Friday, July 21, 2017

U.S. Space Corps and Orion -- rejected ideas for Moon Day


I had two other ideas for yesterday's post before I decided on Preserving lunar landing sites for National Moon Day, which I instantly found much more appealing once I stumbled across it.  The first one I considered had a strong whiff of "we live in science-fiction times" or, more succinctly, "sci-fi is now."  Newsy reported last week Congress could add outer space military branch.

Congress is proposing a "Space Corps" that would potentially fight in space and protect U.S. assets in orbit.
There is already an U.S. Air Force Space Command, along with Army and Navy space commands and programs.  I don't know if creating a new branch of the Armed Forces that would function inside the Air Force the way the Marines function within the Navy is warranted yet.  It also has powerful opponents within the Defense Department, so I doubt it will become law.  Still, I think this is worth watching.

I rejected the above topic because it had nothing to do with humans landing on the Moon.  I then moved on to something that does, NASA's Orion program, which I last mentioned on this blog on Yuri's Night last year.  CNBC International reported on NASA’s Mars Spaceship 'Orion' two years ago.

In less than 10 years NASA’s "Orion" will take us to places we've previously only dreamed about. Janet Shamlian explores the Spacecraft that may take us back to the Moon, to Mars, and Beyond.
The kinds of things that NASA has been doing with Orion this year, testing the escape rockets and parachutes in case of a launch abort, along with practicing how to exit the command module after it splashes down, are necessary, but not very exciting looking.  On the other hand, a test launch next year looks like exactly the kind of event that I would enjoy blogging about on the next National Moon Day.  I'm looking forward to it already.

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