I don't know if it's because this was all part of the Obama Administration's master plan to drastically lower expectations, and then reap the rewards of not killing one of the most beloved US Government programs, or maybe the constant shouting from both sides of the political aisle about actually doing that, but they're backtracking on abandoning long-range manned space flight. Looks like they're keeping the one part of Ares that made sense (the crew capsule) and going with a "as yet unnamed" heavy-lift rocket system. Well, considering they're dumping $3.1 billion into the Marshall Space Center in Alabama, and that only does Constellation, which is still getting the axe, and the Shuttle, which is going away, I'm willing to bet $10 that this mysterious heavy-lift rocket system is the DIRECT/Jupiter rocket system, which is almost entirely made out of retrofitted, modified and updated Shuttle parts. Good for them, and good for NASA.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
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