RE: NASA to assess human rating Ares V

Flightglobal:

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Author: Rob Coppinger

Date: 28 November 2008

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here we go again, more back-peddling! The "changes/upgrades" are coming thick and fast. Mainly I suspect due to the the "rival" DIRECT team being 90% right not only in their evaluation, but in terms that NASA have taken the (as usual) most expensive and less technically valid solution, not at their own behest mark you, but that of a VERY important contractor with whom, I have a nasty feeling, money has/is changing hands in the upper echelons of NASA to ensure that most important of criteria job security and security of income for the said company. This did not occur to me until I read - in Encyclopedia Astronautica - that the the current ESAS/ORION/ARES design concept is a direct take from ATK proposals of 2004. Either way, this is once more a covert admission on the part of NASA that Ares 1 is a no-go approach from every respect. I was particularly disturbed that ARES 1 is going to require a higher start-up cost than ARES 5 by some 15% when the latter is both much larger and capable in every respect by a fact of at least 7. The air is indeed becoming somewhat rendolent....