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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida – NASA on Tuesday carted a sleek, towering rocket out to the launch pad to test the vehicle planned to replace the retiring space shuttles and return U.S. astronauts to the moon.

The flight, scheduled for next week, comes as the Obama administration considers whether to continue the Ares 1 rocket program. Besides positioning crews in Earth orbit for transport to the moon, Ares 1 is intended to serve as a taxi for the International Space Station.

Competing concepts endorsed by a presidential panel tapped to review NASA's human space program include launching astronauts on commercial vehicles, such as Space Exploration Technology's Falcon 9 rocket, which is scheduled for a debut flight in late 2009 or early 2010.

NASA has spent nearly four years and $350 million on a predecessor rocket, known as Ares 1-X. The 327-foot (99-meter) tall vehicle -- the tallest rocket made since the 1960s-era Saturn rocket -- was hauled out to a refurbished space shuttle launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in preparation for an October 27 liftoff.

Even if Ares 1 is canceled, NASA says, the flight is crucial.

"It's been a long time since NASA built a new vehicle," said mission manager Bob Ess. "The whole purpose of this test is to get information so we understand and can correlate our computer models. From that, we learn how to use that data for the next launch vehicle."

About 40 percent of new rockets fail on their debut launches, but NASA is so confident in its test vehicle that it cleared the space shuttle Atlantis to be on a second pad just 1.5 miles away during the Ares 1-X flight.

The shuttle is being prepared for a space station outfitting mission in November.