NASA Annouces Plans for a Rocket to Mars

[Student26]

NASA has announced the imminent birth of the Space Launch System (SLS), a rocket that will be powered by five Space Shuttle Main Engines (pictured below) and two Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters — a configuration that will make it the most powerful launch vehicle ever made. The tentative first-launch date is December 2017, where the equally-drily-named Multiple-Purpose Crew Vehicle will be sent on an unmanned trip around the Moon — and if all goes to plan, starting 2021, and for the first time in 60 years, astronauts will fly around the Moon.

Source

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Space Launch System

More reading:

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/new_...pcv/index.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14915725

And no reading today would be complete without looking at the wikipedia entry:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Launch_System

[Bearcat]

Tentative launch date December 2017.

Uh huh, and what happens if the United States goes bankrupt before then. The billions of dollars NASA needs to fund this program won't help things either.

[luffy]

Uh huh, and what happens if the United States goes bankrupt before then. The billions of dollars NASA needs to fund this program won't help things either.

Yeah. Keep spending money. We all go homeless on Mars.

[Bearcat]

Yeah. Keep spending money. We all go homeless on Mars.

When the dollar eventually becomes worthless, I think people are going resort to the barter system and banding together to help each other out when disaster strikes, unlike now, where everyone expects the Gov't to bail them out.

[ted]

I can think of several people i would like to see on that rocket

[jj1two3]

If things keep going the way they are now I will probably be living in a card board box under a bridge in 2017.

[JayCub]

Thank you Student and i can see why our American cousins see this as a sore point, I think Ted wants to Launch the Liverpool football team as it's the only way they will go up...

[Student26]

I can think of several people i would like to see on that rocket

Amen to that brother

[princeaniket]

Wow... i want to go.. count me in..

[Student26]

Wow... i want to go.. count me in..

I just hope that space exploration happens in our lifetimes. Sci-fi in real life