The Ares V replica, in the photo, is 1/15 the size of the heavy lift cargo launch vehicle that’s being developed for the Constellation Program — and it stands more than 25 feet tall.
The actual Ares V will stand 380 feet tall. That’s taller than a football field is long.
NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, recently installed the scale model replica of an Ares V cargo launch vehicle. Glenn’s Ares V role is leading the design and development of the payload shroud, which is a large structure at the top of the rocket that protects the main payload, a moon lander, during launch. Once clear of the Earth’s atmosphere, the payload shroud will separate from Ares V enabling the lander to dock with Orion in low Earth orbit.
Glenn will also oversee the design and development of several vital subsystems, including the system that steers the vehicle during flight, the electrical power system, development flight instrumentation, and the purge and hazardous gas detection system. Glenn is also contributing to the design of the Ares V upper stage, the Earth departure stage. In addition, Glenn expects to play a major role in the environmental testing of the Earth departure stage and its main engine, the J-2X.
The Ares V is being designed by a team of NASA centers and contractors around the country.
I would get far, far away from that sucker if you see a bad downburst thunderstorm coming. It is a lot fatter than the Saturn V. I was standing in front of a small sewer pumping station once, talking to my neighbor in New Orleans,when a downburst from a storm blew an asbestos tile off the roof of the single story building ! Take note of what just happened in Dallas to the football practice building. You can see hurricanes coming, not so for violent thunderstorms. They aren’t as rare as tornadoes with 3,500 year recurrence intervals at a particular site. Can you imagine the explosion if that thing got blown over once it was fully fueled. That solid fuel might fly quite a ways. Your fooling around with a record setting amount of liquid hydrogen & liquid oxygen in a relatively weak container. Look at that WW II film of the V-2 that falls over & explodes.Then multiply by a lot & that wasn’t LH2. Be careful,very careful. Remember Murphy’s law.