Ares V Rocket Bigger and Stronger For Moon Mission

wooferhound writes "In a move to make the heavy-lift vehicle more robust (predicting an increased launch thrust requirement) to send four astronauts, a lunar lander plus supplies, NASA has announced the Ares V rocket will be beefed up to cater for our future needs to get man back to the Moon. This huge vehicle is now designed to carry payloads of over 156,600 lb (71,000 kg), some 15,600 lb (or 10%) more than the original concept. Ares V was originally designed to be approximately the same length as the original Saturn V lunar rocket (361 feet or 110 metres long), but to accommodate an extra booster engine and extra payload volume, Ares V will be 381 feet (116 metres) long. This upgrade will be capable of sending far more instrumentation into space, an extra 15,600 lb (7,000 kg, or the equivalent mass of a male African elephant)."

Comments

Thank god.

[sleeping123]

Elephants have been rather underrepresented in space recently.

Re:Thank god.

[32771]

Then again, in space no one can hear you trumpet.

Re:Thank god.

[palegray.net]

I'm more interested in the airspeed velocity of the Ares V rocket, as measured in swallows (continental origin subject to your locale).

Re:Thank god.

[joetheappleguy]

Little known fact, but the mass of a male African elephant is a common unit of measure used at NASA and other space agencies.

for smaller masses the female Albanian shrew is the preferred unit.

Re:Thank god.

[rswail]

Is that a metric elephant or imperial?

Re:Thank god.

[Fred_A]

Little known fact, but the mass of a male African elephant is a common unit of measure used at NASA and other space agencies.

Which has led to a number of failures when some engineers counted in African elephants when others counted in Asian elephants.
Those engineering units are difficult to master.

Re:Thank god.

[clang_jangle]

Now that's just plain silly. Everyone knows it's turtles all the way down !

Re:Thank god.

[vertigoCiel]

Looking only at bound books, and ignoring manuscripts, newspapers, microfilm, et cetera, the Library of Congress contains 32 million volumes. According to Google Answers, the average tome weighs 12 ounces. Through simple multiplication, we find that all the book in the Library of Congress weigh approximately 24 million lbs. So, the cited 15,600 lb weight of a male African elephant works out to roughly 0.00065 Libraries of Congress, or 0.065%.

This is probably on the high side, since the figure for the average weight of a book was taken from an online bookseller's repository. They have a fair number of modern paperbacks, which are quite light, while the Library of Congress contains mostly hardcover tomes, which are heavier.

Re:Thank god.

[Dr. Photo]

I don't know that! .... Aaaaiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

NASA Engineers

[Shadow Wrought]

God bless them, they really do think of everything...

NASA Engineer: "The extra weight it can carry is equivalent to a male elephant."
The Press: "Oh yeah, African or Indian?"
NASA Engineer: "Why African of course."
The Press: [wanders off trying to find someone to interview who will make them feel smarter]

Re:NASA Engineers

[oodaloop]

Of course, African elephants are non-migratory.

Re:NASA Engineers

[rbanffy]

But do they carry coconuts in their migrations?

In the spirit of one-upmanship...

[Lendrick]

If China manages to put a man on the moon, we'll put a goddamn elephant on the moon, because we're America!

Re:In the spirit of one-upmanship...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, putting a Chinese man on the moon is no problem but putting an average weight American man on the moon is (nowadays) as hard a challenge as putting an elephant but the latter just sounds better.

One wonders...

[Anonymous Coward]

African or European

Re:Video

[MichaelSmith]

I don't care *what* the video is made of really. I just really want video with my space stories. When something launches, when something crashes, when something oh, lands on Mars or something... I want video. I don't care if it is computer generated,

Take it easy Son. I had to walk 50 kilometers uphill in the snow to watch Neil Armstrong take that first step.

ESA's Launcher Program

[Kensai7]

If Ares V can't do it, Arianne 5 will! If we don't explode while launching, that is... :p

See, that's why the USA have an edge in space...

[Jesus_666]

Your rockets are both strong and big, while Chinese rockets are big in nothing important in good elephant. Of course, if NASA screws up the calculations the front of the rocket will be a lemon avenue flying straightly but as they say, worry to lose is to lead to the evil augury, so you shouldn't worry about that too much. Just don't let the land kill the project to let it going to bed.

Anyhow, rock on NASA. The wish power are together with you.

Re:African elephants ARE migratory

[oodaloop]

Funny, I never saw any in rural England.

Re:Bigger and stronger?

[JustOK]

I now have mercury poisoning since I was not aware that the FDA actually allows small amounts of mercury to be sold in fish.

Caveat eator.

Re:African elephants ARE migratory

[JustOK]

its cuz they're wearing sneakers. Check the butter in your fridge for their footprints.

The exhaustive elephant-selection process

[ErkDemon]

the mass of a male African elephant is a common unit of measure used at NASA and other space agencies.

That's because it's easier to train the spaceborne male African elephant to carry out difficult satellite retrieval tasks. It has the longer trunk.

Re:Except in...

[clang_jangle]

Get your trunks off me, you damned, filthy, elephants !

Sorry. Couldn't resist

[rbanffy]

I for one welcome our new moon elephant overlords.