Orion Parachute Test

[Hans Tucker (Hans)]

I note that the Orion project has successfully completed another milestone...the parachute tests. It looks like they are just reinventing Apollo.

http://lunarscience.nasa.gov/article...s-to-the-test/

[LewisM]

NASA learnt, or should I say the American's are FINALLY learning, what Russia did MANY years ago - you can only re-invent the wheel so many times before it is just another wheel! Go with what works.

The Soyuz system hasn't changed much in 50 years - not broken, why spend billions redesigning something to do the same job??? Shock horror when you see American shoulder patches riding Russian rockets

[Hans Tucker (Hans)]

Whilst the Apollo program was canned in favour of the Shuttle Transport System its a shame that the US is now playing catch up whilst putting so much trust in the private sector to come up with a revamped Apollo. I have been following this development for a while and have been amazed that the development of Apollo program wasn't thoroughly documented or what was documented is on outdated media so the Engineers of Orion are trying to figure how things were done in the 60's. You wouldn't think it would be that hard but obviously the Engineers of the 50's & 60's were onto something.

I included a image of the Apollo capsule recovery to compare to the Orion capsule in the original article.