[FPSPACE] Ares1/Ares5 or Direct?

[E.P. Grondine]

More garbled reporting, along with a few key facts:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/3868153/Barack-Obama-under-fire-from-Nasa-over-plans-to-slash-budget.html

First off, that the astronauts and Moon rover will be in the inaugural parade should 
make everyone understand that Obama is committed to the development of the Moon (i.l. CAPS).  

Moving on to the issue at hand, I must confess my biases. I watched Thiokol kill the liquid rocket boosters after Challenger, interviewed Fletcher twice on the solid rocket motors for the shuttle being forced on him, interviewed Paine on this, watched the Boeing X33 back-up team get canceled, watched X33 get killed when small problems were hit with tankage. 

So I simply don't like Thiokol too much, even though a nice medium lift launcher for quick replacement of on orbit defense assets might be nice. But Thiokol could pay for that themselves, and I don't like it for ordinary manned launch nor for commercial launch because of "environmental concerns". 4 large solids per year is about all I feel comfortable with.

The key question is whether Ares 1/Ares 5 or Direct is the best launch option for the US. My vote is for Direct, and using a lunar orbit refueling depot, so as to spread the cost of manned Moon development (i.l. CAPS), even with the amount of money already sunk into Ares 1.









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