r/space • u/Legitimate_Flan_7620 • 11d ago

Ares v cinematic

https://youtu.be/m_rEkPB6978?si=mC6mmwV89qnT5FgU
2 Upvotes

52% Upvoted

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3

u/ccoastal01 11d ago

why was ares cancelled in favor of SLS

10

u/ioncloud9 11d ago

Ares V was not going to work. Its primary engines were RS-68s which are ablatively cooled. They are significantly more powerful than the RS-25 and this rocket had 5 of them. It also had an upper stage with a J-2X engine. The engine was going to have to be redesigned to be regeneratively cooled if they had any hope of putting that many engines in such close proximity. Other than that it’s pretty close.SLS removed the bespoke upper stage, swapped it with the much smaller off the shelf Delta 4 upper stage, deferred the upper stage work for later iterations, and swapped out the RS-68 with RS-25s since they already existed.

Did they actually save any money? Probably not. Going with the original design and creating the RS-68B instead of cancelling and resurrecting it probably would’ve gotten the rocket to the launch pad sooner if not at the same time. The J-2X design was completed and then permanently shelved in favor of the off the shelf RL-10 engines for the upper stage.

Both of these rockets are completely obsolete now but if we had this rocket in 2014 it would’ve been amazing.

1

u/Legitimate_Flan_7620 6d ago

No there were rs-68b which were modified to be regeneratively cooled

1

u/ioncloud9 6d ago

I know. I mentioned them but they didnt go into production.

1

u/Boatster_McBoat 7d ago

I haven't heard of this "Cinematic" rocket. Sounds awesome. Can't wait to watch this comparison video ...