jonathan amos is watching events. what's happening, jonathan? >> reporter: it's been a very frustrating morning so far. they got very close to launching, just three minutes and 43 seconds away, and then they had a problem with the weather. gusting winds metropolitan they couldn't lift off at that particular time, so they're just waiting and watching now to see if those winds will settle and orion can get off. >> so it could happen then sometime in the next few hours, do you think? >> reporter: they've got a couple of hours in which to play with. one of the keys is that this capsule will come down into the pacific ocean off the coast of mexico, and they need to be sure that the lighting conditions there are fine for divers to go into the water and recover the vehicle. if it gets too dark, that becomes dangerous. so that's one of the key con stra -- constrai constraints. >> we'll return to you when and if it happens. thanks so much. do stay with us here on "gmt." foreign markets. asian debt that recognizes the shift in the global economy. you know

great stuff from jonathan amos at cape canaveral. nathan, if you're still with us, i do have one question for you. when you talk about the timeframe for this, is the money there. the political will may be there, but is the money there to progress this project all the way through to a manned mission to mars, which is going to cost an unbelievable amount of money? >> reporter: i was going to say, stephen, it's the $64,000 question, but it's not thousands of questions, it is billions of dollars. this capsule itself has come out of a program that has spent billions of dollars already. it's difficult to say. it depends what sort of concept is used to go to mars. i was speaking to the program manager todd may here this week, who's looking after the development of this monster rocket that nasa are developing and i asked him how he would go to mars with this huge, huge rocket that he's looking after. and he says it might take nine launches of that rocket to put all of the equipment up into low earth orbit. you build a transfer vehicle to mars

our science correspondent jonathan amos is at the kennedy space center in cape canaveral. e to go, jonathan? >> reporter: we're getting very close indeed now, david. i'm a bit wet and i'm a bit cold because i've just been caught by a shower, but the weather forecast actually for the rocket itself is very good. for the moment. so we wait. and if you've got fingers, cross them. cross your toes as well. it was not possible yesterday for a series of frustrations, but the engineers worked their magic during the night, solving those technical glitches, and so far the weather gods are with us. >> it's all about you, jonathan, isn't it? we're just interested, this is a four and a half-hour mission. what can they satisfy themselves about in a four and a half-hour flight? >> reporter: because it's a brand-new vehicle, not the rocket, but the capsule on the top, if you're looking at the pictures, the orion capsule is tucked inside the white bit at the very top of the rocket. you see a spike on top. that's what they call the launch abort system. in the future, if the rocket was to expe