海角大神

If it鈥檚 good enough for a Boeing 787, it鈥檚 gotta be good enough for space, right? NASA鈥檚 Orion spacecraft 鈥� poised for its first uncrewed flight on Thursday (Dec. 4) 鈥� will eventually include a 鈥済lass cockpit鈥� that will make it easier for astronauts to step across the Solar System, based on the.

Why go for glass over switches? The huge benefit is weight (which means less fuel expended to heft the spacecraft), according to the NASA video above.

鈥淥ne big benefit is the weight savings because you don鈥檛 need to have a physical switch,鈥� said astronaut Lee Morin, who was involved in the design, in the video. 鈥淲ith a physical switch, not only is there the weight of the switch, but you also have the weight of the wire to the switch, and you have to have the weight of the circuity that takes that wire and feeds it into the vehicle computers.鈥�

This means that the new spacecraft will sport only 60 physical switches for the astronauts to control (the video did not specify what they would do), which could also be simpler in terms of usability.

The cockpit, however, is not quite ready for prime-time. Although Exploration Test Flight-1 (ETF-1) will have most of the Orion systems included in the crew portion, the glass cockpit will not be among them, according to聽. 鈥淭he only crew module systems that will not fly on this vehicle are the environmental control and life support system; and the crew support systems such as displays, seats and crew-operable hatches,鈥� it reads.

But there will be more testing ahead. Orion is slated to run its next flight in about 2017 or 2018, which could include a more complete spacecraft at that time. Meanwhile, people are already starting to gather for the test flight, which will see the deepest space exploration by a crew capsule since the Apollo era. Orion will roar into space and return for a high-speed re-entry to make sure that heat shield works when NASA sticks people inside.

The goal, eventually, is to bring astronauts all over the solar system 鈥� to an asteroid, the Moon or even Mars. Check out this recent聽. Universe Today鈥檚 Ken Kremer will be on site for the historic day.

聽is the senior writer at Universe Today. She also works for Space.com, Space Exploration Network, the NASA Lunar Science Institute, NASA Astrobiology Magazine and LiveScience, among others. Career highlights include watching three shuttle launches, and going on a two-week simulated Mars expedition in rural Utah. You can follow her on Twitter聽@howellspace聽or contact her at聽.

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