To soar far away from Earth and even beyond the moon, NASA has dreamed up the world’s most powerful rocket, a behemoth that borrows from the workhorse liquid rockets that sent Apollo missions into space four decades ago.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and several members of Congress joined Wednesday in announcing the Obama administration’s much-delayed general plans for its rocket design, called the Space Launch System. The multibillion-dollar programme will carry astronauts in a capsule on top, but the first mission would be 10 years off if all goes as planned. Unmanned test launches are expected from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in six years.
Calling it the “largest, most powerful rocket built,” NASA’s exploration and operations chief, William Gerstenmaier, said the rocket will be difficult to construct. But when NASA does it, “we’ll have a capability to go beyond low-Earth orbit,” he said Wednesday.
