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NASA's Orion Capsule Reaches Orbit
PaisteUser sends word that NASA's Orion capsule successfully reached orbit this morning after a flawless launch atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket. Video of the launch is available on YouTube, and the Orion Mission blog has frequent updates as mission milestones are reached.
Mission managers said the rocket and capsule performed perfectly during the initial phases of the test. "It was just a blast to see how well the rocket did," said Mark Geyer, NASA's Orion program manager. After Orion makes its first circuit around the planet, the rocket's upper stage will kick it into a second, highly eccentric orbit that loops as far as 3,600 miles from Earth. Then Orion will come screaming back into Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 20,000 mph — 80 percent of the velocity that a spacecraft returning from the moon would experience. This particular Orion is missing a lot of the components that would be needed for a crewed flight, and it won't be carrying humans. Instead, it's outfitted with more than 1,200 sensors to monitor how its communication and control systems deal with heightened radiation levels, how its heat shield handles re-entry temperatures that are expected to rise as high as 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and how its parachutes slow the craft down for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
Can the space fanbois provide some sort of explanation of what's being "explored" exactly?
It's stated capability will be 10 or 20x it's real world capability.
If God wanted us to explore outer space, he would have given us wings.
I get it confused with the old Project Orion. Plus one of my favorite novels as a kid was Poul Anderson's Orion Shall Rise which featured that propulsion technology.
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Here is a blog reporting lift to the second orbit: http://space.io9.com/will-orio...
When would you expect that we would build and launch a spacecraft that is designed to stay in space, be driven by a nuclear reactor with lots of room for storage and living, scads of power, ion drive, and be used for regular excursions. Seems to me we have all the basic technology required.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Despite the best efforts of our malevolent President to sabotage our space program.
In case anyone is interested.
http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
What great news to wake up to! Hoping for many more optimism-promoting successes like this on the road to humans living in space habitats that can duplicate themselves from sunlight and asteroidal or lunar ores.
Here is a PBS NewsHour video with launch footage:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/up...
BTW, that PBS NewsHour Orion article led me to another PBS NewsHour article which formed the basis of my most recent "optimistic" Slashdot story submission on how restoring 1970s overtime regulations could boost the US economy:
http://slashdot.org/submission...
With a stronger economy, maybe there would be even more demand for space-related ventures of all sorts?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Unfortunately, "because we can" is the primary justification for this project and eventual Mars mission. If one wants to prove they can establish a long term outpost off earth, the moon is far more practical. But there is no compelling reason to doing so on either.
I was reading "Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization" by Spencer Wells this morning. He makes the point that hunter/gatherers tend to walk away from social conflicts, whereas people in large militaristic agricultural hierarchies instead tend to end up fighting wars for resources as they see no other alternatives. I had a lot of youthful optimism in the 1970s stemming in part from the US space program and many space-related TV shows (Thunderbirds, Star Trek, Space: 1999, Lost In Space). To be potentially capable of the military conquest of the planet Earth, a country probably has to be of the scale of WWII Germany or the USA -- having about 5% of the planet's population and land. So that means, ignoring moral aspects and such, the maximum return on military investment for Empire can be at most about 20 to 1 relative to the total resources (including people) you are starting with and essentially gambling. By contrast, investments in Research & Development, such as the space program like with Orion or new energy sources like hot or cold fusion or dirt-cheap solar PV or whatever have the potential to produce much greater returns than 20:1 on investment. Imagine if the USA had poured the cost of the Iraq war (three or more trillion US$ at this point) into fusion research. We might have 1000X as much cheap less-polluting energy to use (including for space launches) than we have now. Increasing human capability to get into space and live there in self-replicating space habitats potentially could produce another 1000X or more return in land area to live in. Even as 100 trillion dollars to make the first such self-replicating space habitat, the ROI is so much higher than that of preparing to fight a global war of empire-building.
Maybe we can see a return to other ideas, like those from back when NASA overall was more optimistic under Carter?
"Advanced Automation for Space Missions"
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/...
"This document is the final report of a study on the feasability of using machine intelligence, including automation and robotics, in future space missions. The 10-week study was conducted during the summer of 1980 by 18 educators from universities throughout the United States who worked with 15 NASA program engineers. The specific study objectives were to identify and analyze several representative missions that would require extensive applications of machine intelligence, and then to identify technologies that must be developed to accomplish these types of missions. This study was sponsored jointly by NASA, through the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology and the Office of University Affairs, and by the American Society for Engineering Education as part of their continuing program of summer study faculty fellowships. Co-hosts for the study were the NASA Ames Research Center and the University of Santa Clara, where the study was carried out. Project co-directors were James E. Long of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Timothy J. Healy of the University of Santa Clara."
There are probably nuances here regarding how much of the country is at risk in such a military gamble and so on, as well as the value of military investments for deterrence (how much is enough?), but that is the broad brush picture I've always seen based on that early optimism. And given that a supervolcano like Toba (mentioned by Spencer Wells as killing of most humans about 70,000 years ago) or a pandemic (like Ebola) could wipe out most people (from a decade long winter and a new ice age), it seems investments in cooperation to develop productive innovations including space habitats has a much better risk/reward ratio than most military investments which ultimately still don't secure you against supervolcanos or plagues and similar things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
While it has sometimes been called "The Conquest of Space", it is a very d
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Congratulations, NASA. I'm pleased to see this launch go off without a hitch (as long as you don't count the scrub of the launch yesterday...)
In C++, your friends can see your privates.
Going to the moon was really cool, for sure. And we were very lucky. Hard to justify doing it again, even to Mars, with taxpayer dollars, considering the serious needs for health, defense, and infrastructure down here. Before robotic instruments were so capable, sending people to explore was the only way. Now we have had those two geology robots on Mars for YEARS and they work wonderfully. When everyone with a PC can Skype across the country so easily, it is hard to justify sending people on dangerous journeys. Moreover, it is very difficult to justify the enormous cost of human space flight, considering the trifling amount of actual scientific results from the Space Station. True believers will claim all sorts of major developments from the space program, and they are real. But adding humans to the space-flight equation increases the cost by at least two orders of magnitude, for zero gain.
Back in 1991, this was to be the year to launch to Mars: http://articles.latimes.com/19...
I'm glad to see this flight finally, but the flight trajectory of this flight was eerily similar to the first launch of the Saturn V. That mission also tested the Apollo spacecraft reentry characteristics at higher than LEO speed. Well, plus testing the largest booster ever built in all-up configuration on its first flight. So NASA has basically taken an off the shelf military booster (Delta IV Heavy) and launched an uncrewed Orion spacecraft and it worked -- great. So their PR release should have said, "We have now almost achieved the same capability with Orion as we had in 1967 with Apollo." Instead, the official commentary from Mission Control is, " 'There's your new spacecraft, America,' " Mission Control commentator Rob Navias said as the Orion capsule neared the water 270 miles off Mexico's Baja peninsula. Navias called the journey "the most perfect flight you could ever imagine." In 1967 the commentary from Mission Control would have been something like, "The vehicle performed nominally" One of the things I miss about the old NASA was their understated PR at the time -- just the engineering description of events, little fluff. Now I get the feeling that a division of PR hacks are crafting every word of commentary ahead of time.
line death row convicts (we won't execute you if you return). Oh, yeah, it is unethical. We should use lethal injection, it is often (when not botched) more humane...
This is flying pork from NASA to keep the manned directorate swimming in dough.
The real science is being done on robotic missions such as the rovers on Mars.
My favorite part was when it transcended the speed of sound. I sure hope they remembered to install a bobbly headed buddha in the cockpit.