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January 21, 2008

Shake Me to the Moon

It looks like NASA is facing a very serious engineering problem (The Associated Press  - NASA Moon Rocket May Shake Too Much) with some important hardware:

Engineers are concerned that the new rocket meant to replace the space shuttle and send astronauts on their way to the moon could shake violently during the first few minutes of flight, possibly destroying the entire vehicle.

If not corrected, the shaking would arise from the powerful first stage of the Ares I rocket, which will lift the Orion crew capsule into orbit.

NASA officials hope to have a plan for fixing the design as early as March, and they do not expect it to delay the goal of returning astronauts to the moon by 2020.

I'm a bit surprised by this, as I'd been under the impression that the reason they opted for rocket launches and going back the the Apollo-era designs was that this was tried and true technology that could be easily updated. I hope they can quickly solve this problem.

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Comments

Griffen has adressed these issues this morning! Read about it at www.actionforspace.com

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