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Praise and ridicule for Ares award

On Thursday Time magazine released its annual “best inventions” list. Topping the list as the best invention of the year, in the minds of the magazine’s staff, were NASA’s Ares rocket, dubbing the Ares 1 “a machine that can launch human beings to cosmic destinations we’d never considered before”. Nitpickers would note that the Ares 1 could not qualify as the “smartest and coolest thing built in 2009″ since the full-fledged Ares 1 is still in the design stage: only a suborbital prototype, the Ares 1-X, was built and flown this year.

That did not stop the chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, Bart Gordon, and the chair of the space subcommittee, Gabrielle Giffords, from praising Time’s selection in a press release today. “This recognition by TIME is further proof that in spite of a challenging budgetary environment, NASA continues to demonstrate technological leadership,” Gordon said in the statement. “I’d like to congratulate NASA and all of the people who have worked on the development of the Ares rockets.”

Coming from the opposite direction, though, was the Space Frontier Foundation, who sharply criticized the selection in its own press release today. Foundation co-founder Rick Tumlinson called the award a “publicity hoax”, saying, “There was no boy in the balloon and there most definitely was no Ares rocket launched in Florida last month.”

While Time might have considered Ares the invention of the year, it’s not a sentiment shared by its readers, who have the option online of rating the importance of each of the 50 inventions profiled on a 1-to-100 scale. Ares comes in tied for 13th place (as of early Monday evening), with an average rating of 72. That puts it well behind the frontrunner, an electronic eye to allow the blind to see, a low-power but bright lightbulb, and a roof shingle/solar panel. Ares, though, is doing much better than another top-50 invention, the no-punt offense, whose standing probably plummeted (in New England, at least) after Sunday night’s Pats-Colts game.

38 comments to Praise and ridicule for Ares award

  • Ray

    Praise, ridicule, or just having fun? You decide:

    spaceprizes.blogspot.com/2009/11/2009-best-invention-of-year.html

  • Captain J-Bo

    TIME’s choice of Ares I as the invention of the year is an enlightened and praiseworthy decision!

    To critics of Ares, let me point out that the I-X launch successfully demonstrated the Ares I flight configuration and provided an opportunity for an early test of actual hardware and algorithms that will be used on Ares I. The data from the test flight will be used to make improvements as the design is finalized. From Ares I-X the Ares team learned what worked well (flawlessly in some respects) and what they could do to improve Ares I–thereby fully meeting the test objectives and placing Ares far ahead of any paper designs of alternative vehicles.

    Additionally, assembling and launching Ares I-X was a critical exercise in the adaptation of a workforce who has not worked with another vehicle in over 25 years. This is a key accomplishment as we close the era of the space shuttle and open a new period of space exploration.

    To those who would rather see another “best invention” get top billing, allow me to list some of the areas in which NASA research has spawned world-changing advances: medicine, transportation, communications, manufacturing, public safety, food science, synthetic materials, etc. Our homes and communities are literally full of technologies started by NASA. Indeed, it is because of NASA’s prior research that many of the year’s other 50 best inventions were able to be invented! Looking to the future, we can only imagine what we will gain from the development of Ares and the next era of space travel.

    If the criteria for “best invention of the year ” is to have the furthest reaching and longest lasting impact on the world in which we live, Ares I is truly worthy of the honor.

  • Steve

    Forget about whether it deserves the award for a second, and the idea that rocket is tied for 13th place in public opinion of the award is pretty good. Since many decry that the public doesn’t care about space, I would think it would be a lot lower.

  • aremisasling

    “Our homes and communities are literally full of technologies started by NASA. ”

    While fundamentally I agree with you wholeheartedly, I’ll point out that the award went to Ares, not to NASA. As a result, I can see a rather solid case for a mechanical eye, which provides a rather astounding breakthrough in medical science and could very well pave the way for a host of medical advances for the disabled. I am very inspired by Ares and I think that it deserves a place on the list and perhaps on the top, but as a singular creation, it’s a strong competitor, not a hands down win.

    Again, though, I fundamentally agree with you. I think Steve’s comment sums it up best. Ares has average people caring about space again. For us space geeks that’s as much a miracle as turning water to wine. If it never leaves LEO but finally captures some attention, it’ll be a feat in and of itself.

    Aremis

  • Robert G. Oler

    Additionally, assembling and launching Ares I-X was a critical exercise in the adaptation of a workforce who has not worked with another vehicle in over 25 years. This is a key accomplishment as we close the era of the space shuttle and open a new period of space exploration…..

    and these are the same people who claim that the folks who have been working with “other vehicles” cannot be trusted to fly astronauts and cargo safely?

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    This award by Time is as useless as Rasmussen poll numbers. and is as meaningless to the debate over space policy as Sarah Palin’s book is to the future of politics.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Our homes and communities are literally full of technologies started by NASA. Indeed, it is because of NASA’s prior research that many of the year’s other 50 best inventions were able to be invented!..

    LOL which office of the PAO do you work for? Comeon throw out teflon…

    Robert G. Oler

  • I am very inspired by Ares

    You must be trivially easily inspired. Did you vote for Obama, too? ;-)

  • NavyFlyBoy

    wow, never expected some righteous Patriots-taunting on THIS site!

  • Martijn Meijering

    Additionally, assembling and launching Ares I-X was a critical exercise in the adaptation of a workforce who has not worked with another vehicle in over 25 years

    Tell me, why should a bunch of amateurs get billions of taxpayers’ dollars to learn how to build rockets when the experts at ULA have recently built not one but two launchers? Two launchers that are so reliable the military relies on them for launching expensive national defense payloads? Two launchers that could easily be adapted for exploration.

    Even if a new rocket were required, it should be built by experts, not by amateurs. And in fact changes to the existing EELVs that would greatly increase their payload are already in the works.

  • sc220

    We had a subscription to Time Magazine, but I decided to cancel it after this article. It was more an aspect of sloppy journalism and inability to probe just the first, very general levels of a story. As people on this and other forums have posted, the Ares I-X was just a test flight of a single SRB. It wasn’t even a close approximation to the final product. I’m sure that some folks at NASA were feeding Time privileged information to nudge things in their favor. Solicitations or “nominations” for these type of things come from the outside into the NASA system regularly. All it takes is a good 1-page writeup, a follow-up phone call or two, and you’re in business. This is how the system works for almost all awards and recognition for accomplishment.

  • “You must be trivially easily inspired. Did you vote for Obama, too?”

    Ares V is one of the largest and most capable rockets we’ll have built in the history of spaceflight. Even aside from the possibilities of Moon and beyond, the potential for launching massive telescope assemblies and large-scale space probes is pretty fantastic. And honestly, though I do believe it’ll be behind schedule and over budget, I think Ares I/V will get us back to the moon and will take us beyond. Sure, I’m less than excited about the long wait, but I’ve waited this long, I’m willing to be patient for it to be done right.

    Apollo was built quickly, with all-up testing and fewer safety processes in place and without the benefit of a radically better understanding of the kinds of forces impacting large rockets of the Saturn class. And the Saturn family was built with the idea of getting there and coming back. Ares is being constructed with the idea of getting there and staying there. It’s a different engineering task. In short, sure it’s not as inspiring as Apollo, but if we were taking the kind of maverick route we took then, people would be shouting to the rafters about insufficient design and severely flawed safety procedures.

    So yeah, I am inspired by Ares. I’m inspired by the possibilities it offers that shuttle never did. I’m inspired by NASA finally committing to a new rocket family after decades of successive proposals, developments, and cancellations. And I’m inspired by the fact that even when the ‘readers disagree’ they still put it at 13. And I’m inspired by the fact that NASA is taking it’s time and making sure its done right.

    And for the record, yes I voted for Obama. And I know now that conervatives are out of the white house, it’s your turn to make snarky comments about presidential failures. But do you really think McCain would have done better? Politicians fail to meet their stated goals pretty much universally. If they didn’t overpromise at election time no one would vote for them, conservative, or liberal. The last president to deliver on all of his promises was Washington. He was, by the way, strongly opposed to political parties and ideological devisiveness. I can see why.

    Aremis

  • Kaylyn63

    Time magazine has done the public a huge service in determining the top 50 inventions of the year. It also provided an exemplary description of the reasons why NASA’s Ares rockets deserve top billing.

    Rick Tumlinson called the award a “publicity hoax,” saying, “There was no boy in the balloon and there most definitely was no Ares rocket launched in Florida last month.” Rick …… fasten your seatbelt and hang on for the ride Ares is going to give the United States. If you’re not familiar with the term “flight test,” what happens is you draw a line in the sand with your design and you proceed with building and testing the rocket. Obviously design changes and modifications continue to happen, but you can’t modify your test rocket every time that happens, or it would never launch. You must know the Ares I-X flight test has provided (and will continue to provide) necessary and important data to go forward with the Ares program, greatly benefiting the country’s (and the world’s) space program. What could be cooler than that? Obviously many of the 50 top inventions listed in Time’s article are amazing, and have far-reaching effects. What cannot be compared are future inventions that will be made possible by the Ares program.

    sc220 – I seriously doubt you canceled your subscription to TIME over this article. If so, you may as well cancel your subscription to the Internet, too.

    Oler – This poll isn’t useless, if for no other reason than it gets the information out in the public forum and makes us think. Quite a concept, I know, but something we should all remember how to do.

    Captain J-Bo is all over the facts. Perhaps we could take a minute to review those. Oh wait – that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun!

  • Loki

    LMAO

    I thought in order for something to be considered an invention it had to be something that’s actually new or at the very least a new application for some existing technology. What was “invented” for Ares 1-X?

    SRBs? No
    Ammonium Perchlorate? No
    Atlas 5 avionics? Definitely not

    I suppose maybe one could argue that it’s a new application of existing shuttle technology, but that’s pretty week at best. As fas as inventions go, I doubt it should even be on the list.

  • Kaylyn63

    Loki – Pretty week? Is that like seven beautiful dais?

    You can easily do the homework of what was invented for Ares I-X, so I won’t bore you with the details. If you really want to know, just go to NASA’s website: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/ares/flighttests/aresIx/building_original.html.

  • AntonLebowski

    “Tell me, why should a bunch of amateurs get billions of taxpayers’ dollars to learn how to build rockets when the experts at ULA have recently built not one but two launchers?”

    Are these the same experts who dumped a multi-million dollar satellite in the ocean a few months back? The so called “amateurs” you talk about have been building rockets for over fifty years; they have built the missiles and bullets that help keep your freedom. They have launched as of Monday over a hundred shuttle flights successfully.

    I understand the heated debate between those that have and those that have-not. There are literally billions of dollars at stake for whomever builds the newest rocket to launch astronauts into space. The funny thing is, the ones who have-not wants you to believe that they are some lowly small commercial space outfit who will save America and provide thousands of high tech jobs. This is laughable; these so-called space saviors with their cheap-to-build EELV are the two largest Aerospace companies in the world. Boeing and Lockheed Martin seemed to be a little miffed about losing so much of the Ares I contract and stand to lose so much more when Ares V is awarded that they would go as far as to mislead everyone possible about the Constellation project.

    They want people to believe that moving over to the EELV (which has a smaller track record and has never flown on time) from the solid rocket boosters of the first stage and the liquid upper stage that are cousins to the first and second stage of the shuttle would be a cheaper and better alternative. They also keep talking about moving the Orion capsule (a Lockheed Martin product) to the EELV and claiming that changing some numbers on a paper is all that it will take to have a viable human space launch vehicle. Let me remind you all that the Delta IV Heavy (which is what we would have to fly astronauts AND cargo on) has flown only three missions successfully. The Aerospace Corporation, which testified to the Augustine Committee, said that it would take at least 6 years to human-rate a Delta of any kind for space flight. This EELV plan does not include a Launch Abort System (LAS), a system on Ares I that is designed per the Columbia investigation team to save astronauts’ lives. None of the plans that are currently on paper have any safety system to save astronauts’ lives.

  • AntonLebowski

    These are trying times for the future of Human Space Flight; we all work in uncertainty as to what we should do next, but truth be told the “amateurs” of the Constellation program have already conducted a successful Launch Abort Motor test, a successful number of parachute drop tests, a successful full-scale five segment solid booster test and a successful full scale mockup and design test of Ares I. This summer the “amateurs” plan on firing the second full-scale motor for Ares I, while the critics, naysayers, and blowhards talk tough and have nothing to show for it.

    Time was brave enough to say and show that the work NASA is doing towards furthering our reaches into space are worthy of the invention of the year. This invention will inspire future generations to reach for the stars, and to dream big. We will go back to the moon, to Mars and beyond; let’s just hope we do it before the Chinese, Indians, or even Europeans do it. If we decide to scrap the invention of the year, it will prove America has no idea what we are doing and we will have missed the boat.

    Go Ares!

  • CharlesTheSpaceGuy

    Way to go, folks! We successfully worked the Pats-Colts game, Sarah Palin, and the balloon boy into this discussion so far. I wish I could think of some way to work in the Chicago Cubs and their World Series aspirations, but I can’t!

    But seriously, Ares-1X is not an invention. We cannot award people things for stuff they did not do (and likely will not do). Who are we, the Nobel Peace Prize committee? We cannot boast about what Ares V will do.

    Time magazine was almost certainly provided a first class tour of KSC and that is where the award came from. Rick Tumlison said it best and you can’t improve on his words. We should just be glad that Michael Jackson did not appear on the list! But where was Wrigley Field on the list?

  • Engineer in Houston

    Do the people who contributed to the success of this Ares-1X test flight deserve congratulations? Absolutely – they did a great job. Was it cool to watch? Of course – unique rocket launches always are. Is Ares-1X really, really tall, with lots of cool emblems on the side? Yes. Is it the best “invention” of 2009? Is it even an “invention?” Ares-1X was simply a new assembly of old, cannibalized, and simulated parts. [If you “do the homework”, you can understand this, Kaylyn63 – did you even read what you linked to? A Google search seems to indicate that you work for ATK.] Does Ares-1X contribute to an *affordable* space transportation capability? Uh …

    I’ve worked as an engineer for most of my career in the space industry, and this Time Magazine award has me scratching me head. There are much better candidates for Invention of the Year than Ares-1X. How about the MLAS? That was really cool. As has been stated, this Ares-1X partial prototype launch vehicle will not take us anywhere – it’s not an Ares-1. And Ares-1 will not take us “to cosmic destinations we’d never considered before”, but only to LEO. It will have just about zero impact on the average American. Furthermore, Ares-V has not been built or prototyped, nor is it likely to ever be built – the cash just isn’t there. If one wants to recognize NASA for other reasons, fine. There are many programs and endeavors that NASA undertakes that absolutely deserve broad recognition. But those endeavors have nothing to do with Ares-1X. It’s only the timing of the launch relative to the Time award that can be credited for Ares-1X even being on the list.

    NASA does demonstrate technological leadership, they have a great skillbase, and they are capable of great things. But, let’s hope they are given a direction and marching orders that enable them to make the maximum use of those skills and abilities. There is so much at stake here at this juncture, and so much potential. If NASA had much, much, more money, yes, they could likely make Ares-1 and Ares-V work on a technical level. But, thinking inside the box (and taking the old route) is not going to get us where we want to go in the long run, which is to grow a large, sustainable, and valuable human presence in our solar system.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Are these the same experts who dumped a multi-million dollar satellite in the ocean a few months back?

    If you’re talking about the OCO launch, then no, that was Orbital Sciences, not ULA. Note that Orbital Sciences too does have more recent experience with developing rockets than NASA.


    The so called “amateurs” you talk about have been building rockets for over fifty years; they have built the missiles and bullets that help keep your freedom. They have launched as of Monday over a hundred shuttle flights successfully.

    No they haven’t. They haven’t developed a launcher in over thirty years. And they didn’t develop the missiles and launchers you speak of. What they have done is to launch a lot of Shuttles, with a lot of USA contractors I might add.

    Launcher development knowledge at NASA was lost after Shuttle. That is why Griffin said NASA had to rebuild this lost knowledge. The trouble is the knowledge wasn’t lost at all, it’s just that the knowledge now resides in industry. Reconstituting a capability that exists in the commercial sector is wasting taxpayers’ money. It is also competing unfairly with commercial players.

  • Major Tom

    [Captain J-Bo]

    “the I-X launch successfully demonstrated the Ares I flight configuration”

    No, Ares I-X did not demonstrate the Ares I flight configuration.

    Ares I-X employed a four-segment SRB for the first stage, while Ares I, if it’s ever built, will employ an unflown, five-segment SRB for the first stage.

    Ares I-X employed a dummy second stage, while Ares I, if it’s ever built, will employ a J-2X powered second stage.

    “provided an opportunity for an early test of actual hardware”

    The only “actual hardware” from Ares I-X that will be used on Ares I are the parachutes and two of those failed.

    “and algorithms that will be used on Ares I.”

    Ares I-X employed Atlas V avionics that will not be used on Ares I, on top of all the other huge hardware differences noted above. The “algorithms” will be totally different.

    “From Ares I-X the Ares team learned what worked well (flawlessly in some respects)”

    There were flaws in every major phase of the Ares I-X test flight. Damage to the pad on liftoff, an off-nominal stage separation that would have put Orion in deadly abort orientations, the failure of two of three parachutes, and damage to the SRB first-stage that would have prevented its reuse for reliability tracking and affordability.

    “placing Ares far ahead of any paper designs of alternative vehicles.”

    The alternative vehicles are Atlas V and Delta IV, which have 26 successful flights between them, and Falcon 9, which when it launches in February, will actually be tested in its flight configuration and be much closer to completing its development cycle than Ares I.

    “Additionally, assembling and launching Ares I-X was a critical exercise in the adaptation of a workforce who has not worked with another vehicle in over 25 years.”

    Why are we training a new NASA workforce in how to build launch vehicles, when the nation already has two at ULA and OSC and is training another at SpaceX?

    “some of the areas in which NASA research has spawned world-changing advances: medicine, transportation, communications, manufacturing, public safety, food science, synthetic materials, etc.”

    This is a total non-sequitor. Ares I contributes nothing in any of these areas.

    [aremisaisling]

    “Ares V is one of the largest and most capable rockets we’ll have built in the history of spaceflight.”

    Unclear. Performance shortfalls have led Ares V to resort to 5.5-segment SRBs and other questionable design moves. Even if you assume that bigger rockets are better, it’s far from known how capable Ares V will actually be.

    “Even aside from the possibilities of Moon and beyond, the potential for launching massive telescope assemblies and large-scale space probes is pretty fantastic.”

    As the NRC has pointed out, such a large and expensive launcher is useless to science if there’s no budget to build those massive telescope assemblies and large-scale space probes. For unmanned science missions, Ares V is a hammer in search of a nail.

    [Kaylynn63]

    “Time magazine… provided an exemplary description of the reasons why NASA’s Ares rockets deserve top billing.”

    No, Time did not provide an exemplary description. Time’s justification was full of errors and false statements. Ares I-X is not Ares I. Time will have to wait until at least 2017 until Ares I starts flying. Even then, Ares I will never be “a machine that can launch human beings to cosmic destinations we’d never considered before”. It will launch four crew (down from six) into suborbital trajectories where Orion takes over and brings them up to LEO. We’ve been going to suborbital altitudes and LEO for decades now — they’re hardly “cosmic destinations we’ve never considered before.”

    “Rick Tumlinson called the award a ‘publicity hoax,'”

    Tumlinson is hardly alone or off-point in his criticism of the Ares I-X flight. For example:

    “Well, it looked spectacular.

    I’m referring to NASA’s recent launch of the Ares 1-X, billed as the prototype of the Ares 1 as a crew launch vehicle, a fancy term for a manned space booster. The rocket is said to have performed as planned, and ushered in the era of the Ares rockets to replace the Space Shuttle next year. Only it won’t. In fact, the much-hyped Ares 1-X was much ado about nothing.

    Yes, the rocket that thundered aloft from NASA’s Launch Pad 39B sure looked like an Ares 1. But that’s where the resemblance stops. Turns out the solid booster was – literally – bought from the Space Shuttle program, since a five-segment booster being designed for Ares wasn’t ready. So they put a fake can on top of the four-segmented motor to look like the real thing. Since the real Ares’ upper stage rocket engine, called the J-2X wasn’t ready either, they mounted a fake upper stage. No Orion capsule was ready, so – you guessed it – they mounted a fake capsule with a real-looking but fake escape rocket that wouldn’t have worked if the booster had failed. Since the guidance system for Ares wasn’t ready either they went and bought a unit from the Atlas rocket program and used it instead. Oh yes, the parachutes to recover the booster were the real thing — and one of the three failed, causing the booster to slam into the ocean too fast and banging the thing up.”

    That was written by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin here:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/buzz-aldrin/why-we-need-better-rocket_b_351335.html

    “What cannot be compared are future inventions that will be made possible by the Ares program. ”

    Like what? Specifically?

    “Captain J-Bo is all over the facts.”

    No, they’re not. They got nearly every “fact” wrong. See above.

    [AntonLebowski]

    “Boeing and Lockheed Martin seemed to be a little miffed about losing so much of the Ares I contract”

    Boeing and LockMart didn’t lose any contract. Boeing won the upper stage manufacturing and avionics contracts for Ares I. LockMart won the Orion contract. Everything else was sole-sourced to ATK or Rocketdyne.

    “They want people to believe that moving over to the EELV (which has a smaller track record…”

    Absolutely false. Ares I has _never_ flown. The EELV family has completed 26 successful launches.

    The Augustine Committee pointed out that due to its low launch rate, Ares I will never catch up to the EELVs in terms of successfully completed flights and probablistic reliability.

    “and has never flown on time)”

    Even if this is true about the EELV families, the Ares I-X test flight experienced weeks of delays.

    “Let me remind you all that the Delta IV Heavy (which is what we would have to fly astronauts AND cargo on)”

    Why? Orion’s crew complement has already shrunk due to Ares I performance shortfalls. Why not build a smaller capsule, per the final report of the Augustine Committee?

    “This EELV plan does not include a Launch Abort System (LAS)… None of the plans that are currently on paper have any safety system to save astronauts’ lives.”

    This is a patently false statement. For example:

    “It is also noted that the ULA used the same ascent trajectory constraints as Ares I, such as the LAS (Launch Abort System) jet at Upper Stage Ignition (+30 sec, -30×100nmi injection).”

    See:

    http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/04/study-eelv-capable-orion-role-griffin-claims-alternatives-fiction/

    Stop spreading lies.

    “conducted… a successful number of parachute drop tests…”

    Which were invalidated by two parachute failures on the Ares I-X flight test.

    “…and a successful full scale mockup and design test of Ares I.”

    There was very little successful about the Ares I-X test flight. The flight included damage to the pad on liftoff, an off-nominal stage separation that would have put Orion in deadly abort orientations, the failure of two of three parachutes, and damage to the SRB first-stage that would have prevented its reuse for reliability tracking and affordability.

    “This invention will inspire future generations to reach for the stars, and to dream big.”

    How? Where is there any evidence for such?

    FWIW…

  • Man, some people don’t just drink the Ares kool-aid — they snorkel in an Olympic-sized pool of it.

  • FRICH

    While the ARES team is to be commended for a job well done, it is not a great invention.

    Just another Rocket and Rocket System like we’ve been doing for years. Reminiscent of Project FIRE launched in the 60’s to support the planned Apollo missions.

  • commons sense

    @Engineer in Houston: Re MLAS:

    The MLAS launched earlier this year is to the real LAS what Ares IX is to the real Ares I. And, the MLAS concept will not work due to the location of the abort motors. Assume for 1 sec that 1 of the 4 motors fails… That’d a rocky abort now would it not?

    Oh well…

  • commons sense

    @Ares-IX-Cheer-Leading-Team:

    The clock is ticking and Ares I will most likely not be. Notwithstanding the success or failure of Ares IX, the slimmest chance for Ares I to go on would be if all of below were to happen:

    . EELVs withdrawn from consideration for some highly suspicious reason.
    . SpaceX fails with Falcon 9, not the maiden launch, mind you, but the whole program.
    . CCDev returns nothing of value.
    . The Augustine report is dismissed by the WH.

    So what are the chances for Ares I to go on again? Ares V? Yeah sure. Can I have a little Kool-Aid? Thanks. Cheers!

    As for Time magazine, you may have reached the lowest point of your existence. So your science/techonlogy journalist knows more about space than say Buzz Aldrin? If your coverage of the rest of the news is that high a quality then it is pretty sad for you. No wonder why people read the Internet rather than this paper garbage. Go on whining about lost readership…

  • AntonLebowski

    Well you cannot please everyone all the time. No matter what someone does or accomplishes there is within seconds someone on some blog somewhere crying, complaining and moaning about them. Americans always look for the worst and cannot wait to pick apart the other. Look at the state of talk radio and the media these days. Ares I-X and Ares are the best Invention of the Year per Time Magazine, love it or not. Ares continues to defy all the skeptics and create new ones to replace those who are no longer skeptical of what many companies are doing. Like I said billions of dollars are at stake and the mud is flying, the one thing I know is that Ares I-X flew and flew better than many of you thought it would. You can take small errors the flight had and blow them out of proportion. (11 parachutes have failed in the Shuttle program and caused damage far worse than Ares I-X boosters did.) Plus the time article was about Ares I not Ares I-X even though the photo was Ares I-X. Well you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.

  • Major Tom

    “No matter what someone does or accomplishes there is within seconds someone on some blog somewhere crying, complaining and moaning about them.”

    No one is complaining about the actual accomplishment — the launch of an existing 4-segment SRB with a bunch of dummy hardware — in this thread. As far as suborbital rocket launches go, it was a lot bigger and a lot more impressive than your average Black Brant.

    We’re complaining that the accomplishment has been blown way, way out of proportion. If Time is this impressed with Ares I-X, then every suborbital launch from Wallops should get a blurb in that magazine. At least those launches have working upper stages and payloads.

    I’m also complaining about the multiple falsehoods in your post regarding the Ares I contractors, EELV launch history, the LAS for an EELV-launched Orion, and the multiple flaws in the Ares I-X test flight. I don’t know if you made these statements out of ignorance or if they were knowing lies, but if you don’t want to be criticized, then do your homework and/or don’t spread lies.

    “Look at the state of talk radio and the media these days.”

    And Time is part of the media.

    Your point?

    “Ares I-X and Ares are the best Invention of the Year per Time Magazine, love it or not.”

    No, despite the fact that it has yet to be “invented”, Ares I is Time’s best invention. There is no “Ares” and the article never mentions Ares I-X by name.

    “…the one thing I know is that Ares I-X flew and flew better than many of you thought it would.”

    How do you know? Can you read our minds?

    For the record, the Ares I-X test flight performed much worse than I thought it would. I’m appalled that a half billion of our tax dollars went into a test that shares no hardware with Ares I aside from the roll control system and parachutes, and that one of those two subsystems failed. For a half billion dollars, the Ares project should be able to get parachutes to work.

    “You can take small errors the flight had and blow them out of proportion. (11 parachutes have failed in the Shuttle program and caused damage far worse than Ares I-X boosters did.)”

    The parachutes are a critical issue for Ares I. Ares I’s operational cost estimates and reliability/safety projections are based on reusing the first-stage SRBs. If the parachutes fail regularly and the SRBs can’t be reused, then those cost estimates and reliability/safety estimates go out the window. Thanks to the Ares I-X test, we now know that Ares I may be even more expensive and less safe than we previously assumed.

    FWIW…

  • AstroNut

    @ Major Tom…

    FWIW you say…well I’ll tell you. NOTHING.

    Just as in your handle is a fictional astronaut, your musings are as equally misguided. Hey come to think of it, didn’t Major Tom lose contact with ground control, as in lost all contact with reality. Yup…appropriate name.

  • Engineer in Houston

    @commons sense – Agreed – though from the perspective of Time magazine, I’d have voted the faux MLAS test launch cooler than the faux Ares-1 launch. At least all the chutes worked…

    @Lebowski – it’s not that “critics” are crying and moaning and looking for the worst. Credit is being given where it is due. But, let’s at least be objective and truthful in telling it like it is. The cheerleading being done in some of the posts above is loaded with skewed, misleading, and just plain wrong assertions. Apply some critical thinking skills. Do you really believe that “This invention will inspire future generations to reach for the stars, and to dream big.”? The development and operations costs threaten to bankrupt the human spaceflight budget to the point where we cannot afford to go anywhere but LEO. Do you really believe that one (and eventually a second huge) vehicle built, operated, and paid for by a single customer is the way to go?

  • Major Tom

    “FWIW you say…well I’ll tell you. NOTHING.”

    Thanks for the informative, insightful, and mature response.

    “Just as in your handle is a fictional astronaut, your musings are as equally misguided.”

    Fictional and misguided aren’t the same thing. Use a dictionary.

    “Hey come to think of it, didn’t Major Tom lose contact with ground control, as in lost all contact with reality. Yup…appropriate name.”

    You do realize how stupidly hypocritical it is to use my handle to lamely criticize my arguments when your handle is “AstroNut”, right?

    If you want to discuss issues of substance, please feel free to try and post again. But if your idea of intelligent debate is juvenile namecalling, then go visit the nearest playground.

    Lawdy…

  • Anon

    The Time Magazines award just illustrates the huge gap between the way the blogsphere experts view NASA’s program and how the real world views them. Maybe instead of posting hair splitting here blogsphere experts should be spending their time educating the real world.

  • Ray

    Kaylyn63: “…fasten your seatbelt and hang on for the ride Ares is going to give the United States”

    Ares has already taken the United States on quite a ride, so I can only imagine what’s next:

    – ISS science and engineering cut beyond the bone
    – ISS dumped in the ocean in 2015
    – Ares 1 delivered in 2017 – 2019 to service the long-gone ISS
    – huge commercial space opportunities lost for U.S. industry
    – NASA Aeronautics vanished
    – Planetary science robotics, including missions to scout human spaceflight destinations, fading to a shadow
    – NASA research, development, and technology demonstration work cut and limited to Ares investigations
    – NASA Earth science missions few and far between
    – Ares V delivered in 2030, but no budget to put anything on it
    – EELVs, Falcons, and Taurus II greatly underutilized (and thus more expensive per launch than necessary) by the loss of commercial crew transport to LEO, fuel launches, early destruction of the ISS, and lack of budget to launch robotic missions – resulting in U.S. launch industry not being competitive in the global marketplace

    Thanks, Ares!

    Here’s what the Augustine Committee report says about the current plan, which includes Ares 1 and Ares V:

    “In short, this program … offers little or no apparent value.”

  • Major Tom

    “The Time Magazines award just illustrates the huge gap between the way the blogsphere experts view NASA’s program and how the real world views them.”

    Buzz Aldrin is arguably part of the “real world”, and here’s what he had to say:

    “Well, it looked spectacular.

    I’m referring to NASA’s recent launch of the Ares 1-X, billed as the prototype of the Ares 1 as a crew launch vehicle, a fancy term for a manned space booster. The rocket is said to have performed as planned, and ushered in the era of the Ares rockets to replace the Space Shuttle next year. Only it won’t. In fact, the much-hyped Ares 1-X was much ado about nothing.

    Yes, the rocket that thundered aloft from NASA’s Launch Pad 39B sure looked like an Ares 1. But that’s where the resemblance stops. Turns out the solid booster was – literally – bought from the Space Shuttle program, since a five-segment booster being designed for Ares wasn’t ready. So they put a fake can on top of the four-segmented motor to look like the real thing. Since the real Ares’ upper stage rocket engine, called the J-2X wasn’t ready either, they mounted a fake upper stage. No Orion capsule was ready, so – you guessed it – they mounted a fake capsule with a real-looking but fake escape rocket that wouldn’t have worked if the booster had failed. Since the guidance system for Ares wasn’t ready either they went and bought a unit from the Atlas rocket program and used it instead. Oh yes, the parachutes to recover the booster were the real thing — and one of the three failed, causing the booster to slam into the ocean too fast and banging the thing up.”

    See:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/buzz-aldrin/why-we-need-better-rocket_b_351335.html

    “Maybe instead of posting hair splitting here”

    Refuting blatant lies by other posters about Ares I contractors, EELV launch history, the LAS for an EELV-launched Orion, and the multiple flaws in the Ares I-X test flight is not “hair splitting”

    “blogsphere experts should be spending their time educating the real world.”

    They already know. See Buzz Aldrin above.

    FWIW…

  • Go Ares!

    It’s going to take 20 years to repair the damage you cretins have caused upon the United States of America.

    The Time Magazines award just illustrates the huge gap between the way the blogsphere experts view NASA’s program and how the real world views them. Maybe instead of posting hair splitting here blogsphere experts should be spending their time educating the real world.

    By publishing numerous results, positions and proposals during this fiasco?

    What have you done, besides chanting “Go Ares” like some steroid addled freak, like technological innovation and engineering is some sporting event.

  • Loki

    “The Time Magazines award just illustrates the huge gap between the way the blogsphere experts view NASA’s program and how the real world views them.”

    If by “real world” you mean the vast majority of the population who believe everything they see, hear, or read in the media (including Time mag) without ever questioning, researching, and critically thinking about anything then you’re probably right.

  • Nick

    Robert, get off your soap box asshole. You’re a nobody.

  • eng

    ‘nick’, go the fuck away. Robert has contributed more than you’ve done in months. He has posted text that is both intersting and thoght provoking. Besides, yuo just piss me off, you little wanker.

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