NASA unveils plan for new space vehicle (video)

NASA on Wednesday unveiled its plan to build a heavy launch vehicle capable of sending astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit by 2025.

According to The Los Angeles Times, the new spacecraft would be only slightly more powerful than the 1960s-era Saturn V that launched Americans to the moon.

The system would combine elements of the retired space shuttle, the abandoned Constellation program and some potentially new hardware that would be phased in over the next decade, assuming Congress continues to provide about $3 billion per year for the work.

NASA officials have discussed a trip to circle the moon without landing, a trip to an asteroid and an eventual journey to Mars. But those discussions are far from a concrete plan with a well-defined schedule.

"There has been no articulation of a vision or direction, and that has left our international partners wondering where we are headed," said Scott Pace, director of the space policy institute at George Washington University, who has served at NASA and the White House. "The other shoe still has to drop. We still don't have a space policy."

But industry officials were relieved that NASA had finally made a hardware decision.

"First and foremost, it is a decision and for us that is a big deal," said Jim Maser, president of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, the engine manufacturer that would supply both the first- and second-stage liquid hydrogen rockets. "We want to go as fast as we possibly can."