Ned Potter is the science correspondent for ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson." He has reported on such topics as space exploration, the human genome and climate change.
RECENT POSTS
- Mars Rover: Stuck in the Mud
- Tranquility Base
- NASA's Ares 1-X Test: The View From Above
- The Yes Men
- The Missing Link -- Not
- Moon Crash Kicked Up Plume After All
- Moon Crash: Where's the Water?
- Green Apple: Firm is Latest to Leave U.S. Chamber of Commerce
- Recovery.gov: Your Tax Dollars at Work
- Climate: Power Companies Quit U.S Chamber of Commerce
MONTHLY ARCHIVES
« Previous | Main | Next »
NASA's Ares 1-X Test: The View From Above
November 05, 2009 2:10 PM
Hundreds of cameras watched NASA's Ares 1-X launch last week, the test of NASA's maybe-successor to the space shuttles, but none had a more complete view than one on board a small Cessna Skymaster, which the space agency had circling about 10 miles away and 12,000 feet above the launch pad. NASA has posted its video on YouTube. Take a look if you have six minutes to spare. It shows the flight from start to finish.A few notes:
- Recall that only the first stage was functional for this test, and since it is solid-fueled, there is no way to turn it "off." Instead, it uses up its fuel...and continues to stream the embers from whatever's left over as it falls back toward the Atlantic. The dummy upper stage, which you see tumbling out of the frame, crashed in the ocean several miles away.
- Late in the video, a small drogue chute comes out to stop the rocket from tumbling. It's followed by three larger parachutes, one of which tore as it opened. NASA says it damaged one of the two remaining chutes, making for a hard splashdown. The booster casing was badly dented, though NASA says it's not a big deal since, unlike operational versions of the Ares 1, this test rocket will not be reused.
Meanwhile, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports NASA is talking about canceling the next Ares test flight, called Ares 1-Y with a working second stage. And the Orlando Sentinel, which covers the Kennedy Space Center in its backyard, urges in an editorial that the Ares 1 be canceled entirely.
"NASA has projected that developing Ares I and a crew capsule to accompany it will cost $35 billion, but the Government Accountability Office came up with an estimate of $49 billion," it wrote. "The Augustine committee predicted that the entire Constellation program, which includes Ares I, Ares V, the Orion capsule and the Altair lunar lander, will run $45 billion over budget."
November 5, 2009 in Adventure, Current Affairs, economy, Politics, Space | Permalink | Share | User Comments (4)
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Our destiny is in space- seeing projects like this cancelled is very sad.
Posted by: Richard | Nov 5, 2009 5:00:32 PM
Some day our earth will die and if we don't start looking beyond we will die with it.
Posted by: Sean | Nov 5, 2009 10:42:37 PM
Time for the suits at NASA to start listening to their own engineers, who have had issues with Ares all along and have better ideas. Also, time for the government to open up the space program to private industry.
Posted by: Brian Levine | Nov 6, 2009 8:40:02 AM
Congratulations NASA! You've demonstrated that you have the technical ability to construct a model rocket and launch it. I used to do this on my uncle's farm with model rockets that looked like the big stuff NASA used to design and build. Ask me about my 1:70 scale Saturn 1B which I launched and successfully recovered. Last time I checked, Estes still sells model rockets that you can buy for under ten dollars and launch yourself. Has space flight really gotten this easy and this expensive? How about dropping Aries and going with a Delta IV Heavy? Or does that make too much sense since it has already flown in a full up version?
Posted by: Voradtralundir | Nov 10, 2009 12:27:22 PM
Post a comment
