Raytheon wins contract to design lunar spaceship

Arizona Republic 09/07/04
author: Romano Cedillos / Tucson Citizen

TUCSON - A group of Arizona engineers will design a spaceship to get Americans to the moon, a first step in an eventual manned mission to Mars.

Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems was awarded a NASA contract Wednesday to study and develop preliminary concepts for human lunar exploration for the Project Constellation Moon-to-Mars program, the company said yesterday.

The NASA contract is worth nearly $1 million, with an option for an additional six-month period for another $1 million.

Work by engineers at the missile plant on Tucson's south side began Thursday, said Sara Hammond, a missile plant spokeswoman.

The Missile Systems engineers are forming a six-month study team to define the various system requirements and come up with a design for the space vehicle and its operating system, Hammond said.

They are working with engineers from two other space-industry companies, SAIC of Houston and SpaceHab Corp. of Webster, Texas.

Project Constellation is NASA's response to President Bush's program to re-establish an American presence on the moon and use it as a launch platform for a Mars mission.

I can't shake the feeling that we have done this before...
Of we go into the bold new frontier, where nobody has gone before, again. I'm all in favor of it mind you, I just don't think it should be taking this long. We were on the moon in the late 1960's. We made a few trips, and haven't been back since. Now it is 2004, and we can't even build a rocket to take us to the moon without redesigning one, since the technical know how from the first attempts is all lost. I wonder if the Chinese will beat us to the moon this time...?