Moon/mars Lander Contract Won By Lockhead

[Dubh Aingeal]

Lockheed Martin has won a contract to build the Orion crew exploration vehicle that will eventually take humans to the moon and then on to Mars. This vehicle will hopefully also replace the aging space shuttle fleet. According to NASA the vehicle will have manned missions by 2014 and moon missions by no later by 2020.

[Troy Spiral (13)]

Be nice if they actually MAKE this one. Since i was in Jr. High there have been plans to replace the space shuttle and go to mars. They always seem to get scraped or pushed back.

One difference now though is there is a clear overall plan of Space Station -> Moon Base -> Mars which wasn't there before.

This "make it look like the apollo capsule " thing seems somewhat unsound to me. Sure, NASA needs some serious PR boost, and needs something to get people interested in space again. But, making something that "looks like what got the baby boomers excited the first time around" basically for no other real reason than PR is kinda scary.

In my mind the key reason we really need the space program is an escape hatch. Unless god comes and saves us, at some point there is going to be a global-killer type catastorphy and as a race, we need to be off this rock or we wont survive. Thats going to take generations. Chop chop!!