
NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Splashes Down in Pacific After Test Flight - dnetesn
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/science/nasa-orion-spacecraft-lifts-off-into-orbit.html?ref=science&_r=0
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lisper
The [non-]money quote:

"The next test flight is not expected until 2018 because of limited NASA
budgets, and Orion will not carry astronauts until 2021 at the earliest."

So while I don't want to downplay the technical achievement, it is politics,
not technology, that remains the limiting factor at NASA. :-(

~~~
InclinedPlane
Certainly, but I wouldn't fall into the trap of thinking naively that things
would be better if only NASA had much more money.

Orion is a multi-billion dollar project. SLS (which will eventually be the
launcher for Orion, should they ever plan a full design for a mission that
uses it) is also a multi-billion dollar project. Orion has a budget of about
$1 billion per year, SLS nearly $2 billion. So we're spending a crapton of
money on these projects. But because of they way they are being managed and
run they are hugely expensive compared to the work involved.

Sadly, NASA manned spaceflight is mostly a jobs program now, and has been for
a long time. The unmanned spaceflight part of NASA is still capable of
executing on ambitious projects, the manned part more or less just sort of
stumbles in the general direction of a goal with the hope that a lot of money
will fall out of congress along the way (which it usually does).

~~~
ArtDev
The Iraq war cost $1 billion per DAY.

Imagine if a even small amount of money was shifted from the military to NASA.

I recall when NASA needed to fix the Hubble telescope and the Air Force had
TWO extra space telescopes in storage!

~~~
InclinedPlane
The Air Force had two optical assemblies in storage, that's actually one of
the cheapest parts of the entire system, though a very important part. Even if
we could launch those "space telescopes" for free they'd be useless, they
aren't complete units.

And sure, it'd be nice if we spent more money on space, but that doesn't
excuse the huge problems at NASA et al. There is a gap of perhaps an order of
magnitude in capabilities between what we are doing and what would be possible
if we gave space exploration a higher priority in terms of expenditures. But
there is a gap of perhaps 1 to 2 orders of magnitude in capabilities between
what NASA is doing and what would be possible if NASA manned spaceflight were
run better and smarter.

As an example, the Shuttle program spent around $5 billion a year consistently
for nearly 30 years. In that time the major achievement of all that work was
to put up the ISS. The ISS is nice now that the expense to put it up is just a
sunk cost, but it was in no way worth how much it cost, nor was anything the
Shuttle did worth the cost of the program. Ultimately every Shuttle launch
ended up costing about as much as a Saturn V launch (and that's a Saturn V
launch back at the start of the program, more likely later launches would have
become cheaper due to various economies of scale and process improvements). So
we had 30 years of operating a hugely expensive low Earth orbit spacecraft
instead of 30 years and over 100 launches of a heavy lift rocket capable of
sending payloads beyond Earth orbit. We could have had hundreds of people
living and working in orbit, on the moon, or on Mars by now, but instead we
got the Shuttle and ISS. Some of the fault there comes is due to congress, but
there's no excusing the people at NASA from making and committing to these
decisions.

~~~
Retric
The shuttle was a high fixed cost program, but the variable costs aka what you
saved by scrapping a launch was fairly low. With 2x the budget they could have
done something like 6x times as many launches and each launch could have sent
20-30 people to space. But there is simply little point in sending people to
LEO which is the real issue.

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swatkat
I could relate with the excitement! Indian space agency ISRO is launching its
own crew module prototype[1] aboard a next gen launch vehicle[2] in an
experimental mission. Crew module will perform a controlled re-entry and
splashdown in Indian ocean. ISRO is aiming to be ready with all subsystems and
infrastructure required for human spaceflight by 2020 (Government hasn't yet
approved the human spaceflight program).

[1] [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/To-put-man-in-
space...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/To-put-man-in-space-Isro-
to-test-crew-module-in-December/articleshow/45321894.cms)

[2] [http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sci-
tech...](http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sci-tech-and-
agri/gslv-mark-iii-faces-its-first-experimental-flight/article6660089.ece)

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JeffL
How does this compare to what SpaceX is doing? Does it make sense for NASA to
be doing this in parallel with Dragon?

~~~
mmanfrin
SpaceX is building a shuttle to get people to orbit and back -- Orion is meant
to get people to Mars. I think the scale is different.

~~~
cdash
This is not really true either. Orion can in no way shape or form get anyone
to Mars. Maybe a modified Orion will be used as part of a plan to take humans
to Mars but it is not capable of that on its own.

~~~
mmanfrin
"Orion, which could one day take astronauts to Mars..." [1]

"NASA just tested Orion — a spacecraft that might someday carry people to
Mars" [2]

"NASA and its commercial partners are designing Orion to take astronauts to a
near-Earth asteroid in the 2020s, and to Mars and its moons in the 2030s" [3]

"Orion will facilitate human exploration of the Moon, asteroids, and Mars."
[4]

"This time, the rocket was unnamed, but the craft is designed eventually to
carry humans to Mars" [5]

[1] [http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-
way/2014/12/05/368652770/a-s...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-
way/2014/12/05/368652770/a-succesful-launch-for-nasas-orion-spacecraft)

[2] [http://www.vox.com/2014/12/3/7322909/orion-test-
flight](http://www.vox.com/2014/12/3/7322909/orion-test-flight)

[3] [http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/splashdown-orion-
spaces...](http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/splashdown-orion-spaceship-
aces-first-flight-test-n262146)

[4]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28spacecraft%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28spacecraft%29)

[5] [http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/05/nasa-
launches...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/05/nasa-launches-
orion-spacecraft-in-boost-for-mars-mission)

~~~
danielweber
You are repeating news sources that are repeating press releases.

The Orion has less than 214 square feet of room. This isn't enough for 4
people to live in for 6 months.

NASA says it's for Mars because it gets people excited. But Congress has not
instructed them to do a mission to Mars, and Congress is in charge, for better
or for worse. There is no mission to Mars.

~~~
ceejayoz
I would expect a Mars mission to be coupled to a living space during transit.
Bigelow's inflatable modules might be a good fit, and they're testing one soon
on the ISS.

------
Shivetya
I am both amazed and disappointed at the cost to do one launch of this
machine. How much of that cost is going to occur each launch?

~~~
drzaiusapelord
The SLS is designed for a 500m cost per launch. This was a test flight using
the very expensive Delta IV rocket, not the SLS rocket, currently in
development.

For reference, the Saturn V cost (fixed for 2014 inflation) is 3b per launch.
The Space Shuttle cost 1.5b per flight. So this system is fairly cheap
historically, especially considering how much lifting power the Block II
configuration will provide.

Interesting that we went from 3b to 1.5b from the Saturn V to the STS, half,
but this time are going from 1.5b to 500m, a third.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System)

For those interested, the new Gerard R. Ford class aircraft carrier costs 14b
in R&D and 9b in construction and costs 2.5b a year to run (including other
ships in carrier group). If I'm doing my math right, something like the SLS,
and its lifetime of missions (excluding Mars), is comparable to having another
carrier in the US military. Currently we have ten carriers and two under
construction.

[http://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/carriers/cv-
list.asp](http://www.navy.mil/navydata/ships/carriers/cv-list.asp)

~~~
PythonicAlpha
That are the projections, right? How much security is there, that the real
costs will be quite that number?

The Space Shuttle once also should be much more affordable than it really was
....

Also to compare the Saturn V with one Space Shuttle lift is really not fair at
all ... since the Saturn V could carry much more weight, as much I know as the
Shuttle in one lift (more than 100tons for the Saturn V vs. 24 tons for the
Space Shuttle into a low orbit).

~~~
ridgeguy
It's a bit sad (in terms of lost opportunities to put mass in orbit) to recall
that the Shuttle, empty, weighed about 86 tons. This weight went to orbit
every time whether the mission needed people or not. So the launch to LEO
capability of the Shuttle was actually about 110 tons, on par with the Saturn
V.

------
thret
'While the capsule did not carry any people, some artifacts were on board,
including a sample of lunar soil, part of a dinosaur fossil and a recording of
the Mars movement from Gustav Holst’s “The Planets.”'

Wait, what? Does anyone know why? Is this a tradition of some kind?

~~~
geerlingguy
Some of it, at least, is likely to test the effect of passing through the Van
Allen belts a couple times.

------
issa
I really enjoy all the comments to these types of articles. Obviously, a whole
lot of us are armchair rocket scientists. It's nice that there are clearly a
few actual factual rocket scientists here as well.

Here's to lots more to discuss in the coming years...

------
chriskanan
A related article makes a point about the very low morale from astronauts for
going to an asteroid using Orion and SLS, which is the major first use for
Orion: [http://gizmodo.com/orions-a-triumph-lets-not-waste-
it-166656...](http://gizmodo.com/orions-a-triumph-lets-not-waste-
it-1666564091)

I suspect public opinion about such a quest is just as low for this milestone.

------
amckenna
For those who saw the launch but are looking for a video of the splashdown:

Longer NASA coverage (5:23) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmZAvwznOU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmZAvwznOU)

More concise coverage by the AP (0:54) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCF4dkGqV78](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCF4dkGqV78)

~~~
harshreality
"...there's your new spacecraft, America." (1m15s: [1])

That's ignoring Dragon and Dragon v2, among others. This isn't the 60's or the
80's, when there was only one game in town, and sports-commentator-like
narration propaganda for spaceflight was understandable. Cut the BS narration
please, NASA/ULA (who does the narrator work for?), you're embarrassing
yourselves.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmZAvwznOU#t=1m12s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdmZAvwznOU#t=1m12s)

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Trollerder
This isn't the 60s. What an embarrassing display of technology.

We could have the Space Shuttle 2.0 but we get this rehashed waste of money
instead.

So disappointing.

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wglb
Was very cool to watch the descent and splashdown.

~~~
skywhopper
Agreed. Watching the descent and the parachutes opening was mesmerizing.

~~~
robodale
Watching the little capsule barrel in toward the water before the parachutes
opened - all I could think of was HOLY CRAP POP THOSE CHUTES!

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stumpf
11 parachutes split into 3 separate stages, very cool to watch descend.

~~~
iamcreasy
For me it was the free fall. Without any parachute.

