Obama's "Devastating" Plans for NASA

President to Outline His Vision for NASA

President Obama will seek to promote his vision for the nation’s human space flight program on Thursday, just two days after three storied Apollo astronauts — including Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the Moon — called the new plans “devastating.”

In an announcement to be made at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the president will personally talk for the first time about the sweeping upheaval of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s human spaceflight program outlined in his 2011 budget request: canceling the current program that is to send astronauts back to the Moon, investing in commercial companies to provide transportation to orbit and developing new space technologies.

[...]

Mr. Obama’s budget request called for the cancellation of Orion crew capsule, which was to be used to carry astronauts to the International Space Station and then to the Moon, as well as other components of the current program known as Constellation.

The president will propose that a simpler version of the Orion be used as a lifeboat for the space station. Russian Soyuz capsules currently provide that function. Because the Orion lifeboat would not carry astronauts to the space station, it could be launched on existing rockets.

[...]

“There has not been a well-articulated plan and vision,” said Edward F. Crawley, an engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who served on the blue-ribbon panel that reviewed NASA’s human spaceflight program last year.

Others find the essentials of the plan flawed, not just the presentation. In a letter to Mr. Obama, reported Tuesday by NBC News, Mr. Armstrong, the commander of Apollo 11, along with James A. Lovell Jr., the commander of Apollo 13, and Eugene A. Cernan, the commander of Apollo 17, wrote, “For the United States, the leading space-faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second- or even third-rate stature.”

In a letter released Monday, 27 NASA veterans — including Eugene F. Kranz, the flight director who presided over the safe return of the crew aboard the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft in 1970 — asked Mr. Obama to reconsider the “misguided proposal.”

The reception from Congress has so far been mostly chilly but mostly from representatives in states that are home to the NASA centers that would be most hurt by the changes — the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Johnson Space Center in Texas and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. [...]

A great deal of money has already been spent on developing the Orion spacecraft and the Constellation program. Cancel that now, and all that money is wasted.

The Orion spacecraft is supposed to be our replacement for the space shuttle. Canceling it leaves us with no spacecraft. We will be 100 % dependent on the Russians for transporting astronauts, and we will have to pay them a fortune to do that for us.

What kind of behind-closed-doors deal has Obama struck with the Russians? This seems to benefit them the most.

I'm all for more private enterprise in our space program, but this is so wrong in so many ways. Wasteful, and the shenanigans with the budget, well, read the whole thing.

Killing our space program. More Change You Can Believe In.


Also See:

NASA's Planned Return to the Moon - Canceled?

NASA's Constellation Program
     

Orion Spacecraft Changes; Budget Problems

In an earlier post, I looked at the plans for the new Orion spacecraft that is supposed to replace the shuttle and take us back to the moon. NASA was still trying to decide whether or not it would touch down on land or on water:

Re-entry Dilemmas; the Orion Capsule and SS2.

At the time, opinion seemed to be leaning toward land, because the spacecraft would then be re-usable, and would save a lot of money in the long run. So I was kind of shocked to see this recently:

NASA keeps Orion landing reassessment results secret

NASA's work to resolve its Orion crew exploration vehicle's (CEV) landing system mass problems is being prolonged as one key study's deadline has been extended by six months, pushed back from March to the CEV's third quarter preliminary design review.

On 16 November 2007 NASA changed the Orion's nominal landing from land to water because of the mass penalty of carrying the necessary airbag system to the Moon and back. But the agency also decided it needed an emergency land landing capability. [...]

I'm shocked because landing on land was supposed to mean reusable capsules, and big savings in the long run. Aren't those savings now voided by going back to ocean landings? Also, this change has caused budget over-runs. That, combined with the fact that the Bush Administration failed to deliver the funds that were promised, has now put the entire project behind schedule:

NASA could delay plan to land astronauts on moon

[...] NASA's internal plans had called for Ares V to go to the moon in 2018, though the agency had announced a public goal of 2020. Internal deadlines are used by NASA to keep programs on track and to provide a margin of error for developmental problems.

But because of growing budget woes, the agency is resetting its internal date to 2020. And privately, engineers say that means the public 2020 date to send humans back to the moon is in deepening trouble.

[...]

Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin in a speech last week blamed the White House -- especially the Bush administration. He said that money available for Ares V and other moon projects had dropped from roughly $4 billion through 2015 to just $500 million.

"This was to be allocated to early work on the Ares V heavy-lifter, and the Altair lunar lander," he told the National Space Club annual Goddard Memorial Dinner. "With only a half-billion dollars now available, this work cannot be done."

[...]

The 2020 lunar launch date is a policy objective set by President Bush in 2004 and recently reaffirmed in President Obama's 2010 budget proposal. It's part of what the Obama team in February called a new chapter of "robust human and robotic space exploration." [...]

President Obama is supporting the project so far, but as it continues to fall behind, it's not looking very hopefull. Read the rest of the article for the details.

     

Will Obama cancel NASA's Moon Mission?

Let's hope not. I've written before about NASA's Constellation Program, which aims to replace the space shuttle with Ares rockets and the Orion spacecraft, which can also be used to bring us to the moon again. Will the financial crisis affect this program? What will an Obama administration do?

Mock-up of Orion spacecraft with Lunar Lander
The space program has always been a target for budget cutters. Many people view it as an extraneous waste of money. Many Democrats in particular, think the budget for the space program would be better spent on social programs.

It's quite natural that we should wonder what Obama's plans are for NASA and the Constellation Program in particular. It seems there has been a lot of tension between NASA's current administrator, and Obama's transition team:

NASA has become a transition problem for Obama

CAPE CANAVERAL – NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is “not qualified” to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.

In a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator who heads the space transition team, a red-faced Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama, according to witnesses.

In addition, Griffin is scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency’s moon program, sources said.

Griffin’s resistance is part of a no-holds-barred effort to preserve the Constellation program, the delayed and over-budget moon rocket that is his signature project.

[...]

The tensions are due to the fact that NASA’s human space flight program is facing its biggest crossroads since the end of the Apollo era in the 1970s. The space shuttle is scheduled to be retired in 2010, and the next-generation Constellation rockets won’t fly before 2015.

Nearly four years ago, President Bush brought in Griffin to implement a plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 as a prelude to going to Mars. Griffin and his team selected Constellation, with its NASA-designed Ares I rocket and Orion capsule, as cheaper and safer than existing rockets. Constellation – especially Ares 1 -- is the center of what Griffin sees as his legacy to return humans to the frontiers of space.

Griffin has made no secret that he would like to stay on but only, as he recently told Kennedy Space Center workers, "under the right circumstances," including being able to finish Constellation.

But budget problems and technical issues have created growing doubts about the project. Griffin has dismissed these as normal rocket development issues, but they’ve clearly got the transition team’s attention.

When team members arrived three weeks ago, they asked the agency, among other things, to quantify how much could be saved by canceling Ares I. Though they also asked what it would take to accelerate the program, the fact that the team could even consider scrapping the program was enough to spur Griffin and his supporters into action

According to industry officials, Griffin started calling heads of companies working for NASA, demanding that they either tell the Obama team that they support Constellation or refrain from talking about alternatives. [...]

I would like to see the Constellation program stay on track. The Orion spacecraft is needed to replace the aging shuttle fleet, and will be more economical in the long run. It's needed to service the ISS too, so I suspect it may continue on schedule. But the return to the moon, I don't know. It would be nice if Obama were to look on it the way JFK did.

Back to the moon by 2020. Will we make it?
A great deal of time and resources have already been expended on the current plan; altering it significantly could throw a lot of that investment away. Also, NASA is providing jobs in the high tech industry, even in the private sector, and creating spin-off technologies that help us in so many ways. There is so much going right with it presently, I'm hoping that an Obama administration will choose to build on that rather than subtract from it.

I know Obama's team has to ask questions and make assessments. As to what he will do, I'm hoping he's going to be a JFK kinda guy in this regard.


Ares I rocket propelling Orion space capsule
The Constellation program will ultimately be not only less expensive, but safer for our astronauts too. It can service the ISS, AND get us to the Moon again, as well as assist us to getting to Mars eventually. Hopefully Obama can make it part of his plan and his presidential legacy, too.
     

Congress delays Orion Spacecraft launch date

The Orion Spacecraft, which is scheduled to replace the Space Shuttle as America's premier manned spaceflight transport vessel, was due to be launched in 2013. The date has now been moved to 2014.

NASA abandons plan to fly new spaceships by 2013

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - NASA has abandoned plans to get its replacement for the retiring U.S. space shuttles into service by 2013 because of a lack of additional funds and technical issues, officials said on Monday.

[...]

"The window of opportunity for us to accelerate Orion has closed," program manager Jeff Hanley at NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston told reporters during a conference call.

The United States will be without a means to transport people to and from space after the shuttle fleet is retired in 2010 until the new ships are ready to fly. It intends to rely on Russia to ferry crews to the space station and on private companies to deliver cargo during the gap.

NASA had hoped to minimize the gap, but additional funding to do so has not been approved by the U.S. Congress. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) Our wonderful congress at work. I suspect many of them would like to scrap the manned space program, and use the money for pork programs to buy votes. But to be fair, there were also concerns about safety, that have lead to some people at NASA seeing the later launch date as a good thing. So hopefully the Orion will be ready to fly to the ISS by 2014, and on to the moon by 2020, if congress will stop obstructing and get with the program... the Constellation Program.


Related Links:

Asteroid mission concept unveiled

A Nasa scientist has proposed using the replacement to the space shuttle to visit a near-Earth asteroid.

The Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) is due to make its maiden flight in 2014, with the eventual aim of ferrying astronauts to and from the Moon.

Dr Paul Abell said such a mission could help efforts to protect against an asteroid on course to hit Earth.

Currently, the project is envisaged to include two or three crew members and last a total of 90-180 days.

Dr Abell presented an outline of his mission concept here at the Lunar and Planetary Science conference in Houston, Texas.

The plan would be to visit an asteroid in the sub-kilometre size range, perhaps about the size of asteroid Itokawa (535m) which was visited by Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft. [...]

Wow. This also sounds like it would be a good practice step towards a Mars Mission. Read the rest of this fascinating article for more details.

Below are two links to prior posts about the Orion spacecraft:

NASA goes Back to the Future

Re-entry Dilemmas; the Orion Capsule and SS2

     

Soyuz spacecraft has rough landing on Earth

A new crew has taken over the ISS, and the old crew returned to Earth, but not without some problems. From NASA:

Expedition 16 Soyuz Lands Safely in Kazakhstan

HOUSTON – NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, the first female commander of the International Space Station, returned to Earth at approximately 4:30 a.m. EDT Saturday, ending a mission during which she conducted five spacewalks and set a new record in American spaceflight.

Whitson and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, members of the 16th crew to live and work aboard the station, safely landed their Soyuz spacecraft in the steppes of Kazakhstan. Spaceflight participant So-yeon Yi also returned to Earth aboard the Soyuz. The landing was approximately 295 miles from the expected landing site, delaying the recovery forces’ arrival to the spacecraft by approximately 45 minutes. [...]

Now the astronauts are OK, but it hasn't yet been determined what went wrong. This next report, from the associated press via Fox News, has some interesting remarks:

Capsule carrying first SKorean astronaut lands off target

MOSCOW — A Russian space capsule carrying South Korea's first astronaut landed in northern Kazakhstan Saturday, 260 miles off its mark, Russian space officials said.

It was the second time in a row _ and the third since 2003 _ that the Soyuz landing went awry.

Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said the condition of the crew _ South Korean bioengineer Yi So-yeon, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko _ was satisfactory, though the three had been subjected to severe G-forces during the re-entry.

The Russian TMA-11 craft touched down at 4:51 a.m. EDT about 260 miles off target, Lyndin said, a highly unusual distance given how precisely engineers plan for such landings. It was also around 20 minutes later than scheduled. Search helicopters then took 25 minutes to locate the capsule and determine the crew was unharmed.

Officials said the craft followed a so-called "ballistic re-entry" _ a very steep trajectory that subjects the crew to extreme physical force. Lyndin said the crew had experienced gravitational forces up to 10 times those on Earth during the descent.

The crew were being examined on site by medical officials, and were later to return to Moscow for further evaluation.

"The most important thing is that the crew is healthy and well," Federal Space Agency chief Anatoly Perminov told reporters. "The landing occurred normally, but according to a back-up plan _ the descent was a ballistic trajectory."

Perminov said engineers would examine the capsule to determine what caused the glitch, though he blamed the Soyuz crew for not informing Mission Control about the unusual descent.

Later, Perminov referred to a naval superstition that having women aboard a ship was bad luck when asked about the presence of two women on the Soyuz.

"You know in Russia, there are certain bad omens about this sort of thing, but thank God that everything worked out successfully," he said. "Of course in the future, we will work somehow to ensure that the number of women will not surpass" the number of men.

Challenged by a reporter, Perminov responded: "This isn't discrimination. I'm just saying that when a majority (of the crew) is female, sometimes certain kinds of unsanctioned behavior or something else occurs, that's what I'm talking about." He did not elaborate. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) I bet someone's going to have some fun with those remarks. It will be interesting to see what the final report says.

Then there is this from a Reuter's reporter at Canada.com:


South Korean astronaut OK after rough landing

[...] the crew had begun leaving the capsule, which carried Yi So-yeon, a 29-year old nanotechnology engineer from Seoul, U.S. commander Peggy Whitson and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko.

A Reuters photographer, who traveled to the landing site in a helicopter with rescue crews, saw plumes of smoke rising from the capsule, which was lying in its side stamped about 30 cm into the ground with its parachute burning.

The photographer said the U.S. astronaut looked pale and was not fit enough to take part in a brief news conference. He said the Korean and the Russian looked fine as they traveled in a helicopter from the site to the Kazakh city of Kustanai.

He said the Korean had been dozing in the helicopter most of the way back to Kustanai but started smiling and made a flower drawing on the wall after she was served tea and had her blood pressure measured.

"Even though it is a very small place you can float back and fourth under each other, over each other," smiling Yi So-yeon told in English of her experiences in zero gravity environment at the International Space Station.

Russian space officials back at mission control in Moscow had waited nervously before confirmation came that all three were safe and their health was satisfactory. [...]

Peggy Whitson is 48 years old. It was her 2nd mission in space, and she had been living in zero gravity since October. It probably made her weaker than Yi So-yeon who is 29, and who had only been up there for a short time. Whitson had said before she returned that she wasn't looking forward to dealing with the gravity; I think she was anticipating it would be difficult for her. Yuri Malenchenko is 46, he had been up there as long as Whitson had. But he's also a Russian Air Force colonel as well as a seasoned cosomonaut, and no doubt very tough. It's a heck of a way to travel, for anyone at any age.

The Soyuz space crafts have been pretty reliable, but they are not reusable. The Americans are building a new capsule spacecraft called Orion, that will replace the space shuttle in 2010, and will be also used for Earth re-entry for Lunar and Mars missions. It will most likely be re-usable, but there is still some debate going on about that.
     

Re-entry Dilemmas; the Orion Capsule and SS2

What is the best way for a spacecraft to safely return to earth? Here is a look at two very different spacecraft, and the decisions they face:

Water vs. Land: NASA Weighs Landing Options for Orion Spacecraft

[...] NASA expects to decide sometime in 2008 whether the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, the agency's space shuttle replacement, will typically splash down off the California coast or touch down on dry land when it returns from space.

Time is of the essence because the choice will determine a number of other design decisions that need to be made between now and a scheduled review in September, NASA officials say.

It is a decision NASA officials have likened to choosing the shape of the space shuttle's wings or the International Space Station's orbit. As might be expected in cases where the long-term consequences of a decision are not always obvious, NASA is not of one mind on the Orion landing question. [...]

There are so many variables to consider. If they choose land landings, they can reuse the capsules 10 or 15 times. If they land in the water, the salt water ruins the capsule - depending how long it's in the water.



But if they land on land, they need airbags, and that adds a lot of extra weight, and they have to eject the heat shield before the airbags can deploy. The extra weight is controversial:

[...] "That's a pretty big amount in terms of the mass challenge that the Orion team was facing last summer," Hanley said. "That 1,500 pounds represents quite a bit of the amount that they were trying to burn down."

No panacea

Land-landing advocates inside NASA argue that the added weight is worth it if it means the difference between using each Orion capsule up to 10 times instead of throwing it away after every mission. By treating Orion as expendable, they argue, NASA could find itself spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually keeping production lines open. That money, they say, would be better spent establishing a robust presence on the moon.

"It's the difference between going to the moon to stay and making one two-week trip a year," one such advocate said.

Gilbrech said the Constellation Program is being asked to assess the long-term cost implications of a water- versus a land-landing scheme. A key factor in the analysis is the cost of maintaining a permanent Orion production capability versus building enough vehicles and spares to last 30 years and then shutting down the assembly lines. [...]

And that's not all. There are so many variables to consider, and it has to be decided soon. Once they decide, they are stuck with it, so lets hope they make the best choice. The designs keep changing too:


I like the idea of a reusable spacecraft, on the face of it you would think it would be cheaper than building new each time, but I suppose a detailed cost analysis will have to be done. What a thing to have to make a quick decision about!


Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic is working on it's own commercial space flight offering, Space Ship Two (SS2). It doesn't have the same re-entry issues, because it doesn't go into full and complete orbit. It's re-entry is more similar to an airplane or the space shuttle.

There is an aspect of SS2's re-entry that is a bit scary. It's the folding wings:

Virgin unveils spaceship designs

[...] When SpaceShipTwo reaches the top of its climb, it "feathers" its wings. This configuration gives the spaceliner stability as it begins to fall back through the upper atmosphere.

[...]

The rocket spaceliner will carry two pilot astronauts and six ticketed passengers. They will fly initially from a new facility called Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert.

The journeys will last about two-and-a-half hours from beginning to end.

Eight individuals will be aboard each flight

Passengers on SS2 will climb to an altitude of 110km, from where they will get to experience weightlessness for a few minutes, and see the curvature of the Earth and the black of space. [...]

That's fine, but when it's time to return, what happens if one of those folding wings gets stuck? Ok, they don't call them folding wings, they call them "pivoting" wings, but it's still moving parts. If something gets jammed, you can't fix it up there.

Just consider that it's "1920's safe":

Virgin Galactic unveils SpaceShipTwo; Plans open architecture spaceship

[...] The configuration is designed to reenter the atmosphere at any angle. “This vehicle is designed to go into the atmosphere in the worst case straight in or upside down and it’ll correct. This is designed to be at least as safe as the early airliners in the 1920s,” said Rutan. Later in the press conference, Rutan was asked to clarify that 1920s comment. He said: “Don’t believe anyone that tells you that the safety will be the same as a modern airliner, which has been around for 70 years.” Rutan also noted that SpaceShipTwo will have to be 100 times more safe than government space travel. [...]

Ida know, I might just wait for the Orion Space Clipper after all...

Or maybe I'll just stick to being an Armchair Astronaut.


Related Link:

NASA goes Back to the Future
     

Rocket Spaceliner now more fact than fiction

Recently in another post, I lamented that it seemed unlikely that I would, in my lifetime, see an elegant spaceship like the Orion Space Clipper featured in the Movie "2001: A Space Odyssey". I imagined that such a vessel or something like it would be a likely next step in the evolution of the Space Shuttle. But no. Instead, NASA has decided to retire the shuttle fleet by 2010, and replace it with it's New Orion Spacecraft, which is based on old Apollo capsule designs. While efficient and practical, it doesn't capture the imagination like the elegant Pan Am Spaceliner from the movie.

But could it be, that such an elegant vessel is not really so far off? In the movie, Pan Am had created the beautiful spaceship. Even back then, they were speculating that perhaps such vessels would not be created by government, but rather by private companies, free enterprise and capitalism.

Pan Am no longer exists, but other companies do. One such company, Virgin Galactic, has plans for a new Rocket Spaceliner that will fly passengers commercially... and sooner rather than later!




Virgin unveils spaceship designs

Virgin Galactic has released the final design of the launch system that will take fare-paying passengers into space.

It is based on the X-Prize-winning SpaceShipOne concept - a rocket ship that is lifted initially by a carrier plane before blasting skywards.

The Virgin system is essentially a refinement, but has been increased in size to take eight people at a time on a sub-orbital trip, starting in 2010.

Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson said the space business had huge potential.

"I think it's very important that we make a genuine commercial success of this project," he told a news conference in New York.

"If we do, I believe we'll unlock a wall of private sector money into both space launch systems and space technology.

"This could rival the scale of investment in the mobile phone and internet technologies after they were unlocked from their military origins and thrown open to the private sector."




The 'experience'

Virgin Galactic has contracted the innovative aerospace designer Burt Rutan to build its spaceliners. The carrier - White Knight Two (WK2) - is said to be very nearly complete and is expected to begin flight-testing later this year.

Both vehicles are being constructed at Mr Rutan's Scaled Composites factory in California.

The rocket spaceliner will carry two pilot astronauts and six ticketed passengers. They will fly initially from a new facility called Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert.

The journeys will last about two-and-a-half hours from beginning to end.

Eight individuals will be aboard each flight

Passengers on SS2 will climb to an altitude of 110km, from where they will get to experience weightless for a few minutes, and see the curvature of the Earth and the black of space.

Seats cost $200,000. Virgin Galactic says more than 200 individuals have booked, and another 85,000 have registered an interest to fly.

Tens of millions of dollars in deposits have already been taken, the company adds.

Satellite potential

Sir Richard said the launch system would also be made available to industrial and research groups.

"The fact that this system will have the capability to launch small payloads and satellites at low cost is hugely important," he told the launch event at the American Museum of Natural History. [...]

Yes, I know, it's sub-orbital, not quite the Orion Space Clipper... at least not yet. But it's a start! It does go high enough to launch payloads into real orbit. That's impressive. And Virgin Galactic is not the only company working on such ships. A whole new industry is developing in this direction. See the full article for more pictures and information.

The future is here! Or at least pretty darn close. ;-)


Related Link:

Virgin Galactic reveals SpaceShipTwo, plans open-source starships
     

NASA goes Back to the Future

I remember when I was a teenager, when the first American Space Shuttle was unveiled. It was kinda fat and chunky looking, but it was still a real spaceship. It was a beginning. I was sure that within my lifetime, we would eventually have spaceships like the elegant Orion Space Clipper that was featured in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey":




Wow. Well, here it is, 2008. NASA is going to retire our clunky space shuttle by 2010, and introduce a newer, next-generation spacecraft to replace it. Coincidentally, it's going to be called "Orion", and will be used to shuttle astronauts to and from the International space station, AND to the moon and back. That's right, we're going back to the moon, and it's scheduled to happen no later than 2020. Then, on to Mars...

Fabulous! Soon we will get to see this new Orion spaceship, which is being built right now. But we don't have to wait until it's finished to see it, NASA has already made the plans public! So here it is, the NEW Orion space shuttle:




But, but... that's an APOLLO space CAPSULE, isn't it? Well, it's a similar design. It's actually 2 and 1/2 times larger than the Apollo version, it can hold up to six astronauts for shuttle missions, and four astronauts for Lunar missions. Here is a picture of the Orion with a lunar module attached:




Looks familiar, doesn't it? I had trouble deciding wether to call this post "Back to the Future" or "Everything old is new again".

So what happened to our beautiful Orion Space Clipper? Why are we going back to designs from 40 years ago? There's two major reasons I can think of: cost, and safety.

These old designs are tried and true. We know they work. Update them with new technology, and they work really well. I also suspect that with new technology, they are cheaper to build than anything else. Here is a picture of the new Orion capsule with it's solar cells and antennae dish deployed:






We are simply building on old technology, using what we know works, and making it better. Click here for more pics of the Orion spacecraft.

The space shuttle aircraft we've used for the past three decades are made from a more bold and ambitious design, but are also more complex and fraught with dangers. Consider the Challenger accident, the shuttle that exploded after launching; the Columbia burning up while returning to earth.

The Challenger crew could not be saved. However, with the new Orion design, the crew can be saved if the rocket explodes on the launch pad, or in the air. The capsule has a rescue rocket on top, to lift it way from danger.

The Columbia crew died when their damaged heat shield failed on reentry. The Orion capsule's heat shield is protected from damage during liftoff, and is a round shape that is easier to build and maintain.

Every time astronauts die, people call for an end to the space program. By going back to old designs and improving them, we are saving both money and lives. It's hard to argue with that. So I may not see this in my lifetime:





But hopefully I will see this:





If we have to sacrifice elegant design for the safety of our astronauts and the efficiency of our space program budget, then so be it. As we learn more we can get fancier; but we need to grow into it at a natural pace. Slow but steady progress with it's attendant successes will get us where we want to go.

The new back-to-the-moon mission is called the Constellation Program. The link goes to NASA's website, where you can find out lots more details about the mission and photos of the various spacecraft being developed. I had lots of fun looking around there. If you are a space fan, be sure and check it out.






It's back to the future... are you ready? I am, let's go!





First, the moon once again. Then look out Mars, here we come...