About time. The current shuttle is like a Cuban car: built decades ago and held together with chewing gum, gaffers tape and cleverness.
Here’s the link to Lockheed’s site.
NASA gives $8.1 billion job to Lockheed
NASA has given a contract potentially worth $8.1 billion to Maryland`s Lockheed Martin Corp. to build a new generation of manned spacecraft.
The new spacecraft, called Orion, is to replace the space shuttle and eventually carry astronauts to the moon and maybe Mars, the space agency says.
Like Apollo and earlier spacecraft, Orion is to be perched on top of a rocket.
Lockheed beat a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. for the contract.
Before the announcement, analysts said the deal was the Boeing team`s to lose, The New York Times reported Friday. Lockheed usually builds unmanned rockets and has little experience with human spaceflight. By contrast, Boeing and Northrop built the space shuttles and Apollo vehicles.
The last time NASA awarded a manned spaceship contract to Lockheed was in 1996 for a space plane that was supposed to replace the space shuttle. NASA spent $912 million and plane was not built due to technical problems, the Times said.
Hmmm…
Bush make a major push to go to the moon, NASA sends a huge contract out to Lockheed.
Bush makes a major push to go to Iraq, the military sends a huge contact out to Lockheed.
Coinsiance? (I can’t spell, I blame our public schools)
Jim,
We do know that bidding for government contacts is tightly controled.
Without solid evidence, I see no reason to bash Lockheed. As for that other guy…
Anyone who’s followed the program from the git-go can sit back, now, and affirm what most of us predicted 30 years ago — the Shuttle Program was an overpriced dead end.
Oh, well. It’s just taxpayers’ money.
Wow, almost forty years since the the original Apollo program, with huge advances in computer modeling and simulation, and the best they could come up with is a scaled up Apollo Command Module? For $4 billion?!?!? Give me a break! Is this progress?
The last time NASA awarded a manned spaceship contract to Lockheed was in 1996 for a space plane that was supposed to replace the space shuttle. NASA spent $912 million and plane was not built due to technical problems, the Times said.
Not counting Aurora and other Skunkworks projects, of course.
All you need is a big enough can with a reliable booster. It’s not like it’s going to warp drive. Reusable vehicles are too expensive to maintain. For man rated flight they practically have to tear the vehicles apart for inspection and testing between flights. A single flight puts terrible stress on the shuttles air frame. Sitting in the salt air at Canaveral doesn’t help. Until there’s a leap in technology, a single flight vehicle makes more economic sense. The shuttle design was compromised from the beginning to fill too many rolls.
Wow, almost forty years since the the original Apollo program, with huge advances in computer modeling and simulation, and the best they could come up with is a scaled up Apollo Command Module? For $4 billion?!?!? Give me a break! Is this progress?
You really don’t know anything, do you. The modular “Apollo style” space craft is the most effecient design, as it is modular, aerodynamic and is not suseptable to falling insulation as the side mounted shuttle was. And while it may look like Apollo, the inside and all of its systems will not.
This will be dropped by the next president.
Don’t count on it. Not with the Chinese making the push to the moon. And without the new spacecraft and the shuttle retired, there will be no US man presences in space and I don’t think any president would let that happen.
Uncle Dave “The current shuttle is like a Cuban car: built decades ago and held together with chewing gum, gaffers tape and cleverness.”
Say what you want about the shuttle, but gaffers tape is damn good stuff.
Yah
From Cuban to a 32 Ford, now thats progress. You will have to go to the Mojave Spaceport CA. to see progress
How does this replace the shuttle? What happened to the whole “space truck” thing? How does this get satelites, space station compartments, etc., into orbit?
Seems to replace the Soyuz more than the shuttle.
The “space truck” concept was a boondoggle. The Orion’s lifting platform. the part you don’t see right now, will be charged with the launching of large satellites and space station components. It will be cheaper, and safer than a shuttle flight.
How does this get satelites, space station compartments, etc., into orbit?
Its much cheaper to use the Delta IV to boast satalites and equipment into orbit. There is no need to lift both that and large orbiter, just to deloy it. The space truck was just a catch phrase to help sell the project in the first place.
Let’s get out of Iraq so we can go to the moon. And beyond.
Ever wondered that not any of the other space projects around use reusable vehicles? The ussr made a copy of the space shuttle, but having to think where to spend money instead of just peddling for more funds they dumped it right away…
Reusable vehicles will, maybe, be explored by companies already exploring comercial flight. They will push for faster, but more economical vehicles for long range, and eventually will be experimenting with commercial flight into higher stratosphere. From there to commercial space flight there’s still a big jump. Let’s face it: for commercial space travel we will need something basic: destinations. Be it on the moon, mars or orbiting stations. There’s nothing like the equivalent to Cancun or Bali in space.
The shuttle is too big a weight to be lifting. A ariane deployer can launch a lot of satellites without the extra weight. You’ll only need a reentry vehicle once you take people up. And people means life support and moving space, all luxuries for the satellite business.
I agree the shuttle was a waste of money, but more importantly it was a waste of 30 years of progress. freaking grrr.
I agree the shuttle was a waste of money, but more importantly it was a waste of 30 years of progress.
And just think how many more years they would have wasted if it wasn’t for Columbia. They had planed to use the shuttles alot long then 2009. The shuttle was nothing but a set back to human space travel.
Give Rutan, or someone like him, a few billion dollars, tell him what you want, and when, then leave him alone and let the man work. We’ll have warp drive in a decade, and a transporter beam in twelve.
How can this new system be used to repair satellites? Will it be able to conduct as many experiments as the shuttle? And what about space station maintence?
The story being missed here is that the entire mission of NASA has appeared to shift towards a Moon base and eventual Mars mission from said Moon base… all at the cost of the ISS and the advances we’ve made in other areas.
Guess we can’t have it all.
the shuttle was a huge kludge. the technology for getting people and cargo out of the gravity well should be simple. BDB, big dumb booster:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_%28Rocket%29
Instead, NASA made the insanely complicated STS, threw away baskets full of money maintaining the monster kludge, and setting everything back years.
don’t diss the capsule – all of the US’s (and the USSR’s) space triumphs were accomplished with capsules.
Will it be able to conduct as many experiments as the shuttle?
I thought thats what the ISS was for.
Instead, NASA made the insanely complicated STS, threw away baskets full of money maintaining the monster kludge, and setting everything back years.
It must have been someones pet project. While the idea of a reusable spacecraft seem great, in practice it cost more then deposible systems. How NASA really fucked up was that all this time, there was no real viable replacement in the works. Sure there was the one piece pie wedge single stage craft, that never would have worked, but nothing practical was even considered. If not for Columbia, it would still be so.
22. That was the thing – it just never evidently occurred to them that making a launch system “reusable” would also make it so expensive to operate and maintain that it would make the whole “space truck” idea a joke. I remember when NASA was claiming that shuttle cargo costs would be roughly the equivalent of air freight.