1. Define prototype.

2. What is the Ares I-X?

3. What do NASA officials hope to accomplish with the Ares launch?

4. What should Ares be ready to do by 2015?

5. If ready by 2015, why won't this mission happen until 2017?

6. Wikipedia reports that President Kennedy:

Ensured continuing funding for the [Apollo] program, shielding...spending from the 1963 tax cut and diverting money from other NASA projects. This dismayed NASA's leader, James E. Webb, who urged support for other scientific work.

In conversation with Webb, Kennedy [reportedly] said:

Everything we do ought to really be tied in to getting on to the Moon ahead of the Russians [...] otherwise we shouldn't be spending that kind of money, because I'm not interested in space [...] The only justification for [the cost] is because we hope to beat [the USSR] to demonstrate that instead of being behind by a couple of years, by God, we passed them.

Whatever he said in private, Kennedy needed a different message to gain public support to uphold what he was saying and his views. Later in 1963, Kennedy asked Vice President Johnson to investigate the possible technological and scientific benefits of a Moon mission. Johnson concluded that the benefits were limited, but, with the help of scientists at NASA, he put together a powerful case, citing possible medical breakthroughs and interesting pictures of Earth from space. For the program to succeed, its proponents would have to defeat criticism from politicians on the left, who wanted more money spent on social programs, and on those on the right, who favored a more military project. By emphasizing the scientific payoff and playing on fears of Soviet space dominance, Kennedy and Johnson managed to swing public opinion: by 1965, 58 percent of Americans favored Apollo, up from 33 percent two years earlier. After Johnson became President in 1963, his continuing defense of the program allowed it to succeed in 1969, as Kennedy had originally hoped.

Read the "Background" information below, and visit the websites under "Resources."  Do you think the U.S. should make visiting the moon a priority once again, regardless of the cost? (Should the president/Congress direct that more money be spent on this program, and/or space exploration in general? Explain your answer.