Now, the “off-the-shelf” five-segment first stage for the Ares 1 is going to a new propellant formulation, for environmental reasons. No, that won’t take long or cost much to develop or test. And apparently we don’t even have the capability in country to do it currently — we have to rely on the Swedes.
If they were worried about the environment, they shouldn’t have gone with a solid in the first place.
How long before this monstrosity is put out of its (and our) misery? They need to just take the whole concept out behind the VABarn and put it down with a sledge hammer.
“Could” is not the same as “is going to”. This sounds like a typical NASA research project, tied ostensibly to an emerging program, but really having very little to do with the program.
BBB
Don’t worry, we’re only a few more billion dollars and a few more years before the failure of this monstrosity of a project has become so obvious that it will actually be abandoned by the NASA bureaucracy.
If you ever needed any sort of sign that modern day NASA manned spaceflight doesn’t know what the fuck they are doing this is it.
Well, the rumor is that Griffin is immanently to resign.
Thank you, sir, for, I hope, (starting to) put your agency out of my misery.
It must stink to be the engineers going through the motions of designing the Ares 1 with the gut instinct that it might all be for naught.
Too bad Marshall isn’t within audible distance of the Falcon 9 live fire tests in Texas.