New Manned Spacecraft Named Ares
According to Astronomy Magazine, NASA has announced a name for the replacement to the space shuttle:
As the space shuttle Discovery prepared for launch Friday, NASA announced the name of its replacement. The Crew Launch Vehicle, which will ferry astronauts to Earth orbit as early as 2011, is now called Ares I. The monstrous heavy-lift rocket, designed to loft cargo headed for the Moon later in the decade, is called Ares V.Ares. That's way better than CLV. And I like the "I" and "V" designations in salute to the Saturn that took us to the moon, my favorite of all rockets. Pictures and more details at astronomy.com.
Ares, the Greek word for Mars, is a nod to the agency's vision of one day sending astronauts to the Red Planet. The numerical designations salute the Apollo-era Saturn I and Saturn V rockets, the first large U.S. launchers specifically designed for human spaceflight.
Labels: writing
posted by Jeffrey A. Carver @ 3:02 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Ares is a good name. Oddly enough, I just finished reading Red Mars for the first time this week too.
Ran into your sci-fi tips on the internet, the website was really hepful for me and I really anjoyed reading it. just wanted to thank you for the nice articles on writing sci-fi.
I haven't been keeping up so please forgive the ignorance. You all seem up on NASA's doings.
From what little I know, the Shuttle's problems began with it being outdated by the time the first one ever left the ground. Since then it's just been a slow slide downhill. Again, perhaps I'm off base on that.
However, NASA has had and likely still has problems making big projects work well. Quick and cheap (relatively) seems to be working much better for them. At this point is Ares a nice name and some blue sky PR, or does NASA have a real plan for a new shuttle that will meet the needs we'll have when the fleet is actually ready to fly, rather than the needs we have today?
Post a Comment
<< Home