Collin R. Skocik

No, not the crazy starship design developed by Freeman Dyson in the 1960s which would detonate nuclear bombs behind a huge shock absorber and propel a spaceship. This is the new Moon ship which will be used by the next generation of lunar astronauts, previoously called "Apollo on steroids". Why NASA would use the name Orion is a mystery to me...NASA has historically been careful about not repeating names. But since the Orion starship was never built and will never be built due to the ban on nuclear weapons in space -- plus the fact that it's a bloody stupid idea -- and probably wouldn't have been a NASA project had it ever been undertaken, perhaps NASA management doesn't see this as a repeat of a name.

Anyway, whatever its name, next week NASA will announce who is going to build the thing. Naturally the contenders are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Grumman. All three are reputable, and it's been too long since the days of Apollo to base any estimate on the past, so I'll trust NASA to make the right choice. Hopefully they've learned their lesson after the Challenger and Columbia disasters and will choose based on qualifications, not bureaucracy or politics. Fortunately in the wake of the Columbia disaster I think they're going to be very careful for a long time to come -- despite the fact that many of the problems that led to the disaster have STILL not been solved.

But at least we're moving along. After twenty years of nothing but low-orbit shuttle missions, we're on the move again, returning to the Moon, and Mars is back on the agenda. At least for now.