[AntiKev]

It's supposed to solve all of our heavy lift problems and lift equipment to the Moon and Mars. What it will do is spend countless billions of taxpayer dollars and get canceled.

DIRECT to the Moon and Mars.

[Red Badger]

I thought the Space Elevator was gonna solve our lift-off problems?..........

[anymouse]

Ares I was to serve as a manned transport to orbit for ISS and eventually support manned lunar missions. Ares V was to be the heavy lift rocket to heft large unmanned payloads for manned lunar missions, etc. They both used different shuttle derived components.

The DIRECT concept skips the Ares I and goes straight to various configurations similar to the Ares V, but man rated.

Both will be expensive and not much more reliable than the shuttle (if even that.)

Basically it comes down to the old NASA pissing contest between JSC and MSFC for who will control the next big program.

My guess is that the Obama crew will put a pox on both houses and divert NASA pork to NASA centers in bluer states like Goddard in MD, Ames and JSC in CA and Glenn in OH.

[Nonstatist]

What Obama will do is cancel Aires and replace it with NOTHING. So he can have more money for his remaking of the entire economy. And we’re talking a few billion versus 17 billion to bail out the money losing auto industry for a few months. Disgusting..