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Lockheed Martin Wins Contract to Build Mars Lander
Lord_Slepnir writes "Lockheed Martin has won a contract to build the Orion crew exploration vehicle that will eventually take humans to the moon and then on to Mars. This vehicle will hopefully also replace the aging space shuttle fleet. According to NASA the vehicle will have manned missions by 2014 and moon missions by no later by 2020."
clever truncation of the sentence. The point is we are finally getting back into real exploration. If we have to make some runs to the moon to get to mars, then fine. I think it is great that we are getting back into the manned exploration of the solar system. I think that most of us that remember the 60's and 70's thought we would be well past the point we are at now.
So really...why do we need to go there?
Because we can.I wish I had mod points.
Opta ardua pennis astra sequi.
"There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
It is a far better use of our energy than immolating each other while arguing about god.
Sign me up. I'll dig ditches for the launch pad if that's what it takes for me to be involved.