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New NASA promo video about their Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV)
Lockheed Martin is the main contractor, having won the 2006 initial contract of $3.9 billion. Funding has been in doubt ever since the Constellation moon project was canceled a couple years ago.
Orion has been guesstimated at $5 billion, but history shows it'll be considerably more (see JWST etc) and it received $1.2 billion in December 2011. NASA also announced that it will add another $375 million to Lockheed's contract for the purchase of a Delta IV Heavy launcher for an unmanned test flight to try basic systems and the Avcoat heat shield in 2014 (same shield as Apollo)
Do the math: $3.9B + $1.2B + $375M = $5.475 billion - over-budget already and it won't see a crew until ~2020, if then, and it can only fly 3-4 crewmembers.
Anyhow, here's the promo -
Lockheed Martin is the main contractor, having won the 2006 initial contract of $3.9 billion. Funding has been in doubt ever since the Constellation moon project was canceled a couple years ago.
Orion has been guesstimated at $5 billion, but history shows it'll be considerably more (see JWST etc) and it received $1.2 billion in December 2011. NASA also announced that it will add another $375 million to Lockheed's contract for the purchase of a Delta IV Heavy launcher for an unmanned test flight to try basic systems and the Avcoat heat shield in 2014 (same shield as Apollo)
Do the math: $3.9B + $1.2B + $375M = $5.475 billion - over-budget already and it won't see a crew until ~2020, if then, and it can only fly 3-4 crewmembers.
Anyhow, here's the promo -
