Possumblog

Oops.

Astronaut lets slip new moonship name

By MIKE SCHNEIDER
The Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The name of the new vehicle that NASA hopes will take astronauts back to the moon was supposed to be hush-hush until next week.

But apparently U.S. astronaut Jeff Williams, floating 220 miles above Earth at the international space station, didn't get the memo.

Williams let it slip Tuesday that the new vehicle's name is Orion. [...]

'Oops'--not for the astronaut, but to the reporter, who might have, with a bit of research, noted that the name Orion was already a pretty well established unofficial sort of "no comment, but you caught us" name back in July, as noted by Collectspace.com, and then last week by the folks at Space.com, who had a nifty article where you can already see the rilly kewl logo and everything.

Remember, reporters--just because you don't know something, doesn't mean others don't.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at August 22, 2006 01:41 PM