"Bryon Daly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> asked Couldn't Orion be assembled in orbit to avoid the atmosphere effects? It certainly would be far far more expensive to do that way, but if the atmospheric detonations are the biggest hitch...
Yes, and indeed, in the 1960s, Werner Von Braun and others suggested just that. Saturn rockets would lift the parts to orbit. That proposal died when more senior people at NASA decided that NASA had no mandate for crewed exploration of the solar system, just a mandate to send a few men to the moon. -- Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l