Nasa's new heavy lift vehicle.

Sadly, NASA's space program died a long time ago - rigor mortis is just now setting in.

Ronald Reagan was the initial pathogen, knocking commercial launches off the shutlle after Challenger - and infusing the Ariane program with America's paying customers. George Bush Sr. expanded the contagen when he allowed American sattelites to be launched on mainland Chinese Long Marches to placate the communists after some  of his buddies made a killing selling fighter aircraft to Taiwan. But it was Bill Clinton that ensured that the illness was terminal by offshoring the American liquid rocket motor business to Russia (google "RD-180"). Bush Jr. provided the industry with smaller, but very profitable pretend projects (Hospice care) to keep them happy and quiet while he took care of family business in the middle east. Of course, now Obama gets the credit for "killing" the space program after he inherited a patient with no vital signs (not that he really cares beyond the fact that becoming an astronaut is the ultimate metaphor fodder for inspirational speeches). 

"Budget crisis" is just the government's clever euphemism on the death certificate.

You're quote on NASA's funding was very wise.

It's early 2012 and the US government just shut down all the new probes to Mars.  US space exploration will be extinct by about 2016.

Don't be fooled by the paint scheme.  I'm fairly certain this is another reincarnation of the Heavy Lift vehicle proposed before the shuttle retired.  I think they called it Ares V back then.  As such the vehicle is based upon a lengthed Shuttle Main tank with a stress structure on the bottom to mount the 5 SSME-derived main engines.

You'd have a better starting point for a build using Space Shuttle kits than using Saturn V kits.  There are already a couple of 1/144 Orion kits around including one I think with the BPC so you'd be pretty far along with a build using an Orion kit and two shuttle kits I suspect.

Martin's models already has something like this.   Looks like maybe it's an earlier version of the same concept of rocket:

http://homepages.tesco.net/martin.goldsack/144.htm

Chris

While looking at the measurements, the SRBs are three times taller than the shuttles' and the main body of the rocket is ten feet larger in diameter than a Saturn V.  I'm not even sure that NASA can get funding for this in today's budget environment so it may be a moot point anyway.

                                                                                                               Pat. 

I'll bet one could build a decent kit bash by picking the appropriate scale Saturn 5 and shuttle solid rocket boosters.

Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with the different scale Saturn 5's and full stack shuttles to make a recommendation.

Sure it wouldn't be totally accurate but most people wouldn't notice.