美国有线新闻 CNN NASA精心打造猎户座飞船 未来将载人赴火星

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0003:20repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser 1 to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. If you think Mars would be a cool place to visit, you are right. Its average temperature is negative 80 degrees Fahrenheit 2. And just like in the movie "The Martian", NASA is trying to see if they can grow potatoes in Mars-like soil. It's also spending about $1 billion a year to develop a spacecraft that could one day take people to the Red Planet.

We took a seat inside.

RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Space has never been more accessible. There is a growing appetite for space tourism. And private programs like this one at the National Aerospace 3 Training and Research Center can get pretty much anyone with money and good health ready for a ride to space.

But that's just a quick trip and down to what's called suborbital space.

If we want to get to deep space, that's a whole other challenge. A human hasn't been there in over 40 years. But NASA is looking to change that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It will stand taller than the Statue of Liberty, longer than a football field.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It will be the most powerful rocket ever built, capable of going into the deep space or anywhere else you want to go.

CRANE: They're talking about space launch system or SLS, NASA's new heavy lift rocket.

ANNOUNCER: The dawn of Orion and a new era of American space exploration —

CRANE: Together with the spacecraft Orion, which will go on top of the rocket, humans could explore our solar system deeper than ever before.

There's only two of us right now in here —

MARK GEYER, NASA DEPUTY DIRECTOR: Yes.

CRANE: — and you're saying the thing could it up to six.

And we got an inside look at what that new spacecraft looks like.

Could we even survive 21 days just the two of us inside of —

GEYER: Yes, it would be a wild, yes.

CRANE: Orion will take up to six astronauts into deep space for 21 days.

Is there any way we can get inside these chairs here, do you think?

GEYER: Yes.

CRANE: How was Orion outfitted 4 to get us to deep space?

GEYER: State of the art heat shields to protect the crew on entry. Parachute systems. A very lightweight system, so Orion is, you know, over 40 percent composites, which means it's light.

One of the things special about Orion is the size. So, four people in 21 days gives you a lot of capability 5 whether it's exploring an asteroid 6 or on the surface of a planet.

CRANE: Why 21 days?

GEYER: Well, 21 days — it gets you really into this high orbits around the moon, which allows you to either do missions at the moon or do transfers on to asteroids 7 around the Mars. So, it's about the right duration.

CRANE: For a journey to Mars, the crew would have to transfer from Orion to a larger habitat.

GEYER: If you're going to go to Mars, which is somewhere up to a year and a half to three-year mission, you need more volume.

CRANE: Right.

GEYER: You need bigger head module 8, more food.

CRANE: Orion still doesn't have an exact destination. But whether it's the moon or Mars, it's going to take a powerful rocket to get it out there.

NASA has already spent approximately $7.3 billion on the SLS program and each rocket will only be good for one mission.

A later model of the rocket will be even more powerful and could take us to Mars.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Space launch system is our path to Mars.

CRANE: Is it our only path?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now, it's our only path.

CRANE: NASA is testing the engines and they've already sent Orion on a flight test. The first manned Orion SLS mission is set for 2021.