Official Orion Launch Thread - 12-4-14

[tygoo7]

Great job NASA! I also got to watch it this morning on NASA-TV. I had to go to school after that (I watched some of it more and checked some of NASA's updates on my phone in class). Anyways, that was a really exciting mission! Glad to see it land in one piece.

[Motokid600]

EFT-1 = Engineering Flight Test.

NASA doesn't have an infinitely extensible budget. Neither do their comms with the capsule have infinite bandwidth. The priority will always be on telemetry data. PR is secondary. The views out of the window weren't that valuable in terms of engineering data anyway.

Don't worry though, I'm pretty sure those GoPros were recording HD. When the capsule gets back, they can pop out the SD Cards and upload the clips to YouTube.

I meant for future missions. And not necessarily HD, but just more cameras that the public can pick and choose which ones to view. The more people that watch and get interested in this stuff the better chances of a budget increase to get things moving faster. Also I hope that last statement wasn't sarcasm... Lol because that'd be great.

[Mazon Del]

Oooh! Oooh! I know!

Twitch plays Orion Camera Control!

[Loligoat]

So, yesterday, got up at 5 in the morning to watch a rocket sit on the pad for a few hours.

Today, got up at 5 in the morning again. " 10, 9, 8, 7..." It's happening! " 6, 5, 4 *stream dies*

Oh well, I'm glad to hear the test went well. And all those pictures from orbit were gorgeous! I can't wait to see where the program goes.

[okan170]

With one flight every two years, it's not like the flight rate is going to make it worthwhile to refurbish the capsules.

NASA's desired flight rate is approximately 2 per year. If funding ever happens.

[rodion_herrera]

Spacex certainly has gotten much support through publicity, and you can see the contrast in support for it versus support for less public outreach oriented companies. Its worth trying a bit harder.

Elon knows the power of a good show. A good example is the way they filmed the F9R test with that drone.

One word. Hollywoodesque. That can bring in the money.

[Virtualgenius]

How is it we can go to the moon in 10 years and it takes 42 years for them to launch a new capsule politics and funding have a lot to answer for

[Tommygun]

Well they did play around with the shuttle for 30 of those years and another 10 or so to design and test it.

[Motokid600]

Well I think of it like this.... As-201 was 1966. ... We landed on the moon in 69. So... Yea...

[SciMan]

Actually, EFT-1 was closer to AS-501 aka Apollo 4. Full up unmnanned test, bar the SM being a boilerplate model.

Which actually means good things for your metaphor, if I'm interpreting it right.

[Motokid600]

Oi... It's ashame because this stuff puts people to work and we got kids coming out of college with degrees and flipping burgers. Unfortunately this ventures into the realm of politics which can't be discussed. But at this point that is the only thing that will get NASA more funding. Or a massive shift in public interest. Almost a complete social reform.

[Nibb31]

NASA's desired flight rate is approximately 2 per year. If funding ever happens.

That's for SLS. If we are going to be doing anything interesting, you'll need at least half the launches to be cargo. And I can't see NASA suddenly getting funding for a Mars mission.

[Nibb31]

How is it we can go to the moon in 10 years and it takes 42 years for them to launch a new capsule politics and funding have a lot to answer for

1) Because politicians during Apollo wanted to land a man on the Moon. Today, all they want is jobs for their constituency. They don't care what NASA does with the rockets once their built, which is why they are not funding any missions or payloads for Orion or SLS.

2) Different time, different era. Political pressure. Unlimited budgets and workforce. Less red tape, review boards, and quality control.

[cantab]

Yeah, I can't see Orion flying that many missions. Visiting an asteroid would be cool, but if you drag it into LEO then pretty much anything can do that. Telerobotics on Mars could work really well, but it might struggle to get much popularity, everyone will be like "If we're sending people all that way why don't we land them?" or on the other hand "Why don't we drive the robots from Earth? It worked for Curiosity."

And I've not heard much about serious development on a lander for anywhere.

[Motokid600]

Found probably the best video of the launch on youtube. Let me know if you can top it.

[King Arthur]

And I've not heard much about serious development on a lander for anywhere.

Constellation had a Moon lander to complement Orion, I think it was called Altair. It got axed along with the rest of the Constellation program, with Orion being the sole survivor.

I'm both happy and saddened about the Orion launch. Happy that the launch and mission went as planned with success, saddened that we're paying for a crewed vehicle and an eventual heavy-lifter that we still have no plan what to do with.

[jfull]

Its a cruel, cruel bureaucracy that we have now...

Orion was the common component for many many different mission proposals. Orion got prioritized because it seemed like it was needed, but by the time it was ready, most of the missions we wanted it for have been put on hold.