Nasa Shows Progress of President's Space Exploration Vision

Music Narrator: On the third anniversary of President Obama's 2010 visit to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where he set his space exploration vision for the future, news media representatives were given an opportunity to see up close the Orion spacecraft that could take astronauts on an asteroid sampling mission as early as 2021. President Obama's fiscal year 2014 budget request for NASA includes funding for an initiative to find, capture and redirect an asteroid, and then send humans to explore and sample it. Orion's subsystems and components built around the country are now coming together in the Operations and Checkout Building. That is where reporters were given a chance to see and hear the progress being made on the spacecraft, and on the Space Launch System rocket and Ground Systems Development and Operations activities that will help send astronauts to new destinations in the solar system. The spacecraft currently is being readied for the uncrewed Exploration Flight Test-1 next year, a mission that will see the vehicle travel farther into space than any human spacecraft has gone in more than 30 years and return at high speeds to test the heat shield's performance. They also heard from some of the key leaders who described NASA's progress toward exploring beyond low-Earth orbit. Robert Cabana, Director, Kennedy Space Center: Today, this is a world-class production facility with a flight article, a flight vehicle, Orion, getting ready to fly next year. We've made tremendous progress in our transition to the future. Dan Dumbacher, Deputy Assoc. Admin. for Exploration Systems Development: We are thrilled with this mission. We're looking forward to it. It will be a challenge, it will be complex. But NASA's up to the challenge and the team you see represented here is ready and willing to take it on. Narrator: NASA's asteroid initiative, which will align on-going activities across the agency, takes advantage of NASA's diverse talents and will build capabilities needed eventually to send humans to Mars. The mission would allow astronauts to examine the object up close and return samples to Earth for further study. During the president's 2010 address at Kennedy, he spoke of the value of NASA's work, which the agency is advancing every day. President Obama: For pennies on the dollar, the space program has fueled jobs and entire industries. For pennies on the dollar, the space program has improved our lives, advanced our society, strengthened our economy, and inspired generations of Americans.