Green light for new Nasa moon rocket

Nasa’s new moon rocket has passed a crucial design milestone.

Senior Nasa management unanimously approved the preliminary design review of the planned Ares I rocket that would launch astronauts into space by 2015 and back to the moon by 2020.

Next year there will be another narrowly focused “delta” preliminary design review for one pending engineering problem: too much shaking after launch.

Steve Cook, Nasa’s Ares projects manager, said this is the first preliminary design review approval for a rocket to carry astronauts since 1973, when the space shuttle passed the same stage.

These reviews are to make sure that the broad design, plans and software mesh properly and pass early safety questions.