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Can Time get anything right?

Even writing a complementary article, Time can't get it right...

The Orion spacecraft, by contrast, is based on proven Apollo technology. It’s configured like a large Apollo: a conical crew compartment atop a cylindrical engine module. It will sit atop heavy-lift boosters that are modeled in part after the shuttle’s own liquid-fuel engines — far and away the best part of the old shuttle technology and the part most worth saving.

Only, that's not quite right.

The crew lift vehicle (Ares I) will use as its first stage a solid rocket booster (SRB) based on the shuttle design. So, unlike what Time implies, humans will still be riding up toward the stars on solid rockets (at least for the first stage).

Also, the heavy lift vehicle (Ares V) will not use the space shuttle main engine (SSME). Rather, it will use the RS-68 from the Delta V (and it's based on a Russian design at that). And the Ares V first stage will be assisted by two SRBs.

Read all about it here. It was all announced a couple of months ago, so no excuse for an article dated Septemer 1, 2006.

Still, otherwise, nice article.

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