Everyone digs retro stuff. I haven't changed my pants for decades — yeah, they smell, but you just can't find acid-washed bellbottoms like these anymore. NASA is basically doing the same thing with their new Orion rocket missions, which will see the return of Apollo-style rockets and space capsules used to complete missions to the International Space Station and eventually the moon.
Rockets came back into fashion at NASA because they are safer and better-designed than the aging, disaster-prone shuttle fleet, and they have better long-range capability than shuttles. Still, it's more than just a matter of pulling the old Gemini out of the closet and Febrezing away that musty Gus Grissom smell:
"We could have already built up an early lunar outpost, or smaller ones at different places of interest," says NASA's administrator Michael Griffin. "Most of the next 15 years will be spent recreating capabilities we once had, and discarded."
