The US is Back in Space!

The this week the United States launched a new rocket called the Orion. This officially gets the United States back into the space business, at least as a government-based industry. There have been private space industry companies such as SpaceX that have been launching rockets and spacecraft since the American program was shut down. But now, we are back with a vengeance!

The Orion capsule will hold four men and and is designed for longer missions than the near-Earth Space Shuttle allowed us to be involved with. The new craft is designed to allow us to send a mission to the asteroid belt, and then further on to Mars. The launch was very spectacular, and it was sad that the regular news media chose not to cover it. In fact, unless you’re a space geek you probably didn’t even know that we were back in the space business again! It’s truly sad that it’s come to this.

I can remember when I was much younger, we followed space and space exploration very closely… there was a lot of public interest, now it has dwindled, and the media, at least, are not interested.

Fortunately, the Internet allows us the opportunity to follow things that no one else seems to care about… so I was excited to see Orion launch and successfully complete its mission, and then splash-down in the ocean. It was the first splash-down since the 70s for America and it went very well!

I trust this will be the first of many successful missions for the Orion spacecraft! Way to go, NASA!