I keep on hearing on the news that the new Orion spacecraft that was successfully tested today is going to take us to Mars. Can this be true, this vehicle looks too small to keep a crew alive for months, even if upgraded with a larger service module? Not only that, the heavy lift booster isn’t ready yet, the launch vehicle used today looks totally inadequate to send a manned mission to the planets. Besides, it doesn’t make sense to send your re-entry vehicle; parachutes, heat shield, etc all the way to Mars orbit and back. I suspect this is just another example of journalistic ignorance and hyperbole.

Perhaps what they meant was that this vehicle represents an early test of just one component of a deep space transport system, one that will eventually be used to return crews from deep space missions to earth, but I don’t know. Anybody here who can straighten me out on this? And is there any news on development for other components of the system? I would suspect they probably need a big Saturn-type booster, a second and third stage, a deep space vehicle with power and life-support for months of cruising and maneuvering in Mars orbit, and perhaps even some kind of LEO assembly and maintenance capability.

Has anyone even outlined how this Mars mission is supposed to look, are any of the major subsystems funded and under development? Was the Taurus launch failure a few months ago a setback to the Orion program, or are these totally independent efforts?

It appears all we have now is Apollo on steroids.