Huntsville, AL - Marshall Space Flight Center Director, Robert Lightfoot says the announcement from NASA means stability for the Rocket City. It's something the folks here at Marshall Space Flight Center have been working on for the last couple of years. “When I think of all the capabilites we have here at Marshall, in the propulsion expertise that we offer the nation, not just the agency, but the nation. This is right up our alley,” says Lightfoot.
That expertise has been built for decades, from the Space Shuttle to Ares, to the Constellation project. Marshall Space Flight Center's director says it's that experience that reduces the risk for the Space Launch System.
Many of the pieces for the S-L-S, like the main engine and the liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen core will be carried over from previous projects. Lightfoot says, “The big difference is of course we have an upper stage that we'll be developing on this that is going to be new. That was part of Aries but it certainly wasn't part of shuttle.”
The next big milestone for the SLS project comes September 29th, when Lightfoot expects to layout the plan for development, so Marshall employees can do what they love. “I'm gonna make the assumption, they're like me,” says Lightfoot. “They came here to explore and now we have the way we're gonna go do that exploration is we're gonna get outside that low earth orbit and use this rocket to do it.”
