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NASA's Orion Moon Craft Unveiled
Velcroman1 writes "Lockheed Martin on Tuesday unveiled the first Orion spacecraft, a part of what NASA had planned as the sprawlingly ambitious Constellation project that would offer a replacement for the space shuttle — and a means to ferry humans into outer space and back to the moon. Orion and the companion Ares heavy-lift rocket were part of Constellation, a program cancelled under President Barack Obama's 2011 budget proposal."
"The spacecraft is an incredibly robust, technically advanced vehicle capable of safely transporting humans to asteroids, Lagrange Points and other deep space destinations that will put us on an affordable and sustainable path to Mars.”
Many of Orion's components can be re-used in subsequent flights, including some electronic systems, Bray said. The spaceship itself won't be reused because of the tremendous forces it endures on liftoff and re-entry, he said.
Rep. Ed Perlmutter and Sen. Michael Bennet, Colorado Democrats who pressed Obama to salvage the Orion project, said they were confident the spacecraft will fly, but neither discussed specifics in brief remarks at the dedication ceremony for the test building.
I think there's a type somewhere... seems more like the Onion Moon Craft.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Excuse me... would you mind telling me where the "dig" is at the President?
The only passage I see that references our President is "Orion and the companion Ares heavy-lift rocket were part of Constellation, a program cancelled under President Barack Obama's 2011 budget proposal."
That is a statement of fact. It is in no way biased, skewed or twisted. It's just about as plain a statement as one can make.
But I guess it must be hard to notice these details when you've got to read over such a highly-held nose.
Not more real, but certainly more exciting. The fact that a 50 year old concept is more exciting than a new space vehicle says a lot about the failures of the space program. If funding had continued just a few years longer we might have seen simple thermal nuclear rockets like NERVA fly. Even the simplest nuclear rockets would have been almost an order of magnitude more effective than chemical rockets, and the preliminary tests were 100% successful. The fact that no one has even broached the subject since says a lot about the public's fears of anything nuclear.
Project Orion will never be revived. However, use of nuclear power may still live in VASIMR technology. The prototype is supposed to go up this year but we'll see. If it works as planned it's a game changer for in-space travel. Unlike most revolutionary technology companies Ad Astra is actually helmed by an ex-astronaut with an actual Ph.D. VASIMR technology comes from Dr. Franklin Chang Diaz's MIT thesis.
It is a huge year for SpaceX, Ad Astra, and spaceflight in general this year.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/10/ad_astra_nasa_vf200_announcement/
Here's an interesting link about many of the nuclear propulsion systems over the years: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040112/nuclear.shtml
Chemical rockets are a dead end. They will never be able to put large amounts of supplies into orbit and will never be fast enough of interplanetary distances to be practical as anything more than an interesting diversion. The failure I am referring to is the failure to recognize this and invest money, time, and effort into alternatives. NASA successfully test fired a nuclear powered rocket that as a drop in replacement for on the Saturn V would have improved it's payload by 4x, using technology from the '60s. And then the funding dried up for anything experimental or paradigm shifting and we've been stuck on chemical rockets which have no hope of actually accomplishing any of the long term goals of the manned space program.
Perhaps it isn't a failure of the agency, they do, after all, get their funding and many of their mission statements from congress. But I have never heard about a high ranking NASA spokesman going to congress and saying "We need money for advanced, non-chemical launch technologies".
I disagree. NASA hasn't bungled anything. The reason we don't have a replacement is that it takes more than 8 years and every president cancels the last guy's program. We wouldn't have made it to the moon if JFK hadn't been a hugely popular martyr. And even then, as soon as we set foot on the moon, they canceled Apollo. And every president since has canceled the last guy's program - except Carter. Carter, being a one-term president tried but failed to cancel the shuttle and that's the only reason we ever had it.
So Regan had the shuttle. Bush #1 supported a replacement but Clinton canceled it. Clinton supported a replacement (venturestar) but Bush #2 canceled it. Bush #2 supported a replacement (constellation) but Obama canceled it.
I don't see how any of this is NASA's fault.