KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - For first time since 1981, the rocket that took off from a launching pad at the Kennedy Space Center yesterday was not a space shuttle.
With a clearing in a partly cloudy sky, the Ares I-X - a prototype of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s next-generation Ares I rocket - zipped off at 11:30 a.m., heading eastward over the Atlantic Ocean.
Critics have criticized the Ares I, which would be the first Constellation rocket to fly, as too expensive and technically flawed.
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