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NASA set to test Orion spacecraft (deep space exploration) Thursday

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RoKKeR

Member
http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/30/tech/innovation/nasa-orion-spacecraft-test-flight/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

It looks like a throwback to the Apollo era, but NASA's new spaceship is roomier and designed to go far beyond the moon -- to an asteroid and eventually Mars.

Orion is scheduled to lift off on its first test flight at 7:05 a.m. ET Thursday from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch window will be open for two hours and 39 minutes.

Orion will climb to an altitude of 3,600 miles (15 times higher than the International Space Station) and orbit Earth twice during the four and a half hour test run, NASA says. The spaceship will splash down in the Pacific Ocean about 600 miles off the coast of Baja California. Two U.S. Navy ships, the USS Anchorage and the USNS Salvor, will help NASA recover the capsule.
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Orion_with_ATV_SM.jpg
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For some reason I ended up watching Apollo 13 and Interstellar back to back this weekend and am now all jazzed up about space. Stumbled across this news today that NASA will conduct it's first test launch of the Orion this upcoming Thursday. The test will carry no astronauts and will only be in orbit for 4 hours, but it marks a big stepping stone as NASA preps the SLS (Space Launch System) for future voyages to asteroids and Mars.

After being severely disappointed about the massive NASA budget cuts, this excites me greatly and I hope to see more updates as extended space exploration becomes more of a reality in the coming years.
 
A

AstroNut325

Member
This seems to be getting quite a bit of publicity. That's good and bad. It's only the first test. Chances of things going wrong are higher than normal. But even a single failure will have people hammering congress and the president to close NASA.

I really hope things go smooth.
 
W

WillyFive

Member
This is NASAs replacement for the Space Shuttle, it marks the beginning of a whole new age, an age where we finally have a ship that can go to the Moon, to comets, and to Mars.
 
BizzyBum

BizzyBum

Member
I'd love to be an astronaut when we begin to send people beyond the moon.

Then I looked up the requirements. Yikes. That dream lasted for about a minute.
 
S

Sectorseven

Member
Hasn't even lifted off yet and it already looks like it's been through the ringer.

Why can't they make these things more stylish like in the movies?

I'm just saying, if they want more funding they should give it some sex appeal.
 
D

daveo42

Banned
So we are finally moving back to space. I really hope this program can continue to progress as we need to be able to get humans back into space under our own power instead of needing to hitch a ride with the Russians.

Kevin said:
Let's hope it doesn't...

Kevin-Butler-Mind-Blown.gif
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Come on dude.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Sectorseven said:
Hasn't even lifted off yet and it already looks like it's been through the ringer.

Why can't they make these things more stylish like in the movies?

I'm just saying, if they want more funding they should give it some sex appeal.
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The SpaceX Dragon V2 looks pretty sci-fi-ish -
hR7zIOi.jpg
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But honestly, fuck that low earth orbit weaksauce, the orion is a big boy's spacecraft. About fucking time the US had one of those.
 
D

daveo42

Banned
AniHawk said:
this seems like a very bad plan that could very easily backfire.
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Asteroid mining is the next big thing, though we aren't anywhere near close to being able to pull one into Earth's orbit to begin mining and doing the mining in the asteroid belt would be unsafe and wasteful due to current limitations on interplanetary space travel.

I do say that it would be a lot safer to park these things around the moon and mine from there, but alas, we still have yet to develop a suitable moon base to do that.
 
X

Xe4

Banned
AniHawk said:
this seems like a very bad plan that could very easily backfire.
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Nah. If NASA is anything, it's careful. Plus the size of the asteroid were talking about here would be no bigger than the Chelyabinsk meteor. The positives would include landing on the meteor and mining the thing later. I see no real big downside here.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
daveo42 said:
Asteroid mining is the next big thing, though we aren't anywhere near close to being able to pull one into Earth's orbit to begin mining and doing the mining in the asteroid belt would be unsafe and wasteful due to current limitations on interplanetary space travel.

I do say that it would be a lot safer to park these things around the moon and mine from there, but alas, we still have yet to develop a suitable moon base to do that.
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We totally have the technology to park an asteroid in orbit, and that's exactly the plan, if funded, we can launch it next year.
And by the way, the plan is indeed to put it in a lunar orbit, mainly for safety reasons.

Also, no one is suggesting picking an asteroid from the asteroid belt, there are plenty of near earth asteroids and they're the major candidates for the several mining initiatives people are planning.

Seriously, we have the technology to achieve so much more than what we currently doing, we just lack the funding and will.
 
D

daveo42

Banned
Chichikov said:
We totally have the technology to park an asteroid in orbit, and that's exactly the plan, if funded, we can launch it next year.
And by the way, the plan is indeed to put it in a lunar orbit, mainly for safety reasons.

Also, no one is suggesting picking an asteroid from the asteroid belt, there are plenty of near earth asteroids and they're the major candidates for the several mining initiatives people are planning.

Seriously, we have the technology to achieve so much more than what we currently doing, we just lack the funding and will.
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The issues with a lot of this is not just finding a suitable candidate, but actually being able to capture one. Plus, right now we aren't in much of a position to start actually mining these things yet and this is one of the earlier steps leading to getting a man parked on an asteroid.
 
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Chichikov

Member
daveo42 said:
The issues with a lot of this is not just finding a suitable candidate, but actually being able to capture one. Plus, right now we aren't in much of a position to start actually mining these things yet and this is one of the earlier steps leading to getting a man parked on an asteroid.
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Thanks to the NEO program, there are plenty of suitable candidates.
And while we do probably need some work done before we can do any actual mining (though it's mostly just doing the engineering work, it doesn't require any sort of major scientific breakthrough), as far as I know, we're not missing any technology in order to put an asteroid in a lunar orbit.

For real, if want to put an asteroid in lunar orbit, we can do it, now, and we should.
 
V

Venture

Member
Chichikov said:
The SpaceX Dragon V2 looks pretty sci-fi-ish -


But honestly, fuck that low earth orbit weaksauce, the orion is a big boy's spacecraft. About fucking time the US had one of those.
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Wow. Except for the control panel it looks like something straight out of a 1950's sci-fi movie.
 
S

smokeandmirrors

Banned
Chichikov said:
For real, if want to put an asteroid in lunar orbit, we can do it, now, and we should.
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Agreed. Even if there is no describable benefit we should do it because we fuckin can.

we should capture a bunch of asteroids to put into lunar orbit and tell these private companies "first one to any one or all of them gets to keep the spoils" and watch how fast we get there.
 
N

NetMapel

Guilty White Male Mods Gave Me This Tag
I too, want to witness us landing a man on Mars. Make it happen in my life time, SpaceX, NASA, Bigelow, Boeing... etc etc etc
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Notrollious said:
Agreed. Even if there is no describable benefit we should do it because we fuckin can.

we should capture a bunch of asteroids to put into lunar orbit and tell these private companies "first one to any one or all of them gets to keep the spoils" and watch how fast we get there.
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There are already a bunch of private companies working on that, it's still on the pretty early stages, and as usual, national space agencies will lead the way in terms of science and technology (but that's perfectly fine).
Man, if we luck out on just a single big PGM asteroid...
Too bad we don't really know how to find them.
 
S

smokeandmirrors

Banned
Chichikov said:
There are already a bunch of private companies working on that, it's still on the pretty early stages, and as usual, national space agencies will lead the way in terms of science and technology (but that's perfectly fine).
Man, if we luck out on just a single big PGM asteroid...
Too bad we don't really know how to find them.
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I know but they aren't working fast enough! >=[

I am happy with Space X's output so far. Who else is working?
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Notrollious said:
I know but they aren't working fast enough! >=[

I am happy with Space X's output so far. Who else is working?
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I know that Peter Diamandis (the guy who founded the X PRIZE) has an asteroid mining called Plantery Resrouces, and there are a bunch of other companies, no one seem too far along though.
 
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