Cape Canaveral, Florida, Sept 15 : US Space agency Nasa has unveiled plans for the “most powerful rocket in history” which it hopes will take men to Mars and beyond.
The massive rocket will supersede the space shuttle, which ended its final mission this summer, and will cost around $18 billion (£11bn) to develop over the next six years, reports The Telegraph.
It will have its first unmanned test flight in 2017 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the first manned flight is expected in 2021
Charles Bolden, the head of Nasa and a former space shuttle pilot, said: “This is a great day for Nasa and the nation. While I was proud to fly in the space shuttle, tomorrow's explorers will dream of one day walking on Mars.
“President Obama has challenged us to be bold and dream big, and that's exactly what we do.”
The new rocket, known as the Space Launch System (SLS), is more powerful than the giant Saturn V rockets that launched astronauts to the Moon.
Its initial design would allow it to take 140,000 pounds of cargo into orbit and that could eventually double with later modifications. The space shuttle could carry only about 50,000 pounds.
The extra power will allow Nasa to put into orbit everything it needs to prepare for a mission into deep space and the Red Planet. On top of the rocket will sit the “Orion” capsule which is being developed to carry astronauts.
Mr Obama has called for a human expedition to an asteroid by 2025, and a journey to Mars in the 2030s. But the rocket announcement follows a year long tussle with Congress over the project's cost and scope, with some estimates putting the eventual bill for the project at $62 billion.
Amid the delays senior astronauts criticised the Obama administration for being too timid. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon, warned America was on a “downhill slide to mediocrity.”
Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, called the new project “a monster rocket”.
He said: “This allows Nasa to get out beyond lower earth orbit and start to explore the heavens, which is the job Nasa has always been tasked to do. In the bosom of America there is a yearning for us to explore.”
In some ways the move marks a return to the technology used nearly half a century ago to get to the Moon, with disposable rockets powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, instead of a reusable space shuttle.
Stanford University professor Scott Hubbard, a former Nasa senior manager, said: “It's back to the future.”
Nasa is hoping to save money for the project by using private companies to supply the International Space Station and renting seats for astronauts on Russian Soyuz rockets while it concentrates on its longer term goal of reaching Mars.
