by Marcel F. Williams
In my opinion, the development of the Ares V is NASA's most important project. The worse mistake the US ever made was decommissioning our only heavy lift vehicle (the Saturn V) back in the early 1970's. The Saturn V not only put men on the Moon but placed America's first space station (Skylab) into orbit. During the gap between the Apollo moon program and the Space shuttle program, we could have used the Saturn V to launch more Skylabs and the first large rotational simulated gravity space stations.
By the time the Space Shuttle program had begun, we would have already had a space station or space stations to visit. Then we could have used the Saturn V in combination with the Space Shuttle to set up a permanent base on the Moon during the 1980s using reusable OTVs (orbital transfer vehicles) and reusable lunar landers. The 1980's could have been the greatest space era in American and world history.