Ares showed the right stuff in its first mission, but will that flight also be its last?

Ares-launch-late-photo.jpgA cone of moisture surrounds part of the Ares I-X rocket during liftoff Wednesday on a suborbital test flight from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39B in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Hours after NASA's new Ares I-X test rocket roared into the sky on its first flight Wednesday, managers wore big grins and the space agency seemed to have some of its right-stuff, Apollo-era swagger back.

The successful test flight answered some of the concerns raised by critics of the rocket's design, and work on the prototype's fully functional successor, Ares I, was bustling along.

At the Kennedy Space Center, cranes were hoisting pieces of Ares I's mobile launch platform into place. At Cleveland's Glenn Research Center, engineers were supervising the design of the service module that will hold vital life support, power and communications gear. In Southern California, the rocket's upper-stage engine was being pieced together. And at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans, workers were welding together the shell of the Orion capsule that will carry astronauts back to the moon.

"How can you feel anything but really good?" said Ramon "Ray" Lugo, the Glenn center's deputy director.

But an inescapable question hung in the air like the smoke from Ares I-X's thunderous ascent: Was the $450 million rocket's first flight its last?

The White House is weighing the recommendations of an influential advisory panel of engineers, scientists, aerospace executives and two astronauts. The committee, asked by President Barack Obama to review NASA's space exploration plans, concluded on the eve of the test flight that Ares I is the wrong rocket for the wrong mission.

Rather than using Ares I to replace the soon-to-be-retired space shuttles and carry astronauts on the first leg of a lunar mission, NASA ought to be building bigger, double-duty crew/cargo rockets that would fly to a nearby asteroid or one of Mars' moons, the panel said.

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Its members favor "Ares V lite," a slightly less powerful version of the heavy-lift Ares V rocket that NASA intends to build as a partner to Ares I.

For trips to and from the International Space Station, the panel suggests that NASA rely on commercially built rockets that are still in development.

The panel warned that in addition to requiring a change in vehicles and missions, the space agency needs a hefty budget increase; without at least $3 billion more per year, the nation's human space flight program "appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory," the committee said.

The Obama administration is studying the findings but has not indicated what direction it will take. Wednesday's near-flawless Ares I-X launch, coupled with the more than $10 billion that NASA already has spent on its Constellation moon/Mars exploration plans, and the years-long delays that developing an Ares I replacement would cause, have complicated the White House's decision.

Former NASA historian Roger Launius, now curator of Washington, D.C.'s National Air and Space Museum, thinks Ares I eventually will fly and NASA's Constellation approach will remain relatively intact.

"There doesn't seem to be any stomach in town to cancel the program," he said. "There's all of these vested interests, with constituencies on the Hill and in the White House and a variety of other places. There are powerful forces favoring the status quo."

Wednesday's test flight "suggests to the White House that this is real, this is starting to work."

NASA officials know the decision is largely out of their hands. An outright failure of the Ares I-X test flight last week would have made it easier to cancel the rocket, but success doesn't guarantee its survival.

Agency managers' comments last week were a mixture of satisfaction about how well the mission went and acknowledgment that the future of Ares I -- NASA's first new rocket in 30 years -- hangs in the balance.

"We have a [rocket] design that will do the country service if it is put into service," said Constellation Program manager Jeff Hanley. "We'll do what we always do. We're implementers. We'll implement national policy once national leaders give us direction."

A decision to scrap Ares I or otherwise overhaul the Constellation program could have significant effects on individual NASA centers like Glenn, where tens of millions of dollars in Ares and Constellation work is under way, and for the nation as a whole.

The space agency plans to retire the aging shuttle fleet next year. Budget cuts, cost overruns and schedule delays have pushed the first crew-carrying flight of the shuttles' replacement, Ares I, from the originally planned 2012 to 2015, though NASA admits it may slip another two years.

That means the United States could face at least seven years of no manned flights -- the longest gap since the American space program's beginning in 1961. If Ares I and Ares V are shelved for the derivative Ares V lite design, the flight gap will extend even longer, perhaps to 2019, Hanley said, as NASA switches to the as-yet-undesigned rocket.

Meanwhile, the United States will have to pay Russia to ferry astronauts and cargo to the space station.

Cleveland's Glenn center fought hard for a role in the Constellation program, arguing that its engineering expertise was equal to that of the usual space flight hardware designers at NASA's Kennedy, Johnson and Marshall centers. NASA brass agreed, assigning Glenn major roles in the Ares I-X, I and V rocket projects.

For last week's test flight, the center designed and built the rocket's $53 million upper stage mockup, which matched the shape and weight of the real thing.

For Ares I, Glenn engineers are, among other things, supervising development of the upper stage's electrical power and rocket thrust control systems. They'll be doing similar work on Ares V's upper stage, as well as building the payload shroud that protects the Altair lunar lander.

Glenn deputy director Lugo is confident that the center's efforts so far, particularly on the Ares I-X rocket, have ensured a part in whatever NASA's new space exploration vehicles might be.

"NASA draws on the skills and strengths of all its centers to execute programs," Lugo said. "I tend to be an optimist that, while the specific path may change, NASA Glenn will have a role. What we've done on this project can do nothing but help our position for future work."

"They made a pretty good name for themselves," agreed Ares I-X mission manager Bob Ess. "They showed that Glenn Research Center is a place for exploration."

Meanwhile, NASA officials insist that even if the Ares I project doesn't go forward, last week's Ares I-X test wasn't for nothing. The flight performance information collected by the rocket's more than 700 onboard sensors will help refine computer simulations, which in turn will improve the design of any replacement vehicle.

"Every space launch, particularly something of this magnitude, is important," Hanley said. "Our opportunities to do it are not very many. That's why we do a lot of testing in computer models. It saves a lot of money, but they have to be anchored in reality. Regardless of what happens, this flight will provide valuable engineering data. It's incredibly important to Ares I and any future human launch system you might want to build."

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