Stacking of New Space Vehicle Begins At KSC

Matt_dk writes "For the first time in more than a quarter-century, a new space vehicle will begin stacking on a mobile launch platform (MLP) at Kennedy Space Center. The Ares I-X aft skirt, which was mated to a solid fuel segment in the Rotation, Processing and Surge Facility at KSC, rolled over to the 528-foot-tall Vehicle Assembly Building today, where it will be lifted and placed on the MLP in High Bay 3. On that platform, workers will secure the aft booster and continue adding segments of the first stage rocket, the upper stage simulators, the crew module mockup and the launch abort system simulator, taking the vehicle to a height of 327 feet."

Comments

wrong macro engineering again

[Max_W]

Again, cool shape, just for the sake to make it look cool and non-Russian. But there are certain things in physics, which are fundamental and cannot be made different.

NASA should make a rocket with the right architecture. It means it shall look like Soyuz vehicle. No other way exists.

It is like with Sylvester Stallone's Rocky. He did boxing with hands down in movies. Many boxers in real sport got traumas and spoiled their careers because they wanted to look as cool as Rocky on the ring.

And while I am on it, no vehicles should be built at all until the scientific metric system of measurement is introduced and imperial medieval system is banned. It should be forbidden, I do not know, by the Geneva convention. Due to pseudo-patriotism the complicated systems are built with archaic feet, elbows, inches, etc. All would be fine, but alive people are to fly it.

Re:wrong macro engineering again

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Aerodynamics, last I checked, is not a completely solved problem (granted, it's in better shape than the more general fluid dynamics, but still not solved), nor are a large number of other design decisions involved with producing spacecraft. I somehow doubt that aesthetics are trumping science in the look; rather, they're probably guiding the selection among a number of similarly efficient designs.

As for imperial vs. metric, I think the big hurdle isn't patriotism, it's inertia. People were born and raised on imperial, and it's hard to reprogram them later in life. And teachers start with imperial because you encounter it more often. It's Catch-22; you can't switch until people are comfortable with it, and you can't get comfortable with it until you switch. The U.S. is slowly starting to switch the teaching to metric, so I suspect we'll try the transition again in the next decade or two, once the majority of the population can deal with it. Otherwise, you get smartasses/idiots driving 100 MPH on every highway.

Re:This is the way to spend taxpayer money!

[R3d M3rcury]

Agreed. Why NASA bothered with the Saturn I or the Saturn IB when they could have just waited until the Saturn V was built and then done everything after that shows what a waste of tax dollars NASA is.

(Yes, this is sarcasm)