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NASA's Orion Spaceship Passes Parachute Test
An anonymous reader writes The spacecraft it is hoped will take man to Mars has passed its first parachute tests. Nasa's Orion spacecraft landed gently using its parachutes after being shoved out of a military jet at 35,000 feet. "We've put the parachutes through their paces in ground and airdrop testing in just about every conceivable way before we begin sending them into space on Exploration Flight Test (EFT)-1 before the year's done," Orion program manager Mark Geyer said in a NASA statement. "The series of tests has proven the system and will help ensure crew and mission safety for our astronauts in the future."
Now I'm going to have to go build a military jet in Kerbal Space Program and push a capsule with parachutes out of it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Perhaps 300 years from now archaeologists of the day will discover traces, artifacts, of our culture and technology, and wonder ... what happened.
Part of me is happy to see NASA doing this kind of development.
On the other hand, I suspect that some version of SpaceX's Dragon will carry men into space long before Orion.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
As I understand it, Orion is sort of the equivalent of the Apollo CM. It was not cancelled.
However, what I believe the administration wants to cancel is part of the SLS (Shuttle Launch System) which would lift the Orion capsule into orbit--sort of the equivalent of the Saturn 1B that was used to launch Apollo capsules into earth orbit for Skylab and Apollo/Soyuz missions.
I believe the heavy-lift version of SLS--sort of analogous to the Saturn 5--is still funded for the asteroid missions.
Every time I see Orion mentioned, I get my hopes up about nuclear powered interstellar craft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
Well, that depends on how the mission plays out. You may be able to mate it with a Falcon 9 to get it off the ground and pair up with another system already launched into orbit aboard a Falcon Heavy.
Remember that Apollo used one big rocket because that was the quickest way to get to the Moon. It wasn't necessarily the best idea...
You and me both. Let's spread the tag !nuclearpulsepropulsion to show our dismay!
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Space X already has a capsule.. No need for Orion.
Orion is not going to take man to Mars. It's way too small to deal with the enormous life support requirements for a journey to Mars.
Despite SpaceX and Nasa enthusiasm for a Mars trip the reality is we are at least several decades away from a manned Mars mission. Two way is unlikely any time soon because of cost. One could build a ship big enough for the mission in earth orbit but a big ship would probably need fuel to slow down as it approaches Mars. Aerobraking a large ship into Mars orbit is magnitudes more difficult (and risky) than tiny robot\ missions. A lander with fuel would be need to get both on and off the surface in a controlled fashion. Even more fuel required to accelerate the orbiting craft back to interplanetary speeds again. (maybe getaway with aerobreaking alone when approaching earth in a lighter return vehicle).
A one way tip seems much more feasible.
1. Main mission rocket and crew quarters assembled in low earth orbit over several missions
2. rocket that will carry crew to main mission rocket in orbit.(including lander)
3. unmanned supply ships waiting on the surface Mars (including crew living quarters, equipment to help with further expansion, medical supplies, seeds, scientific research equipment and all sorts of other goodies)
4. Figure out what technology is required to create a self-sustaining colony on Mars. The ISS has the luxury of constant resupply missions. Resupply to Mars would be much more rare. One tiny mistake by colonists in managing their food, water, energy, and oxygen supplies ends up with them dead. It would be unethical to have a one way suicide mission.
5. If we are to have permanent colonies, the mission must include a mandate for reproduction. You want to preplan who will be having babies with whom and how to make the gene pool as healthy as possible for further generations of reproduction (until the diversity is enough that people can choose to have children rather than be told who they must have children with). Just resolving the ethical issue of having children isolated on another planet will probably require years of legal wrangling.
Not the first test. First test failed five years ago.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVl6lCr1vCo Have been other successful tests since then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMGTsGe4Nds . Nowhere does the article describe these as the first tests....
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
Absolutely not. If you're going to go with a nuclear rocket, make it a gas core nuclear rocket, like the Liberty. Gas core nuclear rockets (or nuclear light bulbs) do not spew radioactive waste in their wake. They are clean and physically doable, unlike the Orion.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Even with a nuclear powered rocket, interstellar travel to the nearest neighbour will take more than a century, and that's just for a high speed fly-by. If you actually want to get in orbit, it'll take twice as long.
You both should do a little research on Gas Core Nuclear Rockets. Project Orion is never, ever going to fly.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
It might "fly", just not as a lifter. Interplanetary, sure...just not from Earth's surface.
Gas core nuclear rockets also don't exist, even as prototypes, and have serious theoretical problems. While Orion spacecrafts are actually pretty straightforward.
Pfft! We can still be disappointed.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
What's the terminal velocity on Mars?
There is no one-size fits all capsule and although the Dragon could be modified to work for deep space missions as this has been taken into account from the start, it isn't currently built for that.
Agreed. The Dragon seems to be just a 7-passenger taxi service to the ISS. However, you could probably dock it to another space station too, one with living quarters, a Mars-lander and a bunch of big engines and fuel tanks, and then you have your Mars mission complete.
Looks like something from 40 years ago.
Seriously NASA?
SpaceX is launching rockets that effing land themselves and you're celebrating that your parachute works? Well, those are new...
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Not true. It is Obama who tried to kill planetary science such as Mars missions and gut unmanned missions to fund the pork-y manned missions. There has never been a Administration that has been this hostile to unmanned missions.
Lifting from the Earth's surface is the entire point. Once you're in orbit, any ol' thrust source will do.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
In my more conspiracy-minded moments I sometimes wonder if the name choice wasn't deliberate, to make the public forget about the original Project Orion. There was no need to name this abortion 'Orion' when that name had already been used for an entirely different concept in manned space flight. This one should have been called Apollo Command Module Version 2, because that's pretty much all it is.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Except that it's not human rated.
Nor is Onion.
Heck, nor was the Space Shuttle, unless you consider killing the crew one time in sixty to be 'human rated'.
In my more conspiracy-minded moments
good grief, do you even intarweb, bro ?
/can't tell where parody ends anymore...
You probably think those shuttle disasters we "accidents", too.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Does it play the full 17[*] minutes of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida during re-entry?
[*] using the superior arrangement by Bartholomew J Simpson
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Yeah, but your facts don't play with AC's narrative that each and every Republican is a bible-thumping science-denying women-hating redneck gun-waving racist who wants to fire you and your family in order to throw another nickel into the olympic swimming pool filled with cash.
Just smile and nod, even if the smile is just a thinly veiled wince. And don't even think about explaining that the Democratic party has it's own extremist flank of tree-hugging tax-and-spend politically-correct welfare-state socialists that want to outlaw guns, cars, electric light, private education, and all religious organizations.
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