Axel Mellinger, of Central Michigan University, created this panorama of the Milky Way from 3,000 individual photographs that he melded together with mathematical models. Credit: Dr. Axel Mellinger

Greenland reflects sunlight hitting The Earth surface....

Oct. 28, 2009

Grey Hautaluoma/Ashley Edwards
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0668/1756
grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov, ashley.edwards-1@nasa.gov

Lynnette Madison
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
lynnette.b.madison@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 09-252

NASA'S ARES I-X ROCKET COMPLETES SUCCESSFUL FLIGHT TEST

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's Ares I-X test rocket lifted off at
11:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida
for a two-minute powered flight. The test flight lasted about six
minutes from its launch from the newly-modified Launch Complex 39B
until splash down of the rocket's booster stage nearly 150 miles down
range.

"This is a huge step forward for NASA's exploration goals," said Doug
Cooke, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission
Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Ares I-X provides
NASA with an enormous amount of data that will be used to improve the
design and safety of the next generation of American spaceflight
vehicles -- vehicles that could again take humans beyond low Earth
orbit."

The 327-foot tall Ares I-X test vehicle produced 2.6 million pounds of
thrust to accelerate the rocket to nearly 3 g's and Mach 4.76, just
shy of hypersonic speed. It capped its easterly flight at a
sub-orbital altitude of 150,000 feet after the separation of its
first stage, a four-segment solid rocket booster.

Parachutes deployed for recovery of the booster and the solid rocket
motor will be recovered at sea for later inspection. The simulated
upper stage, Orion crew module, and launch abort system will not be
recovered.

"The most valuable learning is through experience and observation,"
said Bob Ess, Ares I-X mission manager. "Tests such as this -- from
paper to flight -- are vital in gaining a deeper understanding of the
vehicle, from design to development."

Wednesday's flight offered an early opportunity to test and prove
hardware, facilities, and ground operations - important data for
future space vehicles. During the flight, a range of performance data
was relayed to the ground and also stored in the onboard flight data
recorder. The 700 sensors mounted on the vehicle provide flight test
engineering data to correlate with computer models and analysis. The
rocket's sensors gathered information in several areas, including
assembly and launch operations, separation of the vehicle's first and
second stages, controllability and aerodynamics, the re-entry and
recovery of the first stage and new vehicle design techniques.

The Ares I-X efforts are led by the Ares I-X mission management office
of the Constellation Program, based at NASA's Johnson Space Center in
Houston, and NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in
Washington. NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland designed and
built the vehicle's upper stage mass simulator. NASA's Langley
Research Center in Hampton, Va., provided aerodynamic
characterization, flight test vehicle integration and the crew
module/launch abort system mass simulator. NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., with contractor support, provided
management for the development of Ares I-X avionics, roll control,
and first stage systems. The Kennedy Space Center provided operations
and associated ground activities and launch operations.

Contractors for Ares I-X include Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, of Salt
Lake City for the first stage solid rocket booster and Teledyne Brown
Engineering of Huntsville for the roll control system. Jacobs
Engineering of Tullahoma, Tenn., supported by Lockheed Martin of
Denver, provided the avionics systems. United Space Alliance of
Houston and ATK Launch Systems support the ground systems and launch
operations.

NASA 21st Century Rocket Waiting to Launch on October 28th 2009.

Sometimes one can get a splitting headache from looking too much at distant galaxy's.

Truth be told: NASA missions are on hold for now:

WASHINGTON (AP) - NASA needs to make a major detour on its grand plans to return astronauts to the moon, a special independent panel is telling the White House.
NASA has picked the wrong destination with the wrong rocket, the panel's chairman said Thursday. A test-flight version of the new rocket, Ares, is on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, awaiting liftoff later this month. NASA should be concentrating on bigger rockets, the panel members said.

Norman Augustine, chairman of the White House-appointed panel reviewing the agency's spaceflight plans, said it makes more sense to land on a nearby asteroid or one of the moons of Mars. He said that could be done sooner than returning to the moon in 15 years as NASA has outlined.

The exploration plans now under fire were pushed by then-President George W. Bush after the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster. The moon-Mars plan lacks enough money, thanks to budget diversions, the panel said in a 155-page report. Starting in 2014, NASA needs an extra $3 billion a year if astronauts are going to travel beyond Earth's orbit, the panel said.

The key is where to explore space. In a report, the panel outlines eight options and leaves the choice to President Barack Obama. Three options are part of what the panel calls a "flexible path" to explore someplace other than the moon, eventually heading to a Mars landing far in the future. Augustine said the flexible path option, which includes no-landing flights around the moon and Mars, makes more sense from both a physics and finance standpoint.

Landing on the moon and then launching back to Earth takes a lot of fuel because of the moon's gravity. Hauling fuel from Earth to the moon and then back costs money.

It would take less fuel to land and return from asteroids or comets that swing by Earth or even the Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, Augustine said.

___

Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/hsf/home/index.html

No BUCKS---No Buck Rogers (UPdated):

Space review panel says moon, Mars out of reach

Fri Aug 14, 2009 3:27pm EDT