Here is a great article detailing the progress of Ares so far and NASAs plans for sending up some beta rockets over the next few years:

http://spaceflightnow.com/ares1x/081221a.html

I read an amazing stat today. Soyuz plans to lauch 39 vehicles in 2009, 5 alone will send up astronauts to the space station. That is a very impressive number of launches. NASA needs a comparable vehicle to the Soyuz in terms of realiablity and turn aroud time to get compatative again with their human space program, Ares might be able to do that for them.

First though, Ares has a lot of technological hurdles to overcome, hopefullyt the beta rockets can shake loose any glaring oversights.

The article above addresses one of the most serious challenges the new rockets faces. Resonance issues from the single solid rocket bosters being transfered into the 2nd stage and utimatley the human or payload capsule at the top of the stack. It's not good to have your cargo reach orbit in 1000 peices due to violent out of the envelope G shaking.

That being said the Ares is pretty impressive, let alone its height, the thing is SUPER tall compared to the shuttle stack. If NASA can solve the resonance, steering and rotation issues Ares will have a great shot at becoming a work horse even up to the standard of Soyuz.

NASA has some very challenging times ahead in the next 5-7 years. I hope the Ares project is a success.


Cheers,

I imagine the all mighty dollar will be a huge issue here ;(

Thanks for the info, been doing a bit of reading on the issue and you're correct it's very interesting!

Technically this is a bit misleading. Ares isn't replacing the shuttle, the "Constellation Project" is. And while the Shuttle was designed to service the International Space Station, Constellation's goals are a manned trip to Mars and establishing a manned base on the Moon.

Ares is the rocket and propulsion system which will carry the Orion, which is the actual shuttle replacement. At least that is how they explained it to me last.