Ares I-X

[Boosterdude]

The Ares I-X roll out this morning was very impressive, not a bad looking rocket at all. It's on the pad now getting ready for the launch next week.

 

[MysticalRockets]

Definitely impressive. Twice as tall as the Shuttle stack.

Anybody know where it will be carried live, if at all?

 

[evil ed]

as long as it makes it past the mock-up phase

 

[wilsotr]

I've been trying to figure out where Ares I-X fits in the grand scheme of things ....

I thought at first it was the world's biggest model rocket -- a HPR-class model, of course. Then again, it doesn't have a parachute and isn't recoverable to be flown again so maybe it doesn't meet the "model" definition at all. It's not being launched against a target, so it's not a "missile." And it's not carrying a payload into space or to collect scientific data (engineering data, yes, but not really scientific research) so it's not a "launch vehicle" or "sounding rocket."

I've come to the conclusion it's just a firework.

 

[tbzep]

The behemoth crawler transporter just seems like overkill with that skinny little stick sitting on it. :eyepop:

I like the classic white Thor/Delta-esque paint job. I just wish they'd stick some small fins on the real one to help us deal with the scale model a little easier.

 

[Microspeed]

The behemoth crawler transporter just seems like overkill with that skinny little stick sitting on it...

It even looks like there's room for two. Drag race?

 

[tbzep]

Definitely need to drag race a couple.

Check out image 11 in the Aries I-X Flight Test Gallery. Nancy Bray, deputy director at Kennedy must be about 6'6"!

 

[georgegassaway]

It even looks like there's room for two. Drag race?

"Presto!"

- George Gassaway

 

[MaxQ]

"Presto!"

- George Gassaway

heheh....

There's something vaquely "Soyuz" about that payload section....

 

[Boosterdude]

heheh....

There's something vaquely "Soyuz" about that payload section....

That's good, because the Soyuz works!

 

[NJnike]

That's good, because the Soyuz works!

Yeah, but it's 40 years old! Way to go, NASA, bringing us the latest in 1960s launch vehicle engineering.

 

[tbzep]

Yeah, but it's 40 years old! Way to go, NASA, bringing us the latest in 1960s launch vehicle engineering.

Better to be alive with 40 year old yet steadily improved technology than dead on the bleeding edge.

 

[NjCo]

I've come to the conclusion it's just a firework.

You know, it does kind of look like a bottle rocket! :cyclops:

 

[Boosterdude]

Better to be alive with 40 year old yet steadily improved technology than dead on the bleeding edge.

Agreed, and sometimes the bleeding edge keeps you in lower earth orbit for 30 years servicing the biggest waste...ISS.

I say drop the ISS, and lets go back to the Moon/Mars. There will be more usable technology/science that comes from these missions then the ISS could ever help to produce.

 

[NjCo]

And the crawler needs a little snazzing up after all these years. Maybe some pin-stripes, tail fins and some fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror!

 

[gpoehlein]

Agreed, and sometimes the bleeding edge keeps you in lower earth orbit for 30 years servicing the biggest waste...ISS.

I say drop the ISS, and lets go back to the Moon/Mars. There will be more usable technology/science that comes from these missions then the ISS could ever help to produce.

Nah - we need to add a bit more to the ISS and turn it into an orbital drydock - then we can really get things going!!!

 

[Peartree]

Nah - we need to add a bit more to the ISS and turn it into an orbital drydock - then we can really get things going!!!

And then move the whole thing to one of the LaGrange points between the earth and Sun.

 

[tbzep]

Nah - we need to add a bit more to the ISS and turn it into an orbital drydock - then we can really get things going!!!

I'm still holding out for the wheel version like in Collier's magazine and the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey.

 

[evil ed]

And then move the whole thing to one of the LaGrange points between the earth and Sun.

" Home, home on LaGrange,
Where the space debris always collects.

We have so it seems,
two of man's greatest dreams.
Solar power and zero-gee se#."

 

[rocketsmith]

Why do we send men into space at all? It is very expensive payload of limited scientific value. We went to the moon to find out it smells like burnt gunpowder? Great! Probes and landers, please. Probes and landers.

 

[JAL3]

Why do we send men into space at all? It is very expensive payload of limited scientific value. We went to the moon to find out it smells like burnt gunpowder? Great! Probes and landers, please. Probes and landers.

Because eventually, people will want to live there, and other places as well. Its not for everyone but there are some people who like real frontiers.

 

[Mikus]

Why do we send men into space at all? It is very expensive payload of limited scientific value. We went to the moon to find out it smells like burnt gunpowder? Great! Probes and landers, please. Probes and landers.

Because at some point in time a big ball of ice and rock is going to smash into this planet and make it a complete and utter nightmare for anyone who hasn't left.

"We're talking about the survival of the species here boys and girls." :y:

 

[mjennings]

A pogo stick drag race there's an excellent idea, love the photoshop too

As for the station back when the shuttle was designed, it was designed to build the station, but NASA was told you either get the truck to build the station or the station. NASA said we'll take the truck. We've learned a lot building the ISS, it's just not as tangible as some would like. Science has been scarce do to the crew size ranging between 2 and 3 until earlier this year, but they have done more than most think.

Rocketsmith: while probes, landers, and rovers have yielded excellent scientific return there are things we can't get robots to do yet. Spirit and Opportunity have done awesome on Mars, I love the little rovers, pay for 90 days and get 5 years is phenomenal. However combined they have covered only about 16 miles as of Oct 14, 2009 (Source http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/traverse_maps.html)
The Apollo 17 Crew which got the furthest away from the LM of any crew was 7370 meters (4.6 miles) on EVA 2 (source http://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/HumanExplore/Exploration/EXLibrary/docs/ApolloCat/Part1/LRV.htm) I couldn't find the total distance traveled on the lunar surface by all Apollo crews. and the Apollo crews were able to make minor repairs to their rover, something Spirit and Opportunity could use

Bottom line there are things people do better. The distance traveled is just one easy to cite example.

 

[NjCo]

Bottom line there are things people do better. The distance traveled is just one easy to cite example.

But why do we need to go anywhere on the moon? It's not like we're on a vacation or something. If the goal is to build a station on the moon to serve as a jump off point for further exploration then just pick a spot based on the data we currently have about the moon and send some probes there. See if the spot is suitable and and let's get the show on the road!!

And the real measure isn't distance traveled, it's distance traveled per mission dollar. If you wanted to travel 50 miles from the landing point I'm sure it would be more cost effective to build a half dozen rovers than stick a man and his car on the moon.

While there certainly are many things humans do better than robots I'm not sure how most of them are applicable to exploring the moon at this point in the process. And there are a few things robots do better than humans; the don't procrastinate and they stick to their pre-programmed goals! Of course robots also don't have to worry about budgets either.

I'm not against sending man back to the moon but you do need to set some goals. So back to the real question - what is the goal on the moon. If you want an apartment complex and a Starbucks then get the process going. We can't just go there because the Chinese have said they want to go. That's too vague. If we eventually want to build something there then budget for it, convince the public and those idiots holding the purse strings that it's a good idea and do it. I think a reasonable project would be to put a space telescope on the moon. If we can do something like that then bigger things are at least possible. If we can't do something like that then there is no point in going to the moon at this time.

 

[AKPilot]

I may be the odd man out here, but I'm not impressed with the look and design of Ares in the least. It simply doesn't look like manned space vehicle. It looks like Bill Gates designed it.

 

[Dr.Zooch]

The behemoth crawler transporter just seems like overkill with that skinny little stick sitting on it.

I WAS THERE FOLKS!!!!

IT WAS AMAZING!

BTW- the Ares I-X weighs more than 3 times the weight of an unfueled Saturn V... the crawler had its work cut out for it.

 

[georgegassaway]

BTW- the Ares I-X weighs more than 3 times the weight of an unfueled Saturn V... the crawler had its work cut out for it.

The shuttle (on the MLP) is still the heaviest object transported by the crawler, due to the mass of the solid fuel in the SRB’s.

Shuttle mass at rollout: 2,830,500 pounds
(Loaded SRB’s at 1.3 million each, ET at 58,500, orbiter at 172,000 not including any payload).

Saturn-V empty mass: 550,000 pounds (did not find a great source for this one so I do not trust it, but spent too much time finding a better source).

It would be interesting to know what the mass of the whole Launch Tower was, that used to be on the MLP, since its mass would have been added to the mass of the empty Saturn-V as far as counting the mass moved by the transporter (then the MLP itself is not exactly a feather).

Ares-1 is supposed to have a liftoff mass of 1,999,000 pounds (this may be out of date). If Ares 1-X is supposed to weigh the same as the “real” thing, then perhaps it weighed 1,999,000 pounds when it rolled out Tuesday. Normally the empty mass for rollout would be a lot less but it seems they already added ballast mass to the dummy upper stage before the rollout, and they also supposedly have simulated the mass of the solid fuel in the dummy 5th SRB segment.

I am surprised they already added ballast to the simulated second stage. I would have thought that perhaps once on the pad, they would add a mix of water and some very fine powdery lightweight material (like micro-balloons) to simulate the mass and behavior of actual liquids (Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen) and see how the vehicle responded to a liquid “sloshing” around inside the dummy upper stage. But then, I was also surprised to find out that they were NOT going to fly with a real 5 segment SRB, and were not going to attempt to test the Orion escape and recovery system either.

- George Gassaway

 

[luke strawwalker]

Why do we send men into space at all? It is very expensive payload of limited scientific value. We went to the moon to find out it smells like burnt gunpowder? Great! Probes and landers, please. Probes and landers.

Yeah, I'm with you rocketsmith...

Constellation is sucking all the air out of the room... the Augustine committee findings show that the program is TOTALLY unaffordable, and with all the problems and schedule slips Ares I has already had, it's going to end up making the shuttle's 3 year schedule slip and nearly doubled development budget look efficient by comparison! We haven't even gotten started on Ares V yet and it's already 'the monster that will eat NASA's budget'.
With Ares I flights promising to end up JUST AS EXPENSIVE AS SHUTTLE FLIGHTS with NO CARGO WHATSOEVER, ONLY CREW and Ares V flights projected to cost about 3 times what a shuttle flight costs, just for the rocket, not including the billion dollar plus Altair lander, there is just NO WAY that we can afford to do the program this way. BUT NASA has decided it's this way or NO way, so personally I hope that some serious changes happen at NASA because it's all going to go down the tubes eventually anyway... WE JUST CAN'T AFFORD IT!

Remember, a shuttle flight costs more than a Saturn V flight did... it would have been cheaper to just keep using Saturn V's... if we had, we could have orbited a whole series of 'Skylab' stations in orbit, linked 4-5 together and had a WAY bigger station than ISS in only a couple years instead of the 20 years it's taken to do ISS, and for WAY less money than ISS cost... we could also have modded these stations for lunar orbit, L1/L2, and used them as a basis for Mars/deep space transit habs... We could have had a whole scientific program of lunar exploration, long duration stays, and a small lunar base by now... But all the money and the last 30 years have been wasted on shuttles in LEO piddling about... Shuttle is a 100 ton to orbit rocket that hauls 15 tons of payload... ISS SHOULD have been built using expendable rockets and shuttles ferrying only supplies and equipment and delivering the crews.

Supposedly Saturn V and the moon program got cancelled because it was too costly. Now we have Constellation which promises to make Apollo/Saturn's costs look like chickenfeed by comparison.... They've already gutted the budget for probes that would have produced FAR more scientific knowledge and exploration expansion, all to do a repeat of Apollo that they can't get right and we can't afford anyway...

It's rediculous... but then again, it's the GOVERNMENT!!! OL JR

 

[Dr.Zooch]

George- Your shuttle statement is 100% spot on.

FYI- the Saturn V LUT (alone) was estimated as weighing ~4.0 million pounds. The actual empty weight of a Saturn V- although often published as 550,000- actually adds up to be more in the neighborhood of 502,770, including the Apollo spacecraft and adapter. The launch platform, Saturn V configuration, weighs in at 8.0 million pounds.

Ares I-X is currently being weighted at 1.8 million pounds. There is no sloshing in a fully fueled upper stage because there is no ullage space- the tank is full, thus any dead mass acts the same.

I posted this because you were wondering about it- I'm not trying to be a smart guy (today, anyhow). Besides- it is VERY rare that a dolt like me can actually tell you something about rocketry that you don't already know!

 

[Dr.Zooch]

Remember, a shuttle flight costs more than a Saturn V flight did... it would have been cheaper to just keep using Saturn V's... if we had, we could have orbited a whole series of 'Skylab' stations in orbit, linked 4-5 together and had a WAY bigger station than ISS in only a couple years instead of the 20 years it's taken to do ISS, and for WAY less money than ISS cost... we could also have modded these stations for lunar orbit, L1/L2, and used them as a basis for Mars/deep space transit habs... We could have had a whole scientific program of lunar exploration, long duration stays, and a small lunar base by now... But all the money and the last 30 years have been wasted on shuttles in LEO piddling about... Shuttle is a 100 ton to orbit rocket that hauls 15 tons of payload... ISS SHOULD have been built using expendable rockets and shuttles ferrying only supplies and equipment and delivering the crews.

Supposedly Saturn V and the moon program got cancelled because it was too costly. Now we have Constellation which promises to make Apollo/Saturn's costs look like chickenfeed by comparison.... They've already gutted the budget for probes that would have produced FAR more scientific knowledge and exploration expansion, all to do a repeat of Apollo that they can't get right and we can't afford anyway...

It's rediculous... but then again, it's the GOVERNMENT!!! OL JR

Luke- you may want to seek out and read a book titled "Enterprise" by Jerry Grey (1979). It gives a VERY highly detailed account of the politics that killed Apollo, Skylab and gave us the Shuttle that we have today. The basic reason can be stated in a single word... Nixon. He was highly determined to terminate the entire space program until NASA top management managed to sell him on a greatly limited Space Shuttle. It ended up being the shuttle or nothing if you want human spaceflight. Remember- the shuttle was supposed to be a "system" that included a space tug and space station that could facilitate inter planitary travel- Nixon wanted no part of it- finally, the NASA top guys mentioned that the shuttle orbiter "could" go into orbit and nab Soviet satellites- Nixon "liked" that a lot. Everything else, he figured was useless.