In article
tatelephone,
says...

On 9/21/2011 10:30 AM, wrote:

Then last week, the U.S. government revealed
new and formerly secret space initiatives that
underscore America?s continuing orbital
dominance. NASA announced plans for the
biggest-ever rocket, set to launch in six years.

It's not as big as a Saturn V; the biggest one by weight ever built was
the Soviet N-1, but it failed in all four launch attempts.

The primary problem with the N-1 was not size or weight, but lack of
ground testing of complete rocket stages. Doing your first test firing
of a stage during actual flight is a risky thing to do. Failures are
spectacular, and there is no chance of recovering, fixing, and re-
testing the hardware. Test stands large enough for testing complete
stages are a good thing.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker