Days Before Launch

United Launch Alliance engineers and technicians prepare to lift the Orion spacecraft for stacking atop the Delta IV Heavy rocket Nov. 12 at Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Image Credit: 

NASA/Radislav Sinyak

On November 11th NASA's Orion spacecraft moved to its launch area at Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.  It took one day and reached this area on November 12th and has been preparing for its December 4th launch date since.  In order to get Orion into space it will be connected to the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket.  This rocket will take Orion 3600 miles above the surface of the Earth where the rocket will complete two full orbits of the Earth.  During these orbits the space module will travel through the high radiation zones of space in order to test its critical systems.  No humans will be on board this test flight, so every bit of information collected by the on-board computers will be important for future flights.  Orion will reenter Earth's atmosphere at 20,000 miles per hour and will land safely in the Pacific Ocean.  There the U.S. Navy will retrieve the spacecraft so that it can be reused.  The video below from NASA describes Orion's first flight in more detail.  

From the Stars We Came, So to the Stars We Must Go...

As stated from some of the greatest minds of all time, this video shows the vastness we as humans are apart of and call home.  The ideas stated by Lawrence Krauss, Neil Degrasse Tyson, and Carl Sagan are the reason every person should strive for the stars.  They all pose the question of what humankind can achieve from the stars and the knowledge we can gain.  The Final Frontier Project hopes to make the dream of reaching out towards the planets and stars a reality.  The motivation for this project comes from these men and the idea that mankind and every organism on Earth is part of a much grander home than we currently know.  We are all apart of the infinite universe that is made from the same materials that make us.

Take Off.....

When we look at the universe, Earth and everything that calls it home are but a minute fraction of everything that lies beyond our gravitational field.  Beyond our planet are other planets making up our solar system.  Beyond our solar system are other solar systems which make up galaxies.  Beyond these galaxies are more galaxies making up galaxy groups.  Beyond these galaxy groups there are more galaxy groups which make up super galaxy groups.  Beyond this point science does not yet know.  My senior project is the idea that this vast amount of space that surrounds everyone of us must be explored and the only way to accomplish this task is by building an extended-time spaceship.  What are the features, requirements, and costs of a ship that can travel to where we can no longer see.  This final frontier project will answer these three questions and provide an answer on how to explore the enormous system that we as a whole make up only a fraction.