credit: Lockheed Martin / caption: leveraging the investment
Go here to find Lockheed Martin's Orion promotional material and three new videos about the alternate missions it is proposing for the crew exploration vehicle and its service module, which have the title "Leveraging the investment in Constellation". The videos are here, here and here.
on August 13, 2009 10:18 AM | Reply
Well, looks like Lockheed is fighting because it's pretty well known that Norman Augustine is recommending this program be canceled in favor of an Elon Musk crew transportation system & Ares IV much later if ever. Orion is really where Skylab II was when Nixon canceled it to fund the great society program.
on August 13, 2009 10:14 PM | Reply
Hi Rob,
Thanks for sharing these fascinating videos! The third one illustrates a concept Jon Goff evangelized a year or two ago - having a "mini-arm" for future space capsules. It's nice to see Lockheed is thinking along the same lines...
Cheers!
Jason
Ref: http://selenianboondocks.com/2006/03/time-for-a-canadarm-mini/
on August 19, 2009 9:41 PM | Reply
Anon old chap, "The Great Society" was a Lyndon Johnson concept which he championed after Kennedy stole his thunder with the Apollo project announcement. Without Johnson's input it's doubtful Apollo would hve happened. But The Great Society led to the death of Apollo and eventually that of Skylab by Nixon; to be replaced by Apollo/Soyuz.
With 10 Billion soggy greenbacks already invested, the US might as well get something out of it. But without a man-rated launcher...in the Smithsonian next to Apollo in a Father and son exhibition: "The Father that did, and The Son that didn't have what it took..."