The Ares I-X Launches! Photo © NASA

Today was a historical day, yet few people seem to realize it. NASA successfully launched the Ares I-X rocket this morning, which is set to replace the aging [read: old as FUCK] space shuttle, due to be retired in 2010. NASA hopes the Ares I, along with the Ares V, will take astronauts back to the moon and beyond sometime around 2015.

I was at Sterling & Cooper when the launch occurred, but thankfully NASA had a QuickTime stream of it that I could watch for free. Miss Holloway and I watched together. She sat on my lap the whole time. When asked what her favorite part about the whole thing was, Miss Holloway said, “I like all the thrust.”

NASA had attempted to launch the Ares I-X yesterday morning, but poor weather conditions forced a scrub. The launch was rescheduled for today at 8:00 A.M. ET, so of course it was launched today around 11:30 A.M. It was amazing, and I wish I could have been there to see it in person instead of a rather crappy QuickTime stream.

The Ares I-X in the Air Photo © NASA

The entire mission lasted only a few minutes, which is more than I can say for some people and their rockets who are more likely to explode before they even get up. To my knowledge, the Ares I-X was a huge success with no failures. Unfortunately, the video stream I watched did not show the parachutes and splashdown, though NASA claims that even the recovery went as expected. Hopefully more details are released as data from the mission is gathered and analyzed.

A View from Above. Photo © NASA. Video © CNN. Click to play.

For those of you who missed the launch, I have shamelessly pilfered the footage from CNN’s web site and reposted it here for your viewing pleasure. CNN’s video is much better quality than was NASA’s live stream. The colors and pixelation aren’t near as bad. NASA can land men on the moon and rovers on Mars, but they can’t stream an HD feed, apparently.

Now that Ares I-X has proven successful, I look forward to future launches and further developments with NASA’s Constellation program. I don’t know if today’s successful mission means Ares gets to lose its “X” designation or not, but hopefully we’re one step closer, if not a giant leap. I also hope that today’s mission persuades the Obama administration to keep funding the program so that it doesn’t suffer the same fate as Apollo. One of these days, Ares, BANG, ZOOM! To the moon!

"Norton, we have a problem."

On November 7, 1962, the Grumman Corporation won the contract to build the lunar module for the United States’ Apollo space program. Grumman ended up building thirteen lunar modules for NASA, each one of them by hand. The estimated cost for all the lunar modules was $11 million dollars. Grumman went on to bid for the contract for the space shuttle, but ultimately lost to Rockwell International. While the Grumman group has won other government contracts and has built other flying contraptions for the government (the F-14 Tomcat, for example), the company has yet to build any space-related vehicles since the Apollo program.

Something that many folks may not realize, however, is that the Grumman folks are responsible for building for the government a vehicle that is arguably just as recognizable as the lunar module. And that vehicle is the Grumman LLV:

Grumman LLV

The Grumman LLV is what the postal service uses to deliver the mail to homes across the U.S. I know the mailman in my area loves his, because his ass rarely even steps outside of the damn thing. If you live in the U.S. and haven’t seen one of these before, then you’ve obviously never been outside your house. It’s one of the few government vehicles where you don’t need any special training to drive, too. Heck, you don’t even have to have a clearance or be trusted to drive one of these babies.

It’s been 37 years since the United States (or any country, for that matter) has landed humans on the moon. NASA has begun work on a new rocket to replace the [very] outdated space shuttle. As you may have noticed in my sidebar, the first test launch of the new Ares rocket is scheduled for October 27, 2009. The Ares rocket is part of the new Constellation space program, which NASA hopes will take us back to the moon sometime around 2020, as well as to Mars in the distant future.

No doubt questions abound with regard to the new Constellation program. Why are we going back to the moon? Why bother going to Mars? Is space exploration really that important? Each person must judge for themselves, I suppose, though I am of the opinion that space exploration is important. After all, this planet won’t last forever and who knows what me might learn from the experience?

But the number one question on my mind (and I don’t think I am alone here) is, “How long until we land a mailman on the moon?” Or, at the very least, fake it nine times?

Landing a Mailman on the Moon