NASA Unveils Plans For Heavy Launch 'Space Launch System' Bigger Than Saturn V

[mjah]

NASA Announces Design for New Deep Space Exploration System

Finally, a Shuttle successor plan that is technically plausible and makes sense! Very refreshing.

Interestingly, this fits the same general role as the older Ares V concept, and with (realistically speaking) a similar time frame. Wisely eliminating the unworkable, money-pit Ares I may be this administration's greatest legacy to NASA.

Possibility of 150+ tons to orbit... including the Orion capsule with its full complement of 6 astronauts, plus additional capability since Orion doesn't weigh nearly that much... For comparison, the Shuttle could carry only 1/6 that amount of cargo due to its own weight and configuration.

There's a CGI animation of the liftoff, and I think the smoke-effect is the best I've seen outside of Hollywood. Someone spent some time on that.

From WashPost: NASA plans rocket bigger than Apollo’s Saturn V to send humans far past moon

[AsburySkinsFan]

Nice....glad to see that NASA is heading the right direction.

BTW, why does NASA have to be so anal with everything they do, seriously how hard is it to put a soundtrack with that video, all that money on the CGI for the rocket and a 99 cent download would have killed them?!

[Drew_Fl]

so this could support manned-missions farther than low-earth orbit? i just want something that can give us the capability to go to a neighboring planet if we so desired. the shuttle program had it's moments and was very useful, but at this point it's like an old pick up truck you only use to haul stuff back and forth on your farm b/c you can't take it anywhere else.

[mjah]

Drew_Fl, to answer your question: Yes, this rocket is dramatically overqualified for low-Earth orbit unless you're putting something massive up there --like a craft to go elsewhere. It is intended to enable deeper-space missions via a much smaller number of bigger and safer launches.

The prospect of traveling to, say, Mars is still filled with unresolved problems: Getting there, landing safely, surviving for a while, launching again, and getting home, to be specific. (Minor issues!) But the first step is to have the heavy-launch horsepower to reliably put large systems into -- and beyond -- orbit in the first place. This does that. IMO it's FAR more important to have than a three-person pea shooter that can't go any farther than the Space Station.

Assuming similar capabilities to Ares V, this new rocket probably could launch several dozen tons to Lagrange points. That could be useful for Larry's solar vision. Larry, care to comment?

[mjah]

I just learned a fun fact. The solid rocket boosters on the Shuttle, and on this proposed new rocket, burn 5 tons of propellant per second. ...Apiece.

Doing the math, that means each SRB weighs many hundreds of tons. Something 600 tons each. I had no idea that SRBs all by themselves were that heavy!

Amazing stuff.

[Larry]

Wow. No idea how I missed this thread. I was just in another thread, and I saw this one in the "related threads".

---------- Post added February-27th-2012 at 09:08 PM ----------

Drew_Fl, to answer your question: Yes, this rocket is dramatically overqualified for low-Earth orbit unless you're putting something massive up there --like a craft to go elsewhere. It is intended to enable deeper-space missions via a much smaller number of bigger and safer launches.

The prospect of traveling to, say, Mars is still filled with unresolved problems: Getting there, landing safely, surviving for a while, launching again, and getting home, to be specific. (Minor issues!) But the first step is to have the heavy-launch horsepower to reliably put large systems into -- and beyond -- orbit in the first place. This does that. IMO it's FAR more important to have than a three-person pea shooter that can't go any farther than the Space Station.

Assuming similar capabilities to Ares V, this new rocket probably could launch several dozen tons to Lagrange points. That could be useful for Larry's solar vision. Larry, care to comment?

Agree with every thing you said.

IMO, Mars shouldn't even be on the table right now. (I've said that, IMO, when Space Station One, or Moonbase Alpha, have kept five astronauts alive, for two years, without a single resupply mission from Earth, THEN we're ready to think about Mars).

IMO, The Next Big Thing should be either a permanent space station or a permanent lunar base. (And the second mission will be the other one. Because the two compliment each other).

And, to me, in order to build either of those things, I would assert that you need the capability to deliver large payloads (my mental image is something the size and weight of a standard international shipping container), under automated, unmanned control, to either a soft landing on the Moon, or an automated docking at a space station.