[gary]

Over budget, behind schedule and facing technical challenges, the
Ares series of boosters was cancelled in April 2010 on the recommendation
of the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee,
also known by the name of its chairperson as the Augustine Commission,
which put forward their findings in October 2009.

In April 2010, a new Shuttle-derived heavy launch vehicle known
as Space Launch System or SLS, was announced to replace what was
planned to be done by Ares I and Ares V.

The SLS is being designed to accomodate a range of flexible missions
beyond low Earth orbit as well, including possible manned trips to
asteroids, the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos and possibly Mars itself.

In the meatime, the US will rely on buying rides on Russian Soyuz
vehicles to the ISS and possibly contracted rides aboard commercial
launch vehicles such as the SpaceX Falcon 9. One hope was that
by contracting private industry, costs may come down. One analogy the
Augustine Commission gave was when the US Postal service contracted
out airmail delivery in the early days of aviation, it helped spur the
modern aviation industry that we know today.

Whereas the original plan for the Ares boosters was meant to see them
deployed only about a year after the Shuttle was decommissioned,
reviews of the project were showing that the time overruns were going
to leave something like a seven year gap where the US would be without
its own manned space launch vehicle. The hope by planners is that the
SLS will close that gap.

With the August 2nd dateline looming for the US to take action on its
debt crises, funding for all space ventures will undoubtedly come under
even more scrutiny.