NASA's architecture intended to return humans to the Moon includes the Ares V cargo launch vehicle, which is planned to be available within a decade. The capabilities of Ares V would permit an 8.8-m diameter, 55 mT payload at Sun-Earth L_(1,2) locations. That is, this vehicle could launch very large optical systems to achieve major scientific goals that would otherwise be very difficult. For example, an 8-m monolith UV/visual/IR telescope could be launched to a Sun-Earth L_2 location. Even larger apertures that are deployed or assembled seem possible. Alternatively, elements of a spatial array or multiple astronomical observatories might be launched simultaneously. Over the years, scientists and engineers have been evaluating concepts for astronomical observatories enabled by future large launch vehicles. In this presentation, we report on a recent workshop held at NASA Ames Research Center that improved understanding of the science goals that can be achieved using Ares V. While such a vehicle uniquely enables few of the observatory concepts considered at the workshop, most have baseline designs that can be flown on existing or near-future vehicles. However, the performance of the Ares V permits design concepts (e.g., large monolithic mirrors) that reduce complexity and risk.
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