Space Video of the Day - 080401

NASA is facing a big problem with the Ares-1 lifting body, which is to replace the space shuttle as the primary NASA crew launch vehicle. Weight issues have forced the elimination of redundancy in safety features, and the craft faces huge oscillation problems due to the use of a single solid rocket booster attached at only one point between the first and second stage (mitigation of this problem will also result in increased weight). So great are NASA's problems with Ares-1, they have decided to abandon plans to return men to the moon at the end of the next decade. Since a success by private industry or China to beat NASA to the moon would be a public relations disaster, NASA has decided to remove that threat to the primacy of the space agency, by blowing up the moon.


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