What Happened to Ares?

Please understand that I am not now, nor have I ever been a rocket scientist. I am also not a structural or aerospace engineer of any kind, but I do know how to read. Twelve or so years ago, I read a book by Robert Zubrin called "The Case for Mars" where Dr. Zubrin (who not so incidentally IS a rocket scientist and engineer) argued for what he called "Mars Direct" which was a plan for not only sending humans to Mars but also to extensively explore, set up colonies, etc.

A crucial component of Dr. Zubrins plan was a heavy lift rocket called "Ares" that was primarily a redesigned Space Shuttle stack. This heavy lift rocket was composed of the main engines off of the Space Shuttle, mated to a redesigned Space Shuttle external fuel tank, with the two solid rocket boosters also used by the Space Shuttle. The only difference was that instead of mounting an unbelievably complex Shuttle on the side, the payload would be mounted on the top as was done with the Moon bound Saturn V.

Now of course I realize that the stresses placed on the external tank in this new configuration are significantly different than those of the Space Shuttle, but seriously, is this really that big a deal? I have personally watched in awe as bridges, skyscrapers, supertankers and Airbus A380s have been built and put into service. I have watched an International Space Station be constructed in the vaccum of space and I have watched an underwater oil well leak be fixed ONE MILE beneath the surface of the ocean.

We, as a country, have now been arguing over Ares V for quite some time and in the meantime NASA's manned spaceflight operation has all but ground to a halt. With all that NASA and its suppliers now know about space travel and building rockets, I ask this question: why has this not been done already? Why do we not have Ares V vehicles sitting on their launch pads at this very moment? The components have all been proven over and over again and where there have been failures (ie Shuttle Columbia) there have also been corrections. The SRBs work, the main engines work, and I'm assuming that given the advances in electronics that have taken place in the last thirty years, the new avionics should be rather simple to design and build. It sure didn't take SpaceX long to develop the avionics that control the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets.

As I mentioned before, I am not a rocket scientist, I am a historian. I realize that I am enormously ignorant of the complexities involved with developing a new launch vehicle such as the Ares V. But as a historian however, I am rather good at ferreting out details from the past, even if they are from the recent past. I may now be ignorant of the specifics of why NASA has found itself without a launch vehicle but I won't be ignorant for long, and neither will you; the readers of this blog.

I am announcing that I will be focusing much of my efforts in this blog to try (if only to satisfy my own curiosity) to make sense of why NASA has not been able to cobble together hardware that it already possessed into a usable heavy lift rocket and a sister ship, light rocket, for placing humans into orbit. I have to tell you, that I am rather angry at what I have witnessed. The country that at one time had what Tom Wolfe correctly described as "the right stuff", has degenerated into a bunch of whimpering children unable to figure what to do with their Legos.

Stay tuned, there is more to come...