http://www.chinapost.com.tw/internation ... delays.htm
Updated Wednesday, October 28, 2009 0:12 am TWN, CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., AP
Cloudy weather is holding up a test launch of NASA's newest rocket.
The Ares I-X rocket came within two minutes and 39 seconds of launching Tuesday morning. But the countdown was halted when a big cloud settled right over the pad after minor problems held things up earlier.
NASA has until noon to get the experimental flight going.
This is the first step in NASA's effort to return astronauts to the moon.
The flight will last two minutes. Parachutes will drop the first-stage booster into the Atlantic for recovery. The upper portion of the rocket ¡X all fake parts ¡X will fall uncontrolled into the ocean.
NASA expects to learn a lot, even if it's for another type of rocket. The White House is re-evaluating the human spaceflight program.
It is "an early opportunity to test and prove flight characteristics, hardware, facilities and ground operations associated with the Ares I," the space agency said.
Data will be collected from over 700 sensors spread across Ares I-X, providing a stream of information that will be scrutinized for months.
But more rides on the launch than data.
It is the culmination of three years work on Constellation, a human space flight program conceived by former president George W. Bush in the wake of the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster that killed all seven crew onboard.
The program includes plans to create "Orion," the space shuttle's successor that by 2017 would carry astronauts into space in a bid to return to the moon and later make a first human trip to Mars.
But an independent panel of experts threw cold water over Constellation's starry-eyed aspirations in a report to US President Barack Obama on Thursday, warning that NASA needs three billion dollars a year more to meet its goals.
"The US human space flight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory" due to lack of funds, panel leader Norman Augustine, former president of aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, said in the 155-page report.
The 10-member-panel floated the idea of manned space flights to asteroids, and flyovers close to the moon and Mars, both projects that would not require complicated landing arrangements.
