This journey begins soon with the development of a new spaceship. Building on the best of Apollo and shuttle technology, NASA is creating a 21st century exploration system that will be affordable, reliable, versatile and safe.

The centerpiece of the system is a new spacecraft named Orion that is designed to carry four astronauts to and from the moon, to support up to six crewmembers on future missions to Mars and to deliver crew and supplies to the International Space Station.

Orion will be shaped like an Apollo capsule but will be three times larger, allowing four astronauts to travel to the moon at a time.

Coupled with the new lunar lander, the system sends twice as many astronauts to the surface as Apollo. It also allows them to stay longer, with initial missions lasting four to seven days.

While Apollo was limited to landings along the moon's equator, the new ship carries enough propellant to land anywhere on the moon's surface.

Once a lunar outpost is established, crews could remain on the lunar surface for up to six months. The spacecraft can also operate without a crew in lunar orbit, eliminating the need for one astronaut to stay behind while others explore the surface.

Safe and Reliable

The launch system that will get the crew off the ground builds on powerful, reliable shuttle propulsion elements. Astronauts will launch on a rocket called Ares I, which uses a single five-segment solid rocket booster (a derivative of the space shuttle's solid rocket booster) for the first stage. A liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen J-2X engine derived from the J-2 engine used on Apollo's second stage will power the crew exploration vehicle's second stage. The Ares I can lift more than 55,000 pounds to low Earth orbit.

Ares V, a heavy lift launch vehicle, will use five RS-68 liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen engines mounted below a larger version of the space shuttle's external tank and two five-segment solid propellant rocket boosters for the first stage. The upper stage will use the same J-2X engine as the Ares I. The Ares V can lift more than 286,000 pounds to low Earth orbit and stands approximately 360 feet tall. This versatile system will be used to carry cargo and the components needed to go to the moon and later to Mars into orbit. It may be modified to carry crew as well.

Best of all, these launch systems are 10 times safer than the shuttle because of an escape rocket on top of the capsule that can quickly blast the crew away if launch problems develop. There's also little chance of damage from launch vehicle debris, since the capsule sits on top of the rocket.

The Flight Plan

In just five years, the new ship will begin to ferry crew and supplies to the International Space Station. Plans call for as many as six trips to the outpost a year. In the meantime, robotic missions will lay the groundwork for lunar exploration. In 2018, humans will return to the moon. Here's how a mission might unfold:

• A heavy-lift rocket blasts off, carrying a lunar lander and a "departure stage" needed to leave Earth's orbit.
• The crew launches separately in the smaller Ares system.
• The crew then docks their capsule with the lander and departure stage and heads for the moon.
• Three days later, the crew goes into lunar orbit. The four astronauts climb into the lander, leaving the capsule to wait for them in orbit.
• After landing and exploring the surface for seven days, the crew blasts off in a portion of the lander, docks with the capsule and travels back to Earth.
• After a de-orbit burn, the service module is jettisoned, exposing the heat shield for the first time in the mission.
• The parachutes deploy, the heat shield is dropped and the capsule sets down on dry land.

A Return to the Cosmos

With a minimum of two lunar missions per year, momentum will build quickly toward a permanent outpost. Crews will stay longer and learn to exploit the moon's resources, while landers make one-way trips to deliver cargo. Eventually, the new system could rotate crews to and from a lunar outpost every six months.

Planners are already looking at the lunar south pole as a candidate for an outpost because of concentrations of hydrogen thought to be in the form of water-ice and an abundance of sunlight to provide power.

These plans give NASA a huge head start in getting to Mars. We will already have the heavy-lift system needed to get there, as well as a versatile crew capsule. A lunar outpost just three days away from Earth will give us needed practice of "living off the land" away from our home planet, before making the longer trek to Mars. 

Orion Project Moves Forward

Recently, the Orion Project completed its system requirements review in cooperation with its prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, on March 1."These are important pieces of a management and engineering puzzle that will allow us to accomplish the goal of putting humans back on the moon." The review marked the first major milestone in the Orion engineering process and provided the foundation for design, development, construction and safe operation of the spacecraft that will carry explorers to Earth orbit, to the moon and eventually to Mars. The detailed requirements established in this review will serve as the basis for ongoing design analysis work and systems testing. The new ship can be reused up to 10 times. After the craft parachutes to dry land (with a splashdown as a backup option), NASA can easily recover it, replace the heat shield and launch it again.

The Orion review followed an overall review of requirements for the Constellation Program that was completed in November. Similar reviews are planned later this spring for ground and mission operations systems that will support Constellation launch systems and space flight operations ground infrastructure.

"We have now completed program-wide launch vehicle and human spacecraft system requirements reviews," Constellation program manager Jeff Hanley said. "These are important pieces of a management and engineering puzzle that will allow us to accomplish the goal of putting humans back on the moon."

Once all project-level reviews are complete, the Constellation Program will hold another full review to update baseline requirements. A lunar architecture systems review of equipment associated with surface exploration and science activities on the moon is expected in the spring of 2009.

Before the end of the next decade, NASA astronauts again will explore the surface of the moon. And this time, they will stay, building outposts and paving the way for eventual journeys to Mars and beyond. Echoes of the iconic images of the past will resound, but it won't be your grandfather's moon shot.