Will The Next Generation of Spacecraft Land In the Water? 318
Reservoir Hill writes "Work is progressing on the design of the new Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the next generation of NASA spacecraft that will take humans to the International Space Station, back to the Moon, and hopefully on to Mars. One major question about the spacecraft has yet to be answered. On returning to Earth, should the CEV land in water or on terra firma? After initial studies, the first assessment by NASA and the contractor for the CEV, Lockheed Martin, was that landing on land was preferred in terms of total life cycle costs for the vehicles. Getting the CEV light enough for the Ares rockets to be able to launch it, and therefore eliminating the 1500 lb airbags for landing has its appeal. A splashdown in water seems to be favored."
I understand NASA is on a short budget... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thought about something like this (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thought about something like this (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Thought about something like this (Score:4, Funny)
Adam [discovery.com]? Is that you?
Re:Thought about something like this (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Landing on a soft target (Score:5, Funny)
"Roger that. Approach the bean bag landing zone from 1 8 niner."
"Copy that Houston."
"You should see the Lava Lamps lighting your approach."
"Thank you Houston, Please prepare the after flight debriefing bong."
"grgrgrle"