Obama Backs New Launcher and Bigger NASA Budget

The AAAS's ScienceInsider confidently reports that NASA is in line to receive $1 billion more next year. Reader coop0030 sends this quote: "President Barack Obama will ask Congress next year to fund a new heavy-lift launcher to take humans to the Moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars... The president chose the new direction for the US human space flight program Wednesday at a White House meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, according to officials familiar with the discussion. NASA would receive an additional $1 billion in 2011 both to get the new launcher on track and to bolster the agency's fleet of robotic Earth-monitoring spacecraft."

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[camperdave]

I am glad they are ditching ARES-I. The thing could barely lift the Orion module into orbit, and that's after lopping off all sorts of features (land landing, six person crew, toilet, etc). Then there were the thrust oscillation issues. A solid rocket does not produce a steady thrust. As it burns, chunks of the fuel can come loose and alter the burn characteristics of the engine as a whole. On the Shuttle, there was a flexible beam running through the external tank. The solids were attached to both ends of the flexible beam, and the orbiter was attached to the middle. They had to develop some sort of spring system for ARES-I, which didn't help its already weak lift capabilities.

This makes a lot more sense. Take the basic shuttle launch system, remove the orbiter, stick the engines on the bottom, put the Orion module on the top. There would be no costly engine development, as the rocket uses the same proven engine that has been launching the shuttle into orbit for the past thirty years. The J-130 (as its called) can lift the Orion module into orbit with ease. In fact, it could lift two - and not the stripped down versions, but the full featured Orions. Imagine being able to park one permanently at the ISS, as a lifeboat. The J-130, through the use of a module that mimics the mount points of the shuttle's cargo bay, could lift any payload that the shuttle could lift - including the Canadarm and an airlock for EVAs, something the ARES-I cannot do.

Because it shares so much of the shuttle heritage, the Jupiter system can keep the bulk of the current shuttle workers employed, especially if the current shuttle mission manifest is stretched out, or perhaps a flight or two added. The ARES system would leave a decade-long gap in some areas. Far to long to keep people around "polishing tools".