- Joined
- Jul 26, 2003
- Messages
- 50,801
- Reaction score
- 11,259
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Scottish Borders
- My Satellite Setup
-
TM 5402HD
Sky+ UK.
- My Location
- Scottish Borders
Nasa names new spacecraft 'Orion'
US space agency Nasa has named its new manned exploration craft Orion.
The vehicle is being developed to take human space explorers back to the Moon and potentially then on to Mars.
It is hoped the name Orion could eventually mean as much for manned space exploration as Apollo did in the 1960s and 1970s.
Its first manned flight - to the International Space Station - will take place no later than 2014 and its first flight to the Moon no later than 2020.
"One of the things we get into at Nasa is we run around and call things by technical names and acronyms," project manager Skip Hatfield said. "This allows us to have an identity that we can use."
Orion is named after one of the brightest, most familiar and easily identifiable constellations of stars in the sky.
BBC News - full story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5277736.stm
US space agency Nasa has named its new manned exploration craft Orion.
The vehicle is being developed to take human space explorers back to the Moon and potentially then on to Mars.
It is hoped the name Orion could eventually mean as much for manned space exploration as Apollo did in the 1960s and 1970s.
Its first manned flight - to the International Space Station - will take place no later than 2014 and its first flight to the Moon no later than 2020.
"One of the things we get into at Nasa is we run around and call things by technical names and acronyms," project manager Skip Hatfield said. "This allows us to have an identity that we can use."
Orion is named after one of the brightest, most familiar and easily identifiable constellations of stars in the sky.
BBC News - full story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5277736.stm
