Liftoff For NASA's Ares I-X Rocket (Video and Photos)

"The rocket NASA hopes will replace the Space Shuttle was test-launched this morning without a hitch"

Wrong, the solid rocket booster did not separate correctly causing the 5th stage to veer off at a 90 degree angle until it tore itself free. (as seen in the video)

Result of the test.....massive failure, if this was a operational mission it would have been a complete failure, but because everything was meant to fall into the ocean anyway, just a massive failure.

The best part was about 5 minutes after the launch and they switched to the engineers frantically trying to figure out what happened and having the camera man told to turn off the camera.

Classic.

What a stupendous leap backwards in technology!

Let's continue the brute force push into space with 1960's technology and forget about flying into space because we all know that it can't be done. Or can it, do you know Mr. Rutann?

"Wrong, the solid rocket booster did not separate correctly causing the 5th stage to veer off at a 90 degree angle until it tore itself free. (as seen in the video)"

Where'd you obtain this information? I am curious.

im sorry but does anyone feel like that thing looks WAY too unstable like if you put fins on the back it would be the dart of the gods. P.S. RisingPhoenix maybe AreYouKidding is a nasa engineer working on the project.

@Tripp529 "making it into orbit requires going 65 times more rocket energy than a suborbital vehicle like SpaceShipOne" - Musk

Yep lets just fly to space and stay there for two minutes at a time, that sounds like a leap forward to me.

Assessment: The Ares I-X Test Launch

The Ares I-X is a giant step back to the Apollo program. They already did this in the 60's with a better Saturn robust booster system in the first moon mission.

A reusable launch vehicle is what is needed. There is a tremendous waste of resources with expendables. Even the Space Shuttle was not technically reusable, an attempt at being reusable at $500M per launch with unreliable tiles that at any minute could cause catastrophic failure, especially during re-entry. The Ares vehicle is running over budget going from $28B to $44B in development costs and is looking very much like a pink elephant with the first misfire. At least we have something manned to replace the Shuttle.

Flying to space is good for Rutan and Virgin Glactic as a suborbital joy ride, and Branson is the space industry's best cheerleader. However, the holy grail of logistics will be the action of vertical take off and flying back; with vertical landing aerodynamic to brick (ATB).

And quoting Elon Musk about flying to space? SpaceX is a new comer with a string of three failures only to loft in orbit an empty ship with the same exact vertical take off technology. At least Musk’s SpaceX became the first commerical company to take anything into orbit, and winning the initial awards.

The object is to avoid adding to space debris, while deploying reusable satellites. Two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) reusable launch vehicles will be the key to manned transport, effectively going around the world in one hour.

@scigeek96

It's possible he could be an engineer on the project. I'd just like to read info about any mishaps myself instead of going by word of mouth. He seems a bit cynical about the project to willingly have a part in something like this, too :P Though it's still quite possible. Any links to details concerning the launch would be greatly appreciated.

Good job NASA you have invented the time machine! oh wait thats new rocket technology replacing the space shuttle? Im so disgusted that some of the smartest people in the world cant come up with a better reusable space craft. This is why civilian space agencies must take control of space exploration before NASA spends 80 billion more dollars reinventing the Wright Flyer. Worthless fools

Google "spaceport America" the real future

areyoukidding; what 5th stage are you talking abou?. what happened was NASA didnt put a delay in between when they shut off the main engine and when they allowed for separation thats why the upper stage veered off.

this test did not include an second stage engine which during separation would of propelled the upper stage away from the solid rocket motor. it was just a test of the flight systems and the 1st stage rocket which we know works anyway because its the same solid rocket from the shuttle program.

and the engineers were frantic at the end of the video because they lost communication with the rocket. Only a further review of the data gathered will tell if the mission was a failure or not

@scigeek 96

He's obviously not an engineer on the project. If he was, he would know that ares 1 has no "5th stage" he was referencing. The launch did go great, The second stage separated flawlessly, It did bump into the first stage after separating because it was a dummy stage and had no rocket motor to take it away from the 1st.

@ TheTeacher and Tripp529

I don't want to take anything away from spaceship one and Burt Rutan, It is a Sub orbital vehicle. They cant put anything into orbit, they can only fly up to an altitude that is considered space for 2 minutes and then fall back to earth. Basically it does the same thing as the NASA X-15 from back in the 50's.
NASA is going back to a capsule rather than a winged vehicle because they are planing on going to the moon or asteroids. The reentry speed from these is much higher than from low earth orbit, and a winged space plane cant handle the aerodynamic heating of reentry at those higher speeds. Its not going back to 60's tech, its using what works best.

@TheTeacher

"This is why civilian space agencies must take control of space"

-NASA is a civilian space agency, though it is government funded it has no military affiliation.

Did you mean commercial space agency? and in that case they already are, spaceX will be producing more rocket engines than the world combined by next year and aerospace start up companies are appearing everywhere. The aerospace industry is estimated to double by 2015 to a $415 billion dollar per year industry when NASA's funding is a mere $17.6 billion per year

@umdstudent and MH6490
Nicely stated sirs nicely stated, see you all in the next blog

Its very true that blunt body reentry vehicles are the best for return from almost anything except from Low Earth Orbit, while a lifting body is good for this In fact, back during the 60's, the Air Force investigated potential for a lifting body capsule to increase the manuverability and range of MIRV warheads

Lifting bodies are still in the infancy of development and there is a great future for utilization of an advanced lifting body for lunar and planetary travel. Wings do not cut it at mach 35 plus re-entry from a moon mission, but a properly shaped lifting body could be ideal as a reusable launch vehicle. The Ares design vehicle is still a 1960's design: an expendable with very little change aerodynamically in line of evolution of flight, comparable to the Apollo launch system.

The commerical sector will lead the design in reusables and in working in conjunction with the DoD, produce the next generation wheel in the sky at a fraction of the cost of today's expendable dinosaurs. Government can never be as cost effective or creative as the private sector. Elon Musk's SpaceX's worst effort is still miles ahead of NASA's inefficiencies. Whereas, Dave Thompson's Orbital Sciences (NYSE: ORB) has flourished and dominated the GPS satellite deployment niche. Even Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites suborbital space plane has been produced for a fraction of the cost that any government could output.

At the end of the day, reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) lifting bodies will be developed in the next several decades as soon as more robust propulsion is produced. Then, the commercial space companies will dominate the financial markets as commercial and DoD demand grows for space access in areas of space debris clean up, satellite constellation launch, and space tourism/special forces global insertion for the DoD.

I think it more than high time to dispel the myth that NASA is not a government-DOD-venture. To date, 80% of the payload weight lifted by NASA has been military. The private sector has had to scrub many plans to suit the whims of the military, sacrificing time, space alloted, and proprietary industrial secrets, not to mention sheer mountains of cash to get this companies' satellite launched, when that company is willing to pay off to get a mission scrubbed, and theirs slated. Even if the military space allotment is not being used due to a contractor not having something ready on time, often that space just goes unused, only rarely going to a company that was bumped prior. Then comes the ruinous waste. No private sector business could survive with the amounts of raw wealth that hemorrhage daily from this government enterprise. I look forward to a day when our space venture, NASA, exchanges goods and services with the private sector that will introduce a realistic viability to balance an ever growing need to boost mass and people to space.

The 90 deg. separation is only expected for a 1st stage rocket test. The 2nd stage was never intended to fire and was only there for aerodynamic stability. I guess the separation was part of the test, and if the 2nd stage had fired, the original trajectory would have held.

Yep. Always good to have people immediately claim it was a failure when they know nothing about what was actually being tested and what was not being tested. Good to see it perform well.

The majority of the reasons why I am disgusted are stated above, no need to reiterate. If only we had gone the path of the space odyssey series (2001/2010/2063/3001)Why did they scrap the mission to Venus? why did they stop going to the moon before any progress was made? why didn't they go ahead with Saturn/shuttle hybrid? Public interest. Oh how those idiots in the middle of the bell have screwed this world over. If we had continued the Apollo missions, forget bases. We would be colonizing the moon. Imagine, if Apophis (2029/36 asteroid) hit us, with NASA's timescale we would have a tent on the moon with 3 people in it, and they would have de-orbited the "international" space station years ago. Oh, and by civilian I believe the posters above were meaning non gov't, with which I agree wholeheartedly. But instead, we're going to return to the body which we so unceremoniously deserted 50 years before we are scheduled to return. or centuries knowing NASA's time lines.... point being we're continuing where we left of 40 YEARS ago!!! Osama's gonna kill the space program, but in reality: it's been dead since 1974.

Has anybody recognized that this launch has failed to capture any volume of public attention? Perhaps we need to put Paris Hilton's dog aboard this rocket. We are doomed to the apathy of a pop culture intelligence. This intelligence cares more about this day in Rock and Roll History than "geek toy" events. Remember that next time you cheer your college football team to victory because we will celebrate the Olympics and the entertainment quality over any real advancement.

That's definetly true,much to the dismay of myself, and other "geeks". I would say that NASA performed its job admirably, which was getting to the moon first. Now, however, the future of aerospace will more likely lie with smaller companies .

Flying to space is good for Rutan and Virgin Glactic as a suborbital joy ride, and Branson is the space industry's best cheerleader. However, the holy grail of logistics will be the action of vertical take off and flying back; with vertical landing aerodynamic to brick (ATB).
www.eprostateproblems.com/

Next time you cheer your college football team to victory because we will celebrate the Olympics and the entertainment quality over any real advancement.
www.ankylosingspondylitiscenter.com