PASADENA, Calif. NASA's Orion capsule, which the agency is developing to help get astronauts to Mars and other destinations in deep space, aced its first flight test on Dec. 5, 2014.

During that unmanned mission, known as Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), Orion orbited Earth twice and then came zooming back to our planet to test out the capsule's heat shield and other key technologies.

Space.com's Rod Pyle recently discussed EFT-1 here at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) with Mark Geyer, the space agency's Orion program manager, and Mike Hawes, vice president and Orion program manager for aerospace firm Lockheed Martin, which built the spacecraft for NASA. [See amazing photos from Orion's first test flight]

Space.com: How does it feel to be headed back into deep space after all these years?

Hawes: I kind of choked up at the press conference after the flight. I started [my career] when the Apollo guys were still at JSC [Johnson Space Center] and learned from them, and now I finally felt like we had done this for our generation and for the other generations behind us something we hadn't done for 40 years It's a human spacecraft that's going much farther than we have gone in a long time.

Geyer: We now have the capability to go to those places again, but in different ways. You think about Apollo we only visited the equator of the moon. A very small part, and just the facing side. Orion enables missions to the rest of the moon, to asteroids and eventually to Mars. It's the piece that keeps the crew safe, gets them up and back.

Hawes: Some of the lunar science guys have done a plot where they put all of the Apollo traverses, even with the rovers. It's on the scale of the National Mall in D.C. and we didn't even explore the entire mall, so we have not "been there and done that."

Geyer: Orion opens the moon up, opens asteroids up. It opens [Mars' moons] Phobos [and] Deimos and eventually Mars. And the human element is key. [JPL's] robots are incredible machines. But remember: When we sent a scientist to the moon, at the end, the geologist could adapt very quickly to what he found. This human element will multiply our ability to learn from wherever we go. [NASA's 17 Apollo Moon Missions in Pictures]

Space.com: You learned a lot during and after EFT-1. Can you discuss some of the upcoming changes in Orion's heat-shield design?

Geyer: Yes. Like Apollo, we used Avcoat. The structure itself is like a composite sheet, and on that is a honeycomb. You fill that honeycomb with Avcoat, with a device like a caulking gun. The material has to be a certain consistency and the right temperature, and you cure it in an oven in segments. It must also be bubble-free, and that's part of the curing.

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What NASA Learned from Orion Space Capsule's 1st Test Flight