Orion Launch Today

[thatdude]

RobGT81 said:

Jebediah would approve of this if he was onboard. He may even go for a cheeky mid burn ETA.

Moar Boosters!!!!

[MartG]

thatdude said:

RobGT81 said:

Jebediah would approve of this if he was onboard. He may even go for a cheeky mid burn ETA.

Moar Boosters!!!!

And struts

[Eric Mc]

Lovely images from the drone over the Pacific.

[Chimune]

ash73 said:

Godspeed Jeb...

Minecraft is getting pretty good now, eh ?

[Eric Mc]

Just passed the 3,000 (statute) miles altitude point.

[Eric Mc]

Isn't that something. The only shame is that there isn't a human being in there looking out.

[MrCarPark]

One thing I didn't realise until today is that just four years from now, we will again be orbiting the moon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_Mission_1

Exciting times.

Edited for cockup.

Edited by MrCarPark on Friday 5th December 15:03

[Eric Mc]

Not on that flight they won't. It's an unmanned test flight.

[marksx]

EM-2 is the planned manned moon flight, in 2021.

[Toaster]

I have to say this is something very positive that will move and is moving space flight forwards and not designed just a joy ride for the rich

[Eric Mc]

Not that old chestnut again.

ALL these programmes are worthwhile.

This is what NASA was established to do. It lost its way with the Shuttle and tried to become a trucking company. Genuine testing of new technologies and exploring new ways of doing things and new places to go is the raison detre of NASA.

[Toaster]

I have to say this is something very positive that will move and is moving space flight forwards and not designed just a joy ride for the rich

[Eric Mc]

Interesting that the peak G loading on re-entry will be 8.2 - which is rather higher than what you would expect for a manned spacecraft. I presume G loadings will be a lot less on a genuine manned mission.

[CrutyRammers]

8.2 Gs on re-entry. That seems pushing it, I guess for a manned flight they'll come in a bit more shallow and take that down a bit? But probably makes sense to stress stuff for testing.

[RobGT81]

Are they trying to get the re-entry temperature upto a higher than expected temperature?

[Catatafish]

Eric Mc said:

Interesting that the peak G loading on re-entry will be 8.2 - which is rather higher than what you would expect for a manned spacecraft. I presume G loadings will be a lot less on a genuine manned mission.

Engineers like to test everything with 20-100% more than what would normally be expected.

[Simpo Two]

Well it did make it to the 1.00pm news today - but only at 1.22pm. I don't think it said how many men (sorry, 'human beings') it was designed to carry, or weight, or thrust, or anything much - only that the tech to get to Mars doesn't exist and the money hadn't been found.

The piece about whether women should play football on artificial grass was covered in much greater detail.

[CrutyRammers]

Dammit Eric

[RizzoTheRat]

Wikipedia reckons 7.19g for Apollo 16 on re-entry. That 8.2g figure is probably only for a few seconds and perfectly ok for a someone led on their back. Aerobatic pilots regularly pull that much.

[Chimune]

RobGT81 said:

Are they trying to get the re-entry temperature upto a higher than expected temperature?

this entry will only be 80% of moon trip re-entry...