Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I wish to share with the Senate the fact that we are about to do the first flight test of the new NASA human spacecraft, called Orion. As a matter of fact, it was attempted earlier this morning. There was a launch window between 7:05 and 9:44 eastern time. In fact, a combination of some weather concerns plus some questions of valves opening on some of the fuel lines in the rocket and trying to rework those valves ultimately led to the decision to scrub the mission today. The spacecraft looks like a capsule. If we recall the Apollo capsule that took us to the Moon, it carried three astronauts. It was 12 feet in diameter. Orion is 16.5 feet in diameter and is being designed to carry four astronauts. But it is the forerunner to the space systems that will eventually--in 20 years--carry us to the planet Mars. It will be launched today on an existing workhorse. We have two major workhorses in our stable. The Delta--the Delta IV and this, configured with additional boosters, is called the Delta IV Heavy. The other workhorse in the stable getting so many of our payloads into space, including our military satellites, is the Atlas V. Both of them are proven workhorses and have been almost flawless. This particular spacecraft, for its first flight test, is going up on a Delta IV Heavy.…”