Nasa Unveils New Launcher Design For Mars Missions

""Nasa has unveiled its design for a massive new $18 billion (£11.4 billion) launcher capable of powering manned space flights well beyond low-Earth orbit and ultimately to Mars. ""

 

 ""The launcher, which will take until 2017 to build, will fill a gap in US manned flight program created by the retirement of the last US space shuttle in July after. The project would cost $10 billion through 2017, another $6 billion to build the Orion deep-space crew capsule and another $2 billion to refurbish Nasa's Florida spaceport to accommodate the new rocket. 

 

But Nasa said it will be far more powerful, capable of carrying much larger payloads beyond low-Earth orbit deep into space, and eventually to Mars.""

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8762947/Nasa-unveils-new-launcher-design-for-Mars-missions.html