NASA’s biggest announcement for 35 years was put to the news outlets recently. The subject? The Ares I Rocket.

The Ares I Rocket forms part of the groundbreaking Constellation program. The Constellation program is NASA’s attempt to replace the ill fated Space Shuttle project: a period in its history that it undoubtedly wants to forget as soon as it can.

So what was this magical announcement by NASA about Ares? Is it finished? Is the Ares rocket ready to propel the Orbit shuttle and its lucky crew into orbit? Well no, not yet. The preliminary designs of the Ares rocket have been approved by the 1,100 strong committee of specialists that were set the task to meticulously check through all of the design information. The idea is that all the faults, bumps, problems and ‘issues’ are ironed out well before Ares gets to the manufacturing and assembly phase, and most certainly a long time before the thing gets propelled into the air by lighting a massive fire underneath it! This is a hugely complex process that takes – literally years. The planned launch date for the Constellation project is in 2015 and you can bet your last dollar that this testing and approval process will continue until the last possible minute.