It's Official: Rocket Science is Boring

Maybe my kids will be interested to see us put a crew on the Moon, but today's announcement of Lockheed Martin's CEV Orion has got me snoring.

Despite a stalled space shuttle program, NASA is confident it can launch and sustain human exploration of the Moon by 2018, the space agency's top official said Monday.

The $104-billion plan calls for an Apollo-like vehicle to carry crews of up to four astronauts to the Moon for seven-day stays on the lunar surface. The spacecraft, NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), could even carry six-astronaut crews to the International Space Station (ISS) or fly automated resupply shipments as needed, NASA chief Michael Griffin said.

"Think of it as Apollo on steroids," Griffin said as he unveiled the agency's lunar exploration plan during a much-anticipated press conference at its Washington, D.C.-based headquarters. "Unless the U.S. wants to get out of manned spaceflight completely, this is the vehicle we need to be building."

It is indeed Apollo on steroids. It looks exactly like the Apollo down to the legs on the Lunar Module. I'm sorry but I would have expected something cooler looking.