Cape Canaveral, FLA- Sitting on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center right now is NASA's next generation of travel into space. It's the Ares rocket. At 327 feet tall it's reaches nearly twice as high as the 184 foot tall space shuttle it's designed to replace. "It's an immense piece of machinery" Ares Test Flight Manager Bob Essa says. The test launch is scheduled for Tuesday morning.
The Ares project was conceived in 2004 with a call to go back to the moon. Work actually began in 2006. NASA's taking the best of what it learned during the Apollo missions to the moon and the Shuttle mission to the Space Station to build one rocket to take four to six astronauts to the space station and the moon. And a second, larger rocket, that will deliver cargo. The twin system will be used by astronauts to build a moon base that becomes the launch pad to reach mars. "Mars is that heavenly body that captured our imagination," Essa says. "We've had probes there, the missions there. It's a fascination for us understanding what's there."
The test launch will last just over two minutes. In that time a 22 million horsepower engine will push the rocket 36 miles high. "The first two minutes are hard part," Essa says. "That's when you have the most acceleration, the most dynamic pressure." 900 instruments will be measuring the rocket's flight to see how closely the design and launch team came to predicting the pattern with their computer models. Once the engine burns out, it falls to the Pacific and is recovered. The top half, a shell to simulate the real rocket, continues into space.
NASA's timetable calls for a second Ares test in 2012, rockets ready to carry astronauts in 2015, a moon landing in 2020, and reaching Mars in 2030. But the space shuttle is expected to retire at the end of 2010, leaving a five year gap in manned space flight. "That's absolutely inexcusable," Florida Senator Bill Nelson says. "We're going to have to buy rides from the Russians in order to get to our own Space Station that we built - and we paid $100 billion for."
Senator Nelson knows a thing or two about flying into space. He was a crew member of Shuttle Columbia in January 1986. Not only is there a five year gap between the Shuttle and Ares, there are as many as 7,000 Florida jobs in jeopardy if NASA's not flying astronauts into space. Already 900 have been lost. Senator Nelson says President Barack Obama should keep the
Shuttle flying once or twice a year until the rocket is ready. "The president is going to have to decide is he going to commit to a human space program," the Senator says, "or else is NASA going to go into the ditch." The White House, is in fact right now, going over a special panels recommendation for Ares future. Senator Nelson says he's been assured by the President the program will get the money it needs.
In 1969 the nation waited anxiously for Neil Armstrong's small step on the moon. President Kennedy's call to get the moon and back in 9 years was thought almost impossible. The first step back in that impossible direction is Tuesday's test. "When we see it leave the launch pad it's going to be a beautiful sight," Test Flight Manager Ess says. "We're all going to be elated that all our hard work paid off." There will be years of work after that if the funding comes through. All NASA has to do is hope the weather cooperates. The odds of it being clear enough to lift off are just 40%.
Watch WINK News Now This Morning from 5-7am and WINK News Now This Morning on Six TV from 7-9 for launch updates and the test live if it happens on schedule.