NASA's Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle

[Crispy]

4.13.35	T+4:13:35 Entry blackout	16.18
4.13.41	T+4:13:41 Entry blackout	16.18
4.15.03	T+4:15:03 Peak heating	16.20
4.16.05	T+4:16:05 Acquisition of signal	16.21
4.19.31	T+4:19:31 Drogue chute deploy	16.24
4.20.38	T+4:20:38 Main chute deploy	16.25
4.23.20	T+4:23:20 Splashdown!	16.28

 

[2hats]

Live video from the module..

 

[2hats]

Entry interface

 

[2hats]

Chute deployment confirmed. Main chutes out.

 

[2hats]

Splashdown

 

[Limejuice]

Wonderful shots from the drone.

I can't explain why, but when the main chutes deployed, reefed and opened fully I was grinning like a madman.

 

[ferrelhadley]

Congrats #Orion! We're one step closer to bootprints next to these rover tracks. #JourneyToMars

 

[Crispy]

So much bluster about mars. We'll be lucky if humans go beyond LEO in this spacecraft

 

[coley]

So much bluster about mars. We'll be lucky if humans go beyond LEO in this spacecraft

Aye,seems we are back to Apollo times, good to watch but after the shuttle? Seems NASA is going backwards, huge rockets,small payload, it's all been done, I must be missing something.
Though watching the capsule returning attached to huge parachutes brought back many childhood memories

 

[Crispy]

Shuttle was a terrible design. Just as powerful as the Saturn V, but delivered 1/6 of the useful payload to orbit. 30 years wasted.

 

[coley]

Shuttle was a terrible design. Just as powerful as the Saturn V, but delivered 1/6 of the useful payload to orbit. 30 years wasted.

Do you think Skylon and sabre are in with a chance?

 

[Crispy]

Do you think Skylon and sabre are in with a chance?

Truthfully? No not really. Nobody will pay for it. They may well get the engine running, but the full programme will cost billions. Far too risky for speculative financing.

 

[DotCommunist]

This is why I keep saying we need a roughly equiv-level tech alien race to come here and start trying to steal the moon or similar. I bet you them billions would turn up then.

 

[likesfish]

Usaf are intrested in the engine at least so theirs hope

 

[ferrelhadley]

Shuttle was a terrible design. Just as powerful as the Saturn V, but delivered 1/6 of the useful payload to orbit. 30 years wasted.

It was not so much the Shuttle but the never ending stream of unworkable Shuttle replacements that never panned out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_X-33
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VentureStar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_X-30
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Sciences_X-34
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_X-38
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_Program
Not all of them were manned or direct shuttle replacements but it was decades of trying to leap frog into Buck Rogers instead of taking a step back to what worked cheaply.