NASA Names New Spaceship 'Orion' 132
An anonymous reader writes "NASA's new spaceship that will carry astronauts to the moon and later to Mars has been officially named Orion. NASA confirmed the name after it was accidentally leaked to the media. Previously called the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), Orion will be NASA's main human spaceflight vehicle after the space shuttle fleet is retired in 2010. Orion was named after one of the brightest constellations in the entire sky. Earlier this year, the rocket that will launch Orion was named Ares I, and the heavy-lift rocket was named Ares V. NASA hopes the new names will become as familiar as Apollo and Saturn V."
then better be ready (Score:1)
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Cause we know it was GWB that named:
This ain't even fun.
I like the guy less than most, but Jesus-Jumping-on-a-Pogo-Stick-Christ, how in the blazes did you connect GWB with Orion? Are you one the unreasoning crowd that have to find some sort of Bush-evil in everything that happens?
Stargate? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stargate? (Score:5, Informative)
Besides a constelation, Orion is also a well known space project from the 70s which dealt with nuclear propulsion (wiki [wikipedia.org]).
And Orion second generation will be called.... (Score:1)
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Ok. Next time I keep it for myself.
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SCNR...
np: Uusitalo - Uutta Verta Hangella (Tulenkantaja)
The old Project Orion (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stargate? (Score:4, Funny)
you not-quite-kids these days :-)
Besides a constellation, and a well known space project from the 70s, Orion is also where those babe-a-licious green slave girls come from.
Good grief, newbs! (Score:2)
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Maybe they could call it the O'Neill instead?
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Orion VII and VIII were the vessels Commander McLane flew in the 1966 German science fiction series Raumpatrouille.
http://www.orionspace.de/ww/de/pub/english.htm [orionspace.de]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raumpatrouille [wikipedia.org]
Nah, "Masters of Orion" (Score:2)
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Watch for Cmdr McLane!
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After Stargate? Every kid that's ever written a sci-fi story has called the ship 'Orion'.
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Well, lets be honest, ancient technology was built to last. Anything that broke easily isn't around anymore.
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the good thing...at least they didn't name it Prometheus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus) who was condemned to eternal suffering (also the name of the first X303 ship in the Stargate SG-1 universe) or Icarus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus_%28mythology% 29) who's wings melted and he fell to his doom when he got too close to the Sun.
Or even "Titanic" among other doomed ship names.
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"And ready- witted Prometheus he bound with inextricable bonds, cruel chains, and drove a shaft through his middle, and set on him a long- winged eagle, which used t
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_the_Hunter_(ba
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The first thing that came to my mind was an old German TV series: Raumpatrouille Orion [wikipedia.org]. According to the German Wikipedia entry the Orion in Stargate Atlantis is actually a reference to this German TV series.
If I remember correctly they had some interesting stage settings which, among other things, included a flat iron which was part of the command centre and was used to steer the ship.
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NASA Loves Stargate (Score:4, Funny)
http://gateworld.net/omnipedia/ships/links/orion.
Oh look, some straws... I must clutch at them wildly.
Re:NASA Loves Stargate (Score:4, Informative)
Atlantis is assigned the Dadaelus. The Prometheus was Earth's primary defense. The Orion took her place after the Prometheus's destruction.
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Ahhh, If Shepherd had his way, the Orion would have been called The Enterprise (damn you McKay). Same as if O'Neill had his wish, the Prometheus would have been too.
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Actually, now it's me who's confused. The Prometheus replacement is the Odyssey. You and the other poster are correct about the Atlantis Orion.
It's become something of a running gag on
NASA Hates Stargate. (Score:1)
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Translation of a German interview with Peter deLuise [livejournal.com]
The wrong name (Score:5, Interesting)
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"Under Project Orion, NASA would launch crews of four astronauts aboard Orion capsules, first to Earth orbit and the International Space Station and then later to the Moon."
Thus, both the project itself and the vehicles are called Orion.
Further, from the July 20th Space.com article there is this:
NASA intends to use the moniker Orion as both the title for its next generation manned craft, the Crew Exploration V
Its over... (Score:2)
This is a troll response I admit. Seriously, we need to name it something. Orion sounds just fine to me, it has a nice ring to it.
What about the video game series: Masters of Orion. I loved MOO3 for quite a while, despite it's debilitating and stupid AI that made the game unplayable. After a few hundred
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I wonder why they keep going for the Roman and Greek names. It's not like the Babylonians, Aztecs, Indians, Egyptians or Norse were short of gods. And those are just the well known cultures.
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That's because it's game-AI, not simulation-AI.
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Also, don't forget the Master of Orion [wikipedia.org] video game - which has a fitting theme.
Oh, to be able to live on Mars....
Re:The wrong name (Score:5, Funny)
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Defunct (for decades) and superseded by Project Daedalus (UK) and Project Longshot (USN). Plus, since 'Orion' is the name of a constellation (and a mythical figure!) should the people involved with Project Orion have used a different name? Is it unacceptable to re-use names at all?
For that matter, Master of Orion [wikipedia.org] is already well known as a game, having existed for thirteen years as a Microprose publication in the 4X t
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In naval terms, Captains outrank Masters.
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Fix it! (Score:2)
Time to start that grassroots letter-writing campaign! Where's my petition-drafting pen?
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Apparently "Vaporware" was taken (Score:2)
-Eric
pelias comes kinda close (Score:3, Interesting)
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and in other news (Score:2)
Shouldn't it be called Onan (Score:3, Insightful)
Cue Soundtrack (Score:2, Funny)
Some correlation between Masters of Orion and the song Orion being on Master of Puppets?
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I'd think this was more like 'The Thing That Should Not Be' considering other projects NASA could be spending this money on...
With link this time! (Score:2)
Pastor of Muppets!?!? [frizzensparks.com]
I'd think this was more like 'The Thing That Should Not Be' considering other projects NASA could be spending this money on...
Timeframe (Score:3, Insightful)
Apollo timeframe (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, but the fact that it was even that long had to do with Sam Peckinpah and Stanley Kubrick fighting over script details and actors. It took them a while to secure Dykstra for the effects, too.
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The difference is that with the first time around, the government threw TONS of money at it and gave it their full support. I have a feeling that if the Chinese or the North Koreans came out tomorrow and said that they were putting a man on the moon in 5 years, we would see some changes. As it is, with NASA's current budget, I think a man in orbit in 8 years is
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If this were to be done today, it would be like one in five
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Apollo, in it's early years, had a much larger budget.
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It's 'based on' the Apollo system in the same sense that a 2006 Corvette is 'based on' a 1966 Corvette or the latest CPU from Intel is 'based on' the 8086.
Mostly because their is little resemblence between the two models except at the most superficial levels. They are using Apollo specs a
reinventing the wheel, and more... (Score:3, Interesting)
We're dumbing ourselves down to the point that no single person is fully capable of understanding all of the technology that is currently in place. We're just consumers of existing technology and we may add some little bit to existing technology, but we never fully understand all of the current technology well enough to reimplement it.
Here are some examples:
Tak
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I Can't Decide? (Score:1)
Looking forward to seeing the crew of Orion (Score:2, Funny)
Apollo Legacy (Score:5, Informative)
Space Pirates! (Score:1)
Where be the official mission pegleg, matey? Arrrrr!!!!!
RUN run run run run. (Score:5, Funny)
Pant Pant Pant Pant Pant.
SWEAT SWEAT SWEAT SWEAT SWEAT.
(Bursts through door)
"It's called Orion!"
"We Know."
2001, too... (Score:2)
Or maybe that's just what Aurora called the model...
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"Apollo 2.0" would have been right but embarassing (Score:2)
Probably should have been called "Apollo 2.0", but that would have been embarassing.
The names for the boosters, "Aries I" and "Aries V", aren't that great either. There's already been an "Aries I" booster, used for a missile defense test in 1992.
Here's the General Accounting Office analysis of the program [gao.gov]. GAO says it's already in trouble, and it hasn't even really been started yet. That's so NASA.
If you can find a better car, buy it. (Score:1)
The name's [synlube.com] already been worn out, and does not represent anything flashy, visionary, or forward-looking at all.
NASA posted a dupe from a month ago (Score:1)
Apparently some clever folk at collectspace.com with too much spare time started digging around and came up with some internal correspondence or something to that effect stating that the project would be called Orion. Then they kept on digging and found that NASA had registered the name as a trademark when used in aerospace. Remarkably, the
The original Orion spaceship (Score:4, Informative)
The flipside, however, would have been payload and velocities that would otherwise be way beyond human technology -- we're talking manned mission to Pluto without the crew missing Christmas at home.
As usual, Wikipedia has an excellent article [wikipedia.org] on the whole thing...
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I dunno about that [nuclearspace.com]. And this one, while nuclear, is non-polluting!
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As for the nuclear rocket opering only in interplanetary space.... compared to the background radiation from the solar wind, it isn't that bad. There are several designs that have been considered, including one that stil
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Um, yeah, I know, I was just pointing out that other technologies available to humans besides "exploding bombs behind the spacecraft" can lift similar amounts. The one I linked to basically uses a nuclear reaction to heat up hydrogen, which can't be made radioactive, and spewing that out the back. Great for liftoff from Earth.
For operation in space, I think you're referring to this [washington.edu], which has highly radioactive exhaust but a wonderful ISP.
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ROTFLMAO. 'Excellent' only by the standards of (say) a fourth grade book report. It's the Wikipedia's usual mix of poorly organized fact thoroughly mixed with fantasy, fiction, and speculation such that it's impossible to discern the difference.
Did NASA clear the name with IBM first? (Score:1)
The Original Project Orion was a Nuclear Rocket (Score:1)
That's not a spaceship (Score:1, Interesting)
So that's the best that the Constellation Program could come up with?
Guess we're back to "The Right Stuff", where chimps get stuffed into the capsule and blast off into the wild black nothing..!
Just hope them spaceship pilots don't need to take manual control upon reentry and divert to an alternate landing strip.
Oh wait, theres no wings, no rudder, and the only airfoil is a blunt cone...
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And it's a good thing, too. Wings are a really dumb idea for a spaceship - they are heavy during liftoff, hard to cool during reentry, and not big enough when you land. And these "blunt cone" airfoils can have over 100 miles of cross-range, and make pinpoint landings. (Think about it, they have about a 0.3 lift to drag ratio and fall through about 100 miles of atmosphere, trying to burn off the insane speed they have) All of the
Also, this: (Score:1)
'Orion', eh? (Score:1)
So they're going to name it 'Orion'.
Will it have option mounts?
Also, the ability to double its engine output could really come in handy in the event of a booster failure, or when hefting a heavy payload to GTO.
The Ares 1 is likely to become obselete (Score:2)
Supposedly the smaller Ares 1 will lift 25 tons to LEO (Low Earth Orbit). I think it's foolish to ignore that currently the Atlas V Heavy design could do the same for 20 tons of payload. If NASA had slightly scaled down its ambitions, it could use current commercial technology. No real design costs needed for the launch vehicle (unless someone puts teeth in the concept of "man-rating" a vehicle). Fortunately, once the Atlas series or some other rocket grows large enough to handle Orion, NASA will be forced
Bets on Enterprise (Score:1)
In 30 years (or whatever) when somebody builds a ship capable of getting somewhere useful really really fast, it will be called Enterprise.
My basis for this theory is that geeks work at NASA, and geeks watch Star Trek.
It'll happen, mark my words!
The First Shuttle was named... (Score:2)
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/resources/orb
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And besides, yes, name is nice, but could they instead have a short description of major design choices they are considering ? Or why a particular characteristics (mass, size, shape) were settled on ?
Come on, "science" article that talks about a name choice - get a grip !
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Certainly weight is constraint - but it's far from the only one.
I am in fact arguing from what I know something about. The problem is you haven't a clue what *they* are talking about, nor a clue about the issues involved.