Strange world: Bungee jump to the moon

Published on Wednesday 20 August 2008 22:46

NASA plans to send men (and women) back to the moon and is building the new Ares 1 rocket and Orion crew capsule to get there. There is only one slight problem: the powerful engines of the Ares 1 are threatening to shake the Orion crew vehicle to pieces, or at least shake the astronauts to jelly.

But the US space agency has come up with an enterprising, if decidedly low-tech, solution – springs.

The agency hopes to launch the first Ares 1 rocket with a crew by early 2015 and send astronauts back to the moon by 2020.

Nasa plans to install super-sized shock absorbers in the Ares. Sixteen 100lb weights attached to springs will grouped around the bottom of the rocket. Battery-powered motors will move the weights up and down to damp vibrations. A 17th shock absorber will be fitted in the middle of the rocket.

Of course, the metal springs will add a lot of weight to the Ares, but the rocket can handle it, says the project manager, Steve Cook.

The use of springs to absorb the kick of acceleration is not new. In his novel From the Earth to the Moon, published in 1867, Jules Verne's pioneer astronauts are fired into space by a giant cannon. Verne imagined a complicated system of springs (using water as a cushion) to keep his crew safe on launch.