For more than three years, NASA chief Michael Griffin has maintained that the safest, most reliable and affordable way to return astronauts to the moon is on the Ares I, a rocket he helped design from parts of the space shuttle. Alternatives, he insisted, such as modified military rockets, were simply not capable of carrying humans to the moon and beyond.
But interviews, as well as documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel, indicate that military rockets can lift astronauts safely into space -- and to the moon -- for billions less and possibly sooner than NASA's current designs.
