Alternative Orion Missions Proposed
skywatcher2501 writes "Lockheed Martin, the company producing NASA's new Orion spacecraft,
published three videos (news article in German) showing alternative Orion missions. Great efforts are made to show Orion's flexibility as a space transportation system beyond the goals of the Constellation program." The three videos, respectively, illustrate ISS missions with cargo in low-Earth orbit; autonomous use of the service module; and maintenance missions from low-earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit.
The Orion spacecraft is not the problem with the current NASA Constellation program. The Ares I launch vehicle is. It does not have the lifting capability, among other problems, to meet the goals of the program so they keep cutting back on the capability of the one thing that its supposed to lift to orbit, the Orion crew capsule.
Sig this!
Project Orion was certainly designed for planetary launch. They even did an analysis of how many people it would kill per launch due to fallout.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance