Source: CVDaily Feed
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One of the observers of the big rocket test at ATK on Tuesday morning was Utah State University instructor Preston Parker. As a member of NASA’s social media program, Parker also got to go behind the scenes to see the preparation that went into the test.

”I don’t know if you would say all of the prep, it takes years of prep. It’s amazing. But the answer is yes, we did go behind-the-scenes to see where they did prep everything.

“In one of the places they had a segment of the booster. It’s a five segment booster rocket that’s going to be taking the Orion spacecraft up in 2018 when it goes up,” Parker said.

The first actual launch is considered a sort of test-run and will be unmanned. But the Orion is a new NASA spacecraft for astronauts and will play an important part in the space agency’s goal to explore deep space.

Parker explains, “Well what they’ve done is taken the best of the entire 50 years of the space program, the best aspects, improved upon them. And this is the actual aircraft, the Orion aircraft will be the one that gets humans to Mars in the next 20 years.”

Parker was a guest on KVNU’s For the People program on Tuesday.