Cited: MSNBC

NASA will have a new space explorer added to its fleet as early as 2014 and so far the project looks to be on schedule. The head of NASA, Charles Bolden, toured the Lockheed-Martin facility where components of the ship are being built, and all indications are that tests conducted on the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle have all come back with stellar results. This is a huge step in putting together the finished product, the Exploration Flight Test 1.

Bolden expressed his satisfaction with the progress to date as well as how impressed he was with the hardware involved in putting together this capsule concept vehicle. The Exploration Flight Test 1 will be replacing the now out of date Constellation program. The new craft is being called the first of its kind insofar as being designed for human exploration of deep-space destinations such as asteroids or the moons of Mars.  The first planned flight for the spacecraft is an unmanned test in 2014 that will take the craft outside of Earth’s atmosphere, orbit the planet two times, and then rocket back home to make sure that its heat shield and other systems are up to snuff.

Many have seen a lack of interest in Washington for the space program, especially in light of the recent recession taking a huge bite out of every budget in its path. And this Orion project is just the kind of big ticket NASA program that lawmakers love to target when playing budget politics with their adversaries in the House of Representatives. However, Bolden says that he isn’t worried about the politics of the budget process and he remains confident that there will be adequate funds available to keep the program moving forward toward its goal of a 2014 launch.

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My take:

This sounds like a really incredible spaceship and should be a source of pride for all Americans. The space program has always been at the forefront of technological advances and this project is sure to be similar in delivering much more than we could ever begin to imagine to the everyday lives of everyone.

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