Is NASA's next rocket, the one that'll return us to the Moon and go to Mars, doomed?

[thewayne]

Kinda sounds like it. Among the problems: it might shake the occupants to death, it could easily veer into the launch tower, and it might be too heavy to fly with the capsule. So what's the solutions? One was to relax the rule that all systems must be triple-redundant.

Respected engineers have quit the project in protest of the compromises.

Sounds like they need to scrap it and pursue other designs.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/orl-ares2608oct26,0,561055.story

Comments

[silveradept]

Agreed. If the design doesn't work to standards, especially safety standards, then the design needs to be reworked. Lowering standards to meet bad stuff is what's happened in education - it shouldn't be happening in spaceflight, where people can die from systems malfunctions.