"That's how Orion really separates itself from the commercial field. They're there to get you to station and back. Of course, we're there to be hardened enough to sustain it for that long duration."
For this orbital tryout, a Delta IV rocket will hoist Orion from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Liftoff is scheduled for 7:05 a.m. EST (1205 GMT), just after sunrise. The rocket, with Orion and its launch escape tower at the tiptop, stretches 242 feet (74 meters) high.
Future Orion launches will use the mega rocket still under development by NASA, known as SLS or Space Launch System. The first Orion-SLS launch is targeted for 2018, unmanned, followed by the first piloted mission in 2021.
No one at NASA is pleased with such a slow pace. At best, it will be seven years before astronauts fly Orion -- anywhere. By comparison, it took eight years from the time President John Kennedy announced his intentions of landing a man on the moon -- before John Glenn had even rocketed into orbit -- to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's lunar boot prints in 1969.
