Transcript for SpaceVidcast Daily 23.09.09

The Orion spacecraft, ah, is America's next manned spacecraft. So, the vehicle is going to be capable of low Earth operations and also capable of going beyond low Earth orbit. This new spacecraft design takes advantage of being able to do both. It's a very flexible design. Orion serves a need for space station. It brings crews back and forth, it brings supplies, some supplies back and forth, some critical things with it. But, the missions to space station serve a big purpose for Orion as well. It's, you don't want to take the new car out on the long-duration road trip the first time out. So from a strictly Orion perspective, we get a lot of benefit from these near-Earth, low-Earth orbit missions to try out the spacecraft. When you go to station, virtually all the functions that we need on lunar for Orion will be exercised. You need power generation, you need thermal control, obviously all the avionics, you need rendezvous and docking, which are critical obviously for a lunar mission where you're sending a module to the surface and having to rejoin with it when it returns. So virtually every system that has to be used for lunar is used during those low Earth orbit missions.