NASA has announced plans for a massive rocket based on recycled space shuttle technology, intended to launch manned missions beyond Earth orbit in decades to come.
The Space Launch System (SLS) will make use of a central first stage equipped with no less than five shuttle main engines (the now-retired orbiter spaceplanes mounted only three) flanked by strap-on solid boosters of the same kind which used to be attached to the shuttle’s disposable fuel tank. These might be replaced in time by liquid-fuelled models. Rather than bringing the central engines back for re-use, however, the SLS will discard them every time it is launched.
If at first you can’t afford it …
A similarly disposable and likewise liquid-fuelled upper stage will employ J-2X engines derived from the Apollo programme which sent men to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s. NASA thinks that the first SLS test flight might come as early as 2017, and that an initial ability to hoist 70 tonnes into orbit could be gradually increased to 130 tonnes, somewhat more than the mighty Saturn Vs of yesteryear — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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