Orion's First Flight

You may have heard of Orion, NASA's new spacecraft that will take astronauts beyond low-earth orbit again. Yesterday's launch was delayed due to wind and some malfunctioning valves, but the flight today was a success.
 
The test flight flew around the earth twice, up to 3,600 miles above earth, and up to 22,000 miles per hour. This is the furthest any capsule designed to transport humans this has flown since the last time man walked on the moon, almost 50 years ago. 

Just how far away is 3,600 miles? We'll in comparison with the distance to the moon it isn't that far...

(C) KBKB

Orion's first flight was 4 hours long. It takes 3 days to get to the moon. Mars is even further way (obviously). Yeah, they didn't top off the fuel tank in those rockets engines for this test run. ATK, a Utah company, is building the heavy lift rocket system for future missions to the moon and beyond!