Friday, December 14, 2007

Orion/Ares I passes Preliminary Design Review

I've been very leery of the Orion/Ares I stack NASA plans to use to put the next crew into orbit. The eningeers working on it, though, think they have conquered the most improtant problems, and the stack has passed a PDR. This is without settling officially on a landing mode, oddly enough, even though NASA officials have finally stated unequivically that it's going to be a water landing as the primary option.

Also: the Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM), successor to the ingenious LEM of the Apollo days, finally has a name: Altair.

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