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SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

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Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#61
post #47
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Navigating the open seas used to be tricky. Settling new land used to be tricky. Have faith. :)

There used to be a time when a single person mastered X% of humanity's technology anf knowledge. Packing up 100 people on some boats meant you could start a viable colony across some seas. Can you still do that today?

Now we can keep X% of the knowledge of humanity on a portable device. That should help.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#62
post #52

> No astronauts or humans were on board the maiden flight, which completed the initial link to the ISS about 5:51 a.m. Eastern time. Is there a difference?

I'm personally also not sure if space tourists would be referred to as "astronauts" (which might only be the crew).

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#63
post #52

> No astronauts or humans were on board the maiden flight, which completed the initial link to the ISS about 5:51 a.m. Eastern time. Is there a difference?

I believe that national origin can make a human a cosmonaut, taikonaut, or spationaut. Are those also astronauts? Not sure.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#65
post #64

Nice that it went flawlessly, the first stage landed back well, and they reached the ISS a bit ahead of time. They even did some intentional back and forth maneuvers to test the dragon. Do they need more tests before the manned flight?

They still need to do an in-flight abort test, which i'm super excited for.

They are going to send the whole thing up a second time (I believe they will be using this EXACT Crew Dragon capsule after it comes back down), but this time they will abort the launch mid-flight around max Q which will trigger the capsule to eject safely away from the explosion behind it.

It's going to be quite the sight, and if everything goes to plan the first stage will basically be blown up and the dragon capsule will rocket away in a "Cool guys don't look at explosions" style!

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#66
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don’t see any benefits to living on Mars until every inch of space on Earth is used up. Everything about living on Mars is hostile to life. Doing anything there like mining and manufacturing will be orders of magnitude more difficult and for what? To say we are somewhere else that looks like the Atacama but infinitely more difficult to get to? It seems silly to be trying to rush to a place that wants to ki…

If we all wait to start anything in Mars when it is too late for our planet, well... humans won’t be around anymore. Think about Mars as redundancy site for the human race.

But our "redundancy site" is awful for human life. Imagine if we just worked on fixing up the place we live on already that has air we can breathe, abundant liquid water, and isn't inundated with deadly radiation. We will need to leave Earth in 5 billion years when the sun goes red giant. 5 billion years is an INCREDIBLE amount of time. Things we do in 2019 will have zero influence on those times. It is much more likely we annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons or global climate change and pollution way before then. In my opinion, it is better to spend money that would be spent on a silly Mars pipedream to put out those fires first.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don’t see any benefits to living on Mars until every inch of space on Earth is used up. Everything about living on Mars is hostile to life. Doing anything there like mining and manufacturing will be orders of magnitude more difficult and for what? To say we are somewhere else that looks like the Atacama but infinitely more difficult to get to? It seems silly to be trying to rush to a place that wants to ki…

Yea, I think a good demonstration is Antarctica. Antarctica is both much more accessible and much more hospitable than Mars. But there's very little human activity there. It's hard to imagine there's an economic case for Mars or the Moon while Antarctica remains undeveloped.

Not necessarily true. The artic and Antarctic destroy structures over time. It's also dark for several months at a time.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soyuz takes people to the space station every few months, has done for years. Why is this specific mission new?

Because in a world lacking traditional religious figures to worship, Elon Musk fits the bill.

Why are "figures to worship" (religious or not - preferably not) needed at all?

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#69
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don’t see any benefits to living on Mars until every inch of space on Earth is used up. Everything about living on Mars is hostile to life. Doing anything there like mining and manufacturing will be orders of magnitude more difficult and for what? To say we are somewhere else that looks like the Atacama but infinitely more difficult to get to? It seems silly to be trying to rush to a place that wants to ki…

If we all wait to start anything in Mars when it is too late for our planet, well... humans won’t be around anymore. Think about Mars as redundancy site for the human race.

What event are you thinking of which will make Earth less hospitable than Mars? Supervolcano? Asteroid?

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#70
post #61
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There used to be a time when a single person mastered X% of humanity's technology anf knowledge. Packing up 100 people on some boats meant you could start a viable colony across some seas. Can you still do that today?

Now we can keep X% of the knowledge of humanity on a portable device. That should help.

Unless that device breaks? What hardware that we have today will still work in 100 years?

Books you can make it happen. Phones are broke within 10. Desktops within 20.

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