NASA announces new name, destination for spacecraft designed for scrapped moon mission

HOUSTON - NASA has unveiled a new look and name for its previously planned moon capsule.

The crew capsule named Orion was a cornerstone of former President George W. Bush's plan to return astronauts to the moon. A year ago, President Barack Obama scrapped the moon mission but saved Orion — possibly for an escape pod at the International Space Station.

Tuesday's announcement gives the spacecraft a new name — the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. NASA says the capsule will carry four astronauts on 21-day missions and will be able to land in the Pacific Ocean.

Its destination would be beyond Earth's orbit, perhaps to an asteroid.

Still in development is a giant rocket that would send the capsule away from Earth.

ca.news.yahoo.com...



21 day missions to orbit the Moon?... Can anyone clear this up for me?

Um, doesn't it say that the capsule's destination is unclear at the moment ? It says "perhaps to an asteroid", so... perhaps it's that?

I still don't understand why Barack Obama decided to scrap the future moon missions. Maybe he's aiming for something bigger and better ?

The US space agency revealed plans Tuesday for a new spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to distant destinations and eventually to Mars.

NASA is now planning to use commercial vendors to ferry astronauts to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station (ISS). It will use its own resources to develop the new spacecraft to travel into deep space, first visiting a distant asteroid before travelling to Mars.

Well maybe Mars is in our future. Very interesting!

link

Originally posted by ZikhaN

I still don't understand why Barack Obama decided to scrap the future moon missions. Maybe he's aiming for something bigger and better ?

Of course. Like Billions in aid to Foreign Nations!

Originally posted by CanadianDream420
21 day missions to orbit the Moon?... Can anyone clear this up for me?

It says right in your quote.

Its destination would be beyond Earth's orbit, perhaps to an asteroid.

Basically it will be able to go anywhere within a 21 day limit. So, along with Lunar orbit, it could go to NEO's, L1 and L2. For extended missions it would need an attached spacecraft for more supplies. Probably similar to what you see in the concept artwork that depicts the MPCV over Mars.

One would think one would use a NASA link for the story. OMG this is like really old news, this thing has been in development for way over a decade to supersede the Space Shuttle. Obama nixed it entirely, right up to prototype testing (and after actually). Well, over at least 6 years NASA has been funding private space companies to prove their proposed technologies (and promises). If you want to bash the government for frivolous spending bash them for forcing NASA to give billions to unproven foreign contractors, because the big hitters that helped build NASA have to answer to quarterly stock forecasts now.

As the US space shuttle program heads into retirement, NASA is developing a new spacecraft that will carry humans to the moon or Mars by 2016. Find out how much safer than a shuttle this capsule will be to launch and land.

www.cnn.com...




Just to Orbit Mars, obtaining HD pics, would be amazinggggggggggg