NASA's Next Mission: Deep Space

gManZboy writes "NASA's Mars Science Lab and Curiosity rover are the next steps in a long-term plan to travel farther and faster into space. Check out the future spacecrafts and tools that will get them there — including NASA's big bet, a spacecraft that combines the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle with the Space Launch System, designed to take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit for the first time since the Apollo 17 Moon mission in 1972. NASA will need 10 years to prepare astronauts to take Orion and SLS for a test flight."

Comments

Re:Why return mission?

[AliasMarlowe]

They're colonists.
They can send someone with balls:

In that case, they better send some with pussies, too. Otherwise the colony won't last long.

Still no interplanetary arc.

[master_p]

What NASA needs to build is an interplanetary arc; a big spaceship complete with rotating sections for gravity, nuclear propulsion, huge areas of hydroponics and onboard shuttles for visiting planets.

With such a spaceship, visiting other planets of the solar system would be much easier.