It doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to figure...oh wait, yes it does!

So my Dad is one of the head engineers on the vehicle that will replace the space shuttle (ARES). It has an awesome new (much safer for the astronauts) design. It looks like a really tall pencil



and is 327 feet tall; tallest rocket we have had since Saturn V. The boosters are at the very bottom (the piece my Dad is responsible for)



and the astronauts sit at the very top, far away from the boosters. The rocket weighs 2 million pounds; the launch platform it sits on weighs around 9 million pounds or so and the crawler that picks it all up and moves weighs another 7 million pounds or so

They just rolled it out onto the launch pad



this week and will do their first test launch early next week.

Way to go Dad!