The great launch debate

Posted on: Jul. 19th, 2004 || Source: thespacereview.com | E-mail Article | Print Article

Since the January 14th announcement of what has since become known as the Vision for Space Exploration, one of the major debates about its implementation has focused on launch capability. While some have argued that the glut of launch vehicles on the market today, along with vehicles in the planning stages, is sufficient to handle the demands of the vision, others have concluded that a new, larger vehicle is required to loft heavy payloads to the Moon and beyond. (See “The myth of heavy lift”, The Space Review, May 17, 2004, and “The cost of medium lift”, The Space Review, June 1, 2004.) Furthermore, the latter camp continues to debate whether that vehicle should be derived from the shuttle, the Atlas 5 and/or Delta 4 EELVs, or instead be a clean-sheet design capable of placing as much as 100 tons into low Earth orbit (LEO).

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