Getting into Space
By Pulsar | Wed 14th May 2008
Well as this is the first post in the new TSS blog I thought I'd start on something that I consider to be of utmost importance. This was highlighted to me again over the last couple of weeks with reports being put out regarding Ares V, NASA's new planned monster booster. Ares 1 and Ares 5 are booster elements of the space agency's Constellation system of "Moon, Mars and beyond" hardware. 'Great' I thought...until i read further.It appears that the first flight of Ares V is not expected until 2018 at the earliest and Lunar missions would not begin before 2019 or 2020. Not only this but the new booster would simply be shuttling hardware to the Moon to build a lunar outpost for the next several years. This revolutionary booster will not be available to get seriously involved in space science/exploration until 2025 or so.
We then have to consider that there are two main barriers to space exploration: firstly getting hardware out of Earth's gravity well and secondly the time it takes for us to travel through space with our current propulsion technology (it took Cassini 7 years to reach Saturn).
Ares V can do nothing about the second barrier (in fact NASA is nothing almost nothing to address this point) as it is basically the same technology that we already have, albeit much more powerful. But while it should be able to overcome a great deal of the physical problems of lifting the huge weight of equipment due to it's power it will do so at an enormous financial penalty and when all is said and done money is already the reason why space exploration is so slow at the moment.
There are genuine concerns as to whether this new booster is financially viable - surely we are not witnessing the start of another financial and time consuming project, following in the footsteps of the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station, that will bring so little to the objectives of space exploration? I must admit I am starting to worry...
In part two I'll address the second issue of reducing space travel times and on that I have some very strong views.