the SLS and initial construction of some the major components. It says the first test flight will have an initial cost of $7 billion. The SLS will also be reusing some leftover parts from the inventory of the retired Space Shuttle, including its engines.
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
SpaceX Falcon Heavy (animation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX3gk5-Yygw
We’re sending Michelle Obama into space????
Well, it really is about spending money, because it doesn’t have a mission (other than to spend money).
I thought its purpose was muslim outreach???
/johnny
/johnny
It was going strong, but had delays, Obama tried to cancel it as part of the switch to muzzie outreach, congress restored funding; ultimately the program was defunded and cancelled as part of the Obama agenda.
Now that you mention it, I do recall some plans. They weren’t very impressive plans even when they were still active.
Returning to the moon in the 2020s. Really? Mars in the 2030s or 40s. I forget the exact dates.
When he announced them I groaned.
We knew the shuttle was going to phase out decades before it did. Where was the replacement ride when it did?
It has not been 45 years since we landed on the moon.
This is almost Biblical in it’s utter collapse.
IOW, what is printed in that excerpt and what you continue to say are not the same thing. Thanks for clearing it up. The successor program would have replaced the Shuttle for LEO *by now*, and provided it continued in development would be on track (whatever delays etc would have arisen) to return to the Moon. Obama and his fellow ‘rats cancelled it.
“Has now been...”
not
“Has not been...”
That’s some serious heavy lift.
I don’t disagree.
Our second goal is to develop and test a new spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, by 2008, and to conduct the first manned mission no later than 2014. The Crew Exploration Vehicle will be capable of ferrying astronauts and scientists to the Space Station after the shuttle is retired. But the main purpose of this spacecraft will be to carry astronauts beyond our orbit to other worlds. This will be the first spacecraft of its kind since the Apollo Command Module.
Our third goal is to return to the moon by 2020, as the launching point for missions beyond. Beginning no later than 2008, we will send a series of robotic missions to the lunar surface to research and prepare for future human exploration. Using the Crew Exploration Vehicle, we will undertake extended human missions to the moon as early as 2015, with the goal of living and working there for increasingly extended periods. Eugene Cernan, who is with us today -- the last man to set foot on the lunar surface -- said this as he left: "We leave as we came, and God willing as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind." America will make those words come true. (Applause.)
I'm not certain Bush even met his own goals. Obama certainly didn't help any, that's for sure.
Obama's only goal has been the next green exploration.
Powered by 1000 cattle!
Leave it to Obama to return even our space program to the 60s.
Aerojet - Rocketdyne is building this rocket.
That is the specific terms for liquid oxygen & liquid hydrogen rocket fuel they used on the Shuttle.
It is not pure oxygen and hydrogen. Those 2 are more reactive.
Bad stuff to mess with.
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