It's finally got a name! Orion baby!!!!!!!

Tha's right all you luddites! Bow down and tremble before it!

Okay, I guess I should explain this one...

You see, we've all been hearing about NASA's new mission to the moon(and beyond) for the last few years (assuming that you watch the news at all) but it's always just been a nameless thing. Well no longer!

Hopefully we'll soon get a really good idea just what the spacecraft should look like when Uncle Sam finally gets around to awarding a contract to someone in order to design and build the fershlugginer things. But at least we do know what the launchers will be called. The CEV (that's Crew Exploration Vehicle to you somnambulists out there) will be launched on top of an Ares I, and the new LM (I haven't heard an official name for it yet but for now the old Lunar Module name should suffice) will be launched by the new Ares V. I'd post pics of these as well but knowing blogger, it'd just get buggered up. If you're curious enough go to space.com and look them up.

Now I know that somewhere out there some pointy-headed idiot will speak up with some sort of inane and undereducated version of the old "We should be spending this money on something more worthy right here on Earth" tripe but let me put that hoary old chestnut to rest right now.

Yes, this project is anticipated to run way into the billions of dollars. A lot of money, to be sure. But that money is going to be spread out over the next 15 to 20 years! Do the math and the cost kinda seems a little less. A lot but definitely less. In fact, given the awesome expense of just running a country like ours, the entire NASA budget(and that's total-- not just the Orion project) comes out to something like less than 1% of your personal tax dollars. That's right, less than 1%! And given that we're talkin' about billions of dollars adding up to just that miniscule amount I've gotta wonder... what accounts for the other 99 point whatever percent! The pointy-headed would most likely take this opportunity to go off on a rant about our military budget but I'd like to keep this on track. I'll take on further pointy-headedness at some as-yet-undetermined time. For now, let's look at the benefits of Project Orion as well as it's admittedly immense cost: R&D on newer, more efficient, higher tech, and (hopefully) cheaper methods of propulsion. A more trustworthy method of reaching orbit than the Space Shuttle ( a system flawed mostly due to it's launch-to-orbit method... thank you U.S. Congress... not the vehicle itself!). A far cheaper means of supplying and maintaining human crews on board the ISS ( if you don't know what that is you might as well just hit the "back" button now and go back to SomethingAwful.com and save yourself the horrible tribulations of having to read anything over one syllable). The amount of research and developement that will go into a program of Orion's scope is sure to yield a crop of offshoot technologies not seen since... well, Apollo! And in case you don't believe that I'd like to ask you just how in the hell you think you are currently reading this rant on your mindbendingly-powerful desktop or laptop personal computer? Just how do you think the microprocessor was brought about? Perhaps you think that John Lennon and his malformed banshee dreamt it all up while having a Love-In for Higher Technology? And let's not forget about the ultimate reason for the project in the first place... going to the moon and Mars!

Okay. I can hear it now: "Why do we have to go back to the moon? We've already been there!"

Sure, we've been there. But who thinks that we know everything about it? I certainly don't. And why is that important? Well in case you slept through Apollo (or weren't around for it, or just think it was all faked in some soundstage out in the Arizona desert) that program pretty-much proved that the moon was once part of the Earth. The more we know about the moon, the more that will help us understand the basic formation of the Earth. The more we understand the Earth... get the point? That should appeal to the treehuggers, at the very least!

Plus let's not forget the fact that as long as we as a species are stuck to this muddy ball of rock and water (however polluted) with no hope of ever getting off of it, the more we stand the chance of getting creamed by a wandering comet or asteroid. We need to stop listening to the "spend all that money on the left-handed, red-breasted snotsnorter's habitat in the Okeefingerme swamp!" crowd and spend some money on figuring out how to get into (and beyond) orbit cheaply and easily. Only then will we be able to really begin to learn how to effectively protect our planet full of squabbling a**holes from being given the ol' Alderaan treatment by an aircraft carrier-sized hunk of iron fresh out of wherever. Whew! I need a breath!

Personally, I think we should give the moon a temporary pass and just go straight to Mars. We'll learn more there and the equipment needed to get there works just as well on the moon as it would on Mars. The reverse, however, is not true due to Mars' stronger gravitational pull than that of the moon. Besides... I'd much rather live under a rusty pink sky with a thin atmosphere than a black one with none. But like Charlie and surfin', Georgie don't listen to me!

Hell, I'd volunteer to move the whole famn damily to Mars right now if it was possible! I mean, sure... I'm no rocket scientist but the boys (and girls, mind you) with the big brains are gonna need someone to lift those heavy boxes, right? And at 1/3rd Earth gravity those boxes aren't gonna be THAT heavy! Sign me up!

In short, if we don't do this soon we stand a pretty good chance of bein' hit by an asteroid or comet and then the whole damn planet is gonna be lucky if we're left with a level of technology that looks somethin' like that Godawful movie "A Knight's Tale" (complete with feces-encrusted mobs singin' stuff like Queen tunes).

In fact, going into space might just turn out to be the ultimate way of preserving that damned left-handed, red-breasted snotsnorter livin' out there in that friggin' Okeefingerme swamp!

-FIN-

(image credit: Space.com and NASA)