NASA is studying a variant of its planned Ares 5 heavy-lift rocket that would enable an Apollo 8-like trip around the Moon in the 2015 time frame, a top U.S. space agency official told reporters Jan. 25.
Scott Horowitz, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems, said he asked engineers at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to study a rocket design that would combine the Ares 5 main stage with the Ares 1 upper stage to permit an around-the-Moon-and-back shakeout flight of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle several years ahead of the first lunar landings. Read more