NASA Completes Next Public Works Phase

NASA and Lockheed Martin have reached a major milestone with their Orion Capsule, part of the cancelled, inefficient, and wildly over-budget Constellation program.

Wait a second you ask... didn't you just say that it was part of a cancelled program?

Yup.

But this is NASA, which has become more of a public works program for Texas and Florida Senators than a legitimate research and exploration arm. Witness the fact that this damn thing is still being built, for no real reason.

In the vacuum left when no one really stepped up to say why the hell this thing had been saved, just that it had been saved (for 'lets spend money in our home state' reasons more than anything else) NASA started to work on what to use it for. The end result? "the space agency and Lockheed Martin have turned Orion into a sort of multi-purpose space capsule that can serve as an escape pod and ISS resupply shuttle, but also as a potential deep space explorer."

WTF. Operating it as a lifeboat for the ISS is idiotic, because the Soyuz has been doing this just fine for the past 15 years. The Dragon Capsule from SpaceX will fly people to the ISS much more cheaply than this, and the Russians, SpaceX, and the Europeans can all fly supplies to the ISS for less than this would cost. As for "deep space" - what the hell are they talking about? Are they going to fly astronauts to Lagrange points to just hang out, have a good time, and make a cup-o-coffee at L1? This is just idiotic. We have so much to do in space, and we are wasting our time and money on this shit.