Star Ranger4 Wrote:It still come back to my point that it seems like Nasa is resting on its laurels rather than trying to find ways forwards. and THAT I worry about, for the reasons pointed out above.
You didn't point out anything, you just bitched that the Orion design didn't look like a sexy starship. Once again, it's designed like that for a reason. It doesn't have wings or a lifting body because those design elements won't handle direct atmospheric entry from a circumlunar trajectory. The frustum shape will. It's like the Soyuz; Soyuz is neither sleek nor sexy, but it fucking works. And when you're putting some schmuck's ass on the line a quarter-million miles from rescue, it fucking works is what you want.
This shit right here? This is why space advocacy is doomed. For the first time in more'n twenty years NASA is finally doing more than Powerpoint presentations on a resurgence of the manned space program, but since it doesn't look right to the finicky fanboys... Jesus fucking wept.
Quote:I guess the thing that sticks out in my mind largest right now is that the Orion might be all fine and well for local use; by that I mean no further than the moon. But they're also talking about sticking 4-6 people in one and sending it to MARS. Now correct my misassumptions here, but I was under the impression that we're talking a mission duration in MONTHS, maybe even over a year? Stuck in a cone of how many cubic feet?
Your impression is incorrect. The rough outline for a Mars mission has been solid for almost ten years, based off the Mars Semi-Direct mission profile, 2.5 years total mission duration. Orion is used as a crew transfer vehicle, but not as the main mission lander.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
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