Riding a Wienermobile to the Moon

Okay, not quite, but Oscar Mayer has offered NASA usage of a Wienermobile to transport astronauts up to the Orion rocket from their crew quarters several miles away from the launch pad. Among other potential uses, the Orion rocket will be used for Artemis, or NASA's return to the moon. I don't have much else to say about this, but I kind of want to see the Neil Armstrong of the 21st century walking out of a Wienermobile up to his rocket on his way to the moon. Not exactly profound, but definitely funny.

New Horizons and Orion

On their own, I'm not sure either of these stories are worth a post, so I'll go ahead and combine them.

The New Horizons space probe woke up from a long hibernation this weekend. It's on it's way to Pluto, and will fly by on July 14, 2015. It will be, of course, the first spacecraft to visit Pluto, and the first to obtain any sort of detailed image. Even the most advanced telescopes on Earth or in orbit can barely make out any detail. That's definitely something to look forward to this summer.

In a follow-up to my last post, the Orion spacecraft, NASA's new manned crew capsule, underwent a successful first test launch a couple of days ago. I have to confess, given how many rockets have exploded during launch recently, I was a little worried about Orion. I'm not sure the manned space program could take a setback like that. Orion needs to work, and it needs to work well. At least it's gotten through it's first test just fine.

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Orion Test Launch Coming Soon

The first space flight of the new Orion crew capsule is scheduled for this week. It's about time we got this thing going, we've been without manned space capability for too long. And while the space shuttle was cool and all, we haven't had any sort of capability beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo, and that was 40 years ago. Space flight is no cheaper, we have just as many space stations orbiting the planet, and we are about as close to traveling to other planets now as we were then. Hopefully this doesn't get cancelled, like every other time NASA has tried to move the manned space program along with any kind of ambition. We can only hope. This flight will be unmanned, but if all goes well, astronauts should soon be on their way beyond Earth and out into the solar system.

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Commercial Space Flight is Coming

As of 2011, the United States has no manned space vehicle. The only way we can send astronauts to the International Space Station is by hitching a ride on a Soyuz, and seeing that tensions with Russia are kind of high, this is not a brilliant situation.  NASA is focused right now on Orion and the Space Launch System, a big giant rocket meant to send astronauts past low Earth orbit. However, low Earth orbit operations are obviously not going to stop, and so, NASA has turned to commercial space flight and ships built by private companies.

There won't be just one, SpaceX and Boeing will each build, launch, and maintain their own spacecraft, operating out of Cape Kennedy Space Center. They will be reusable, and meant for travel to and from the ISS. While this won't be happening tomorrow, space flights should commence in 2017. This is fantastic news for manned space flight, getting more and more ships out there will bring the cost of space flight down, and it allows NASA to devote more money and resources into manned flight to the Moon, to asteroids, and to Mars.

NASA's New Rocket Coming Soon

Well, in three and a half years or so.  The Space Launch System is the first really heavy duty rocket we've had since the Saturns, and the SLS will have even more deep space capability.  At over 400 feet tall, the SLS will be able to send astronauts outside Earth's influence altogether, on to nearby asteroids or to Mars.  It's about time we regained the capability to send people beyond the International Space Station.  Sure, the shuttle was interesting, and the ISS is quite an achievement, but they're not very far away.  We've sent probes far afield, Rosetta is now in orbit around a comet, and New Horizons just passed Neptune's orbit, but they don't have quite the same impact that sending astronauts to those places would have.  So yes, this is good news.  A new, ambitious manned space program is a good thing.