Aviation Week : NASA planners have tentatively added an engine to its planned Ares V moon rocket, and increased the length of its shuttle-derived solid-rocket boosters to accommodate a larger hydrogen tank, as early work on lunar surface operations gets under way.
As now conceived, the Ares V will use six Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-68 engines to power its core stage, and twin five-and-a-half segment versions of the four-segment ATK shuttle solid boosters. Previous Ares V concepts had five RS-68s and twin five-segment boosters that basically matched the first stage of its Ares I crew launch vehicle.
The Ares V booster will be a wonderful addition to our space access hardware inventory.
The vehicle will provide an effective capability of bringing cargo to the moon in support of eventually permanently staffed Lunar outposts. Once such outposts reach a critical size, they can become self sufficient. Such self sufficiency can include farming facilities for food supplies, Lunar ice for water supplies, oxygen by dissociation of water molecules, and hydrogen/oxygen based rocket fuels. Basing the Lunar outpost near or at the polar regions of the Moon where water ice is present can greatly facilitate such endeavors.
Lunar regolith can be transformed into construction materials such as bricks for construction purposes. Another option would be to quarry stone blocks for construction purposes wherein adequate shielding can be provided from cosmic rays and ionizing solar radiation.
The Ares V rocket is poised to jump start this effort to eventually begin our human journey off world in a great endeavor to colonize space. From the moon, it will be onward to Mars. How far we will eventually travel out into the cosmos is anyone’s guess. The only absolute limit to our transportation technology according to known physics principles is the speed of light in a vacuum.