NASA has rolled out the brand new rocket that will replace the shuttle and launch men into space. The towering Ares I-X, nicknamed the Stick, is due to make its first £270 million, unmanned test flight next Tuesday, 27 October.

It will blast off from pad 39B – one of the two launch pads used by the shuttles – at the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida.

Standing 310 ft tall, the Ares rocket is nearly twice the height of the shuttle when attached to its fuel tanks. It took nearly eight hours for NASA’s giant crawler to carry the vertical rocket the 4.2 miles to the launch pad at a top speed of less than 1 mph. At 800 tons, it weighs almost twice as much as a fully-loaded Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

Astronauts in their Orion capsule will sit on top of the fuel tanks, eliminating the danger of insulation debris hitting the craft. That happened with the Shuttle several times and caused the Columbia disaster in 2003.

Ares has been in development since George W Bush set America on the road back to the moon and then on to Mars. It is part of NASA’s Constellation programme. But even as the rocket was preparing for launch, the White House was considering a review panel’s proposal to scrap it and go for something cheaper.

President Obama has been told that NASA does not have the funds to reach the moon and should develop a cheaper launcher.

The Shuttle was due to be retired next year but flights are likely to be extended while a decision is made on the Constellation programme. Otherwise NASA will be left in the embarrassing position of relying on Russia to launch its astronauts in their Soyuz rockets.

Picture: The Ares I-X on its journey from the giant Vehicle Assembly Building to the launchpad. (Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett).

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