The Lockheed Martin bid has won out over the Northrop Grumman / Boeing team. It will allow a crew of six (thus allowing full ISS staffing), lunar missions, and is semi-reusable, in that everything up to the capsule itself may be sent on multiple missions.
The NG/B bid was favored over the course of the evaluation, with the collective talent representing ALL the manned missions from Mercury through to the orbiter. It's rumoured that LM won out because of an edge in versatility (evidence suggests that the NG/B capsule would be rigged for for people with a later expansion, while LM was hardwired for six from the get-go), and that the final integration would be in Florida (thus allowing sideways preservation of a lot of KSC jobs once the shuttle goes offline).
Note the new-style cicular solar arrays, too. Certainly makes for a different-looking ship - this ain't your momma's Apollo!
Mark
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I'm most impressed by the part where they say they're planning for missions that could last up to six months...
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
I think they're describing independent on-orbit time, not necessarily active mission time. The current Soyuz spacecraft are rated to last a full year in orbit - they are replaced at the station every six months for safety reasons. However, neither Soyuz nor the shuttle can last longer than a couple weeks wihout docking to something. Orion may be designed specifically to be left in lunar (or Martian) orbit for many months while the crew tool around on the surface.
Personally, while Orion may have 250% the internal volume of the Apollos, I still wouldn't want to stay in there longer than than a few days without a habitable mission module to strech my legs in.
Mark
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Yeah, definitely true. I forgot that it's still damn tiny.
Dammit, whatever happened to the X-33? I'm still pissed that NASA thinks an all-in-one design is the better way to go. We need to have one vehicle to be a surface-to-orbit shuttle bus (for people, mainly), and a completely different vehicle for long-range missions beyond LEO. Kinda for the same reason that Columbus wouldn't've tried to land the Santa Maria itself, but instead went ashore in a little rowboat. You go with what's practical. It's the very same reason why the space shuttle program ultimately failed to become practical, too.
*sigh*
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
and why British warplanes are second rate. You can make a craft due multiple tasks, but it won't excel at ANY of them.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Habitable volumes:
Apollo: 6.17 m3
Orion: 15.4 m3 (approx)
Shuttle: 71.5 m3
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
NASA's making due with a shit budget cuz no-one cares anymore. The future of space exploration will be in the private sector. That's my belief, anyway.
Posted by Zefram (Member # 1568) on :
quote:...whatever happened to the X-33?
After numerous setbacks, budget overruns, etc., I believe the final nail in the coffin was the failure of the X-33's experimental composite cryogenic fuel tank. They would have had to switch to an aluminum tank which would have been too heavy.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
![[Smile]](smile.gif)