SLS - Ares I diameter?

[Frozen_Heart]

So this is a pretty random question but I've been looking at both rockets recently and apparently the Ares-I upper stage and SLS Core stage are both the shuttle external tank? However comparing the Orion capsule to them shows that they are not even close in diameter?

I'm trying to build both on KSP both trying to lift the 3.75m SLS tank with one of the SLS boosters just didn't look right (let alone work) which just set me wondering.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

One of the political selling points of the Constellation program was that it was re-using shuttle hardware (it's a lot easier to get the goverment to fund something if they think they've already bought half of it - because otherwise they'll feel they're wasting their investment).

The initial design concept of the Ares I upper stage had some commonality with the External Tank - but had a much smaller diameter (which meant little of the tooling could be re-used). In any case the design evolved quite a long way away from that.

[Whirligig Girl]

SLS is not Ares and Constellation.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Ares I used a 5 segment version of the Shuttle boosters with a different grain pattern as the first stage and therefore retained the 3.71m diameter. The upper stage was to have an 18 foot (~5.5m) diameter, slightly larger than the 5m diameter of the Orion capsule.

The Space Shuttle external tank had an 8.4 meter diameter, a number shared by the core stages of both the Ares V and SLS.

[Frozen_Heart]

Fuzzy Dunlop: Cheers. In the things I was reading about them it just stated that both used a modified shuttle external tank. I though Ares I looked too small for that.

ChirsP.Bacon: Wasn't Ares V a 10m tank? It was stated that it could lift 180 tons to LEO which is considerably more than the SLS is predicted to be able to.

[Chris P. Bacon]

There were a couple versions of the Ares V being thrown around until the cancellation of the program. There was a cost-saving version which ironically used five of the much more expensive SSME's and a stretched 8.4m shuttle external tank. The 188 ton lifter with Altair would've used the larger 10m tank (which would require more production retooling) with five or six of the Rocketdyne RS-68's.

[rhoark]

SLS is the final draft of Ares V. The same people were responsible. The SLS core tank is the same diameter as a shuttle ET, but longer.