NASA Rocket Takes Off as Clouds Break

After rising through blue sky for two minutes, the first stage expended its fuel at an altitude of more than 25 miles, separated and parachuted into the ocean. After separation, the dummy second stage spun around before plunging into the ocean. The final Ares I rocket is to have a second-stage engine and a crew capsule to carry four astronauts into orbit to the International Space Station.
As tall as a 32-story building but with a first stage only 12 feet wide, the Ares I-X looked skinny and top-heavy. Yet it flew as envisioned.
For the NASA team working on costallation programme to send astronauts to the Moon and beyond, the flight was a moment of smiles and joy, if not quite vindication. Critics have described the Ares I, which would be the first Constellation rocket to fly, as too expensive and technically flawed.
“Vindication really does not describe it well,” the program manager, Jeffrey Hanley, said at a news conference after the flight. “It’s a sense of validation that the course we have laid out is executable.”