The best, smartest, and coolest thing built in 2009, according to TIME, is ‘a machine that can launch human beings to cosmic destinations we’d never considered before.’ This is called NASA’s Ares Rockets. Previous to this invention, astronauts had not been able to move ‘beyond the harbor lights of low-Earth orbit in nearly 40 years.’ The Ares 1 had its first unmanned flight on October 28.

The rocket is ‘a slender white stalk that looks almost as if it would twang in the Florida wind. But up close, it’s huge: about 327 ft. (100 m) tall, or the biggest thing the U.S. has launched since the 363-ft. (111 m) Saturn V moon rockets of the early 1970s. Its first stage is a souped-up version of one of the shuttle’s solid-fuel rockets; its top stage is a similarly muscled-up model of the Saturn’s massive J2 engines.’

The Ares 1 ‘has lightweight composites, better engines and exponentially improved computers giving it more reliability and power.’ Possibly by 2015, it will launch an ‘Apollo-like spacecraft with four crew members.’

On the other hand, the Brobdingnagian Ares V rocket that NASA is also developing at the moment is ‘a 380-ft. (116 m) behemoth intended to put such heavy equipment as a lunar lander in Earth orbit, where astronauts can link up with it before blasting away to the moon.’

Not to be outdone is the Ares Lite, ‘a heavy-lift hybrid that could carry both humans and cargo and is intended to be a design that engineers can have in their back pockets if the two-booster plan proves unaffordable.’

Via TIME