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NASA astronauts to fly Orion spacecraft into deep space
- burgerbrain 15y agoAnyone keen on a longbet that SpaceX still beats them there?
- hugh3 15y agoThis sounds like bad news for SpaceX. Apparently NASA has decided (no doubt under pressure from the senators for whatever-states-these-things-get-built-in) to go back to building its own manned capsules. For a while it looked like they were going to subcontract the basic put-dude-in-orbit missions to SpaceX, but I guess not. NASA has a way of making things sound much lamer than they should be. Hey, y'know what's a good name for a spaceship? Dragon! Y'know what's a bad name for a spaceship? Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle!
- zeemonkee 15y agoThe sad thing is that most likely, nothing will come of it. They'll be the usual "in 10-20 years" bullshit (i.e. some time way beyond the current Congressional sitting/Presidential term of office) and the whole thing will get quietly cancelled.
- hugh3 15y agoAnother article with prettier pictures: http://dvice.com/archives/2011/05/nasa-unveils-ne.php http://dvice.com/archives/2011/05/nasa-unveils-ne.php I suppose that at the very least this new design solves the "looks too much like Apollo" problem of the old Orion. Other weirdness: given that it's supposedly designed for "deep space", why does the design spec only call for it to support astronauts for "up to 21 days"? Heck, even Gemini 7 lasted nearly 14 days, and that was with two people in a capsule smaller than a fat guy's pants. Also, do we have a rocket to launch this thing yet? Wasn't Ares cancelled? What do we stick it on?