Despite the recent publicity about more Ares V variants being the subject of NASA studies a little bit of good news for the Shuttle derived heavy lift crowd eeked out this week in the latest edition of Johnson Space Center’s 8th Floor News
credit: NASA / caption: can it compete with Ares V lite?
The 8th Floor News says “Briefing included hardware and machining tools at [Michoud Assembly Facility] that are ready for excess. [External tank manufacturing] Hardware will not be removed until the Agency heavy lift vehicle direction is better understood.”
Hyperbola understands that the hardware is now to stay until a notional date of March 2010 but that has no bearing on the actual decision timeframe that the Obama administration will follow
So much for Floridian Senator Bill Nelson’s ideas about a late November Obama spaceflight vision announcement
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it’s a good news that matches my suggestion #05 to the HSF Committee:
“don’t throw away the Shuttle’s technology and know-how”
http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/045suggestions05.html
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Thank you, Robbie, for this info and the links as well as the excellent article of the future docking system.
I do notice that Nasa’s thinking now includes ideas similar to my ARES VI proposal. This idea was vindicated by the Augustine Committee in that Ares 1 should be scrapped and the heavy-lift launcher should loft both Orion and Altair.
However their Ares V Lite proposal requires two launches instead of a single launch required by ARES VI.
So I continue to promote the ARES VI concept and hope that Jeff Hanley’s group get the message.