NASA’s dreaming big dreams again: aiming for a manned asteroid mission in the not-so-distant future.
That means big money for California and a boost of solid rocket-booster proportions to the state’s once robust aerospace industry.
After a couple of touch-and-go years with the retirement of the Space Shuttle Program and cancellation of the Constellation Program, NASA is back in the game.
Its new manned capsule and launch system will have astronauts break free of low-Earth orbit and rendezvous with asteroids, even the moons of Mars and the red planet itself.
NASA invests almost $3.5 billion a year in California. From heat shields to thundering rockets and parachutes that bring home astronauts safely, it all adds up to critical jobs.
With the shuttles retired, NASA is now focusing on the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and its Space Launch System.
NBC4’s Lucy Noland and photojournalist Joel Cooke traveled to Houston’s Johnson Space Center, met the hard-working employees of Santa Ana, California’s Airborne Systems and headed out to the Yuma Proving Ground in the Arizona desert to capture this next chapter of manned American space flight.
Watch the exclusive report on the NBC4 News at 5 p.m.
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