Bob Walker: Ares I Could Be on Chopping Block

Grim outlook for Ares, says Beltway insider, Orlando Sentinel

“A former chairman of the House science committee told Brevard County leaders Monday that NASA’s next rocket is “on the chopping block” and that a new administration may abandon the Ares I as successor to the space shuttle. The next president may look instead to use military rockets to launch NASA astronauts, said Robert Walker, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who, as a Washington-based lobbyist, represents Brevard County. Walker told county commissioners; U.S. Reps. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, and Dave Weldon, R-Indialantic; and representatives of the local aerospace community that the word in Washington and at recent space conferences was “that Ares I could be on the chopping block.” Afterward, in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, he elaborated: “The discussion I am hearing in the space community is that Ares will certainly be reviewed by the next administration.”