Topic: God speed Atlantis
Truly the end of an era.
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Gotta be honest, I'm hoping the gods don't realize it's up there until after they're safely on the ground
Apparently the Orion program is partially funded for the next year or two, so here's hoping congress gets a fire lit under them about it. I'm all for global cooperation, but hitching a ride with the Russians is a bitter pill.
I thought Orion was now the MPCV, and Constellation was now Space Launch System?
I'm all for global cooperation, but hitching a ride with the Russians is a bitter pill.
The cold war ended a while back you know. And isn't NASA looking pretty seriously into more private companies to continue space exploration? That's the last I heard.
The cold war ended a while back you know.
And it was ol' Ronny that WON it for us!! Thus it should be the russians hitching along, and us with the "UNPOOR" tags leaving them in our dust, obscene gesture flying.
And isn't NASA looking pretty seriously into more private companies to continue space exploration? That's the last I heard.
Which is an interesting proposition if the new players (SpaceX and the other X-prize contestants) are going to get the work, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the MIC companies (i.e. the big military hardware contractors who currently build most of NASA's stuff ) are poised to gobble up that business for themselves again. I say that like it'd be a bad thing, but I guess it might not be the worst if those corporations suddenly shifted their vested interests from gunships to space-gunships.
RedXavier, you're probably right about the formal names, but "Orion" is much more evocative.
Constellation was the name of the combined program of exploration that included going back to the moon and no longer exists. Orion was the particular piece of hardware that would ferry astronauts to and from space and is still being developed. As a comparison:
Constellation = Apollo Program
Orion = Command/Service Module
I don't know what big companies like Boeing and Lockheed are doing, but NASA has already awarded a sizable contract to SpaceX and other new startups. It remains to be seen whether or not they can actually pull it off or not, but it'll be at least five years before they're up and running. Until then, it's Russians all the way.
Until then, it's Russians all the way down.
FIFY
We're AMERICA, god dammit. It is our manifest destiny to be laughing at the rest of the planet from the farthest reaches of space. When precisely did people stop caring about that?
We're AMERICA, god dammit. It is our manifest destiny to be laughing at the rest of the planet from the farthest reaches of space. When precisely did people stop caring about that?
Somewhere around Apollo 13-14 I believe it was.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/ussr-w … rog,21007/
It's official.
<returns to wistfully flicking NASA mission patches into the fireplace>
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