Go Orion! Go!

[Calvin19 0]

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/orion-spaceship-goes-long-during-first-test-road-mars-n262146

It's about time NASA. But doing well!

YEAH!!!

-SPACE-

[normiss 620]

Yet we sky jumpers stress over losing one of our canopies.
Sheesh!

What a beautiful mission that was!

[GeorgiaDon 340]

Very excellent! Did you get to watch the launch?

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[pchapman 261]

Yay, American space stuff not blowing up!

Although I realize the lay person doesn't hear about the successes, only the failures.

From looking at a few news reports, most don't follow through on the meaning of the height flown to, or the peak velocity, and so miss the important point that it partially simulates a return from far away and not just a low orbit re-entry.

[lawrocket 3]

I was riveted to the dead NASA TV feed.

But followed it. It was a pretty neat thing.

My thoughts? We should go to the moon again first. It's been over 40 years and we've lost the institutional knowledge of how to do it. And now we have someone else who wants to do it - China. So some inducement is available.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[jakee 1,254]

lawrocket

My thoughts? We should go to the moon again first. It's been over 40 years and we've lost the institutional knowledge of how to do it.

http://xkcd.com/1456/

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[pchapman 261]

If we're doing xkcd then I have to counter with

http://xkcd.com/984/

(And I guess that qualifies for Godwin's law...)

[Calvin19 0]

pchapman

If we're doing xkcd then I have to counter with

http://xkcd.com/984/

(And I guess that qualifies for Godwin's law...)

one of my favorites.

and I -LOVE- the xkcd low-bit drawing of Saturn V in that comic.

but my favorite xkcd is HANDS DOWN (and a shout-out to all the other rocket nerds here ) I have the full-size poster framed on my wall of this one:

http://xkcd.com/1133/

[billvon 2,380]

Will be an interesting competition between Orion and the Dragon. The soft-landing capability of the Dragon is pretty cool, and they have seven flights with it so far.

[Calvin19 0]

billvon

Will be an interesting competition between Orion and the Dragon. The soft-landing capability of the Dragon is pretty cool, and they have seven flights with it so far.

They're the only ones trying to re-use. Until someone else tries and fails, SpaceX is at #1 on the list. Granted, the cost will STILL be very high until the infrastructure is in place to re-use. But damn... Orion did awesome last week. If spaceX can stick this one, it will save 2014 for space flight.

-SPACE-

[lawrocket 3]

billvon

Will be an interesting competition between Orion and the Dragon. The soft-landing capability of the Dragon is pretty cool, and they have seven flights with it so far.

I don't think Orion and Dragon are competing. Orion is to be used for exploration and travel outside of low earth orbit. I don't think anybody is working on a competing airframe.

Dragon is designed to take stuff to the ISS and back. There are competitors with SpaceX to see who gets to do the space truckin'.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[billvon 2,380]

>Orion is to be used for exploration and travel outside of low earth orbit. I don't think
>anybody is working on a competing airframe.

>Dragon is designed to take stuff to the ISS and back. There are competitors with
>SpaceX to see who gets to do the space truckin'.

I think the primary goal for both (ability to launch and land humans) will render them competitive no matter what. Remember that one of Musk's goals is Mars exploration, and the Red Dragon variant of the Dragon is specifically intended to land on Mars (and to be able to transport humans there.)

[lawrocket 3]

Well stated. I, myself, would like to see them kept separate. One size doesn't really fit all. We are learning that again and again.

My wife is hotter than your wife.