Nothing demonstrates the extreme inertia of space technology more vividly than the Orion space capsule, which NASA has been working on since 2006 and which, as my colleague Chris Davenport reports, will finally have its first test flight Thursday morning if all goes as planned.

The capsule has cost something like $9 billion so far and will cost billions more before it is ever flown with people inside. Orion will be launched this time atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket, one of the jumbo rockets owned by United Launch Alliance (a Boeing-Lockheed partnership that has a virtual monopoly on national security and military launches). This will be a quick flight, lasting just 4 hours, with a couple of spins around the Earth and a top altitude of 3,600 miles before the capsule splashes down into the Pacific Ocean.

Then, in 2018, Orion will have its first test flight atop NASAs new SLS heavy-lift rocket, which is still being built. The key detail about these first two test flights is that no one will be aboard. Finally, circa 2021 or 2022, Orion will have its maiden flight with human beings inside.

You dont need an advanced degree from MIT to grasp that this is a very stately, deliberate program, one free of the sin of haste and the vice of urgency.

Has there ever been a piece of human space hardware developed so slowly?

Or so expensively?

Serious question: Is it not a fact that Orion is the costliest capsule in human history?

Yes, it has lots of bells and whistles that the Apollo capsules lacked. This one has XM/Sirius radio built in, butt-warmers in the seats, four-way adjustable mirrors and Big-Gulp-sized cup-holders. Its got a guest room, a fully stocked bar, a laundry room and 24-hour concierge service. Its a really nice spaceship!

NASA will launch its newest spacecraft, Orion, into space for the first time Thursday, on a flight that will take it farther than any spacecraft built to carry humans has gone in more than 40 years. (NASA)

The great mystery is where it will go. If you have a big rocket (like the SLS) and this new capsule, where should you go?

See more here:

NASA has a spaceship, but where will it go?