May I just speculate a moment here? That this is the last flight of Ares I, that the SRBs have no future, and that in fact NASA (or rather their paymasters the US govt) has given up on manned spaceflight for good.
It seems that the future of human space exploration is with China and/or the private sector.
Your thoughts?
I think you know something we don't.
And have you heard of craft called "Soyuz"?
I've been listening to yesterday's
Ares1-X media event and I think it poses more questions then it answers.
Everything that "failed" was due to the differences between Ares1-X and Ares1. Doesn't this make the test useless? Apart for the aerodynamic shell, there aren't many similarities between both vehicles.
The 1'st stage doesn't have the same CoG as a 5-segment. I guess simulating the burnt fuel would be difficult, and the data recorders do have to be placed somewhere on the 1'st stage.
But the USS doesn't make any sense at all. It has 130k lb of ballast, so it should be possible to get a similar CoG to the real thing. Instead NASA chooses to place 100k lb aft (along with the RoCS) and 30k lb forward. This changes almost everything about the behaviour of the stack. The stresses on the components will be different. The "stiffness" of the stack will be different. The reactions to control inputs will be different. I really would like an explanation what the reasons are for this. I'm sure there is one, but I can't see it.
To me it looks like they are testing a steel beam by breaking a wooden beam, and then calculating the difference. I just don't get this one. There has to be a better way to spend ½Bn $'s.:blink:
And the Ares1
will have active attitude control during separation. It looks like "cheaper" is out the window on this one.