Huntsville, AL – Some of the engineers working on NASA's new Ares moon rockets are also working undercover on a competing design.
They and their supporters say they have created an alternative rocket that would be safer, cheaper and easier to build than the two Ares spacecraft that will replace the space shuttle.
They call their project Jupiter. Like Ares, it's a brainchild of workers at the Marshall Space Flight Center and other NASA facilities. The engineers involved are doing the work on their own time and mostly anonymously, with the help of retirees and other space enthusiasts.
A key Ares project manager dismisses their design as little more than a sketch on a napkin that won't work.
A spokesman for the competing effort says concerned engineers at NASA and some contractors want a review of the Ares plans but can't speak out for fear of being demoted, transferred or fired.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)