SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#91

Post by johannes1234321 » Sun, Mar 03, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

leesec wrote: post #81

bobl wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand there is still some time before humanity becomes interplanetary in any meaningful way, maybe even many generations. And what is going on so far these days is mostly about not regressing.

Making rockets re-usable is a massive step forward and not about 'not regressing'.

In the past we even had space ships, which could start from ground, go to space, do stuff, come back and the could be reused. Having just a rocket isn't that much of an improvement.

That said: All the constraints on making it reusable and safe for humans are also a key factor why Space Shuttle was so expensive. With SpaceX's rockets not all parts need to resist the stress of reentry etc.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#92

Post by darkerside » Sun, Mar 03, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

bobl wrote: post #80

samcday wrote: post #18

I'm sitting on my couch, just idly watching live footage of some people doing stuff 200 miles above me. Above the place I will spend the entirety of my life. Watching them do complicated things that, if we're lucky and don't destroy ourselves first, will ensure our species becomes multi-planetary. Maybe even space faring someday. Life is weird.

As far as I understand there is still some time before humanity becomes interplanetary in any meaningful way, maybe even many generations. And what is going on so far these days is mostly about not regressing.

For all its faults, and it had a few, Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu helped stretch my perspective to be ok with the fact that space travel could be a multigenerational activity even with a quantum leap in technology.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#93

Post by darkerside » Sun, Mar 03, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #70

jononor wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The technology is not the phone. The phone is essentially the dumb terminal.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#94

Post by bobl » Sun, Mar 03, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

leesec wrote: post #81

bobl wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand there is still some time before humanity becomes interplanetary in any meaningful way, maybe even many generations. And what is going on so far these days is mostly about not regressing.

Making rockets re-usable is a massive step forward and not about 'not regressing'.

I doesn't seem clear at this point whether re-usable will be significant for activities beyond earth orbit. Partly the excitement comes from being a workaround for humanities reluctance to spend money on space exploration. Believe what you want, but from what I can find this doesn't seem to be a significant part of what would e.g. make humanity interplanetary. At least not yet.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#95

Post by simonh » Sun, Mar 03, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

goshx wrote: post #77

isostatic wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

All those plus climate changes, lunatics in power, etc.

Bioterrorism, rogue Nono-tech, rogue AI, hyper-stable authoritarian government.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#96

Post by dwaltrip » Sun, Mar 03, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

simplicio wrote: post #46

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #43

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.

Antartica is not a stepping stone to further and greater endeavors out into the cosmos It's more of a "dead end", cosmically speaking. This is why it doesn't have same interest or appeal.

There are also other reasons. You can't learn about the possibility of life on other planets in Antartica, and seek to answer one of the greatest questions of all time: "are we alone?". You can't closely study another planet in Antartica. You can't be a brave new explorer seeing incredible places for the very first time in Antartica. There are far less new scientific and engineering challenges in Antartica whose solutions will greatly benefit everyone here on Earth. And so on.

Note, these things are true for any next-gen space endeavor in our corner of the solar system. It doesn't have to be Mars, or even just Mars. For example, we could build larger and more advanced facilities and machinery in LEO, while also building a small base on the moon and exploring Mars for the first time.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#97

Post by spookyuser » Sun, Mar 03, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

samcday wrote: post #18

I'm sitting on my couch, just idly watching live footage of some people doing stuff 200 miles above me. Above the place I will spend the entirety of my life. Watching them do complicated things that, if we're lucky and don't destroy ourselves first, will ensure our species becomes multi-planetary. Maybe even space faring someday. Life is weird.

I watched Free Solo not long ago, yesterday I watched Falcon 9 launch then land flawlessly and today I watched Dragon 2 dock with the ISS.

It's mind boggling how apt humans are to what should be impossible.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#98

Post by gpm » Sun, Mar 03, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

dEnigma wrote: post #32

Klathmon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to diminish that feeling, but there was a kind of funny mistake made in the livestream for the Falcon Heavy launch (which was actually attempting to land 3 stages at around the same time, but one of them had an issue and suicided into the ocean as designed). Turns out, both of the video streams for the 2 side rockets were actually of the same rocket! You can go back and watch the corrected footage of both landing…

Haha, no worries, I was aware of that while watching. What impressed me was the footage from the ground based (or helicopter?) camera that showed them landing side by side. Edit: I didn't know that three boosters were supposed to land. That probably would've blown my mind if it had succeeded ^^

> or helicopter?

Probably a quad/octocopter - I know they've used one before for footage.

Third booster was supposed to land on a droneship - it was a near miss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXd5UHFuZVI

It needed to relight three engines, it ran out of igniter before lighting more than one.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#99

Post by samstave » Sun, Mar 03, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

kitsunesoba wrote: post #72

brianwawok wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We’re perfectly capable of building electronics that can run for many tens of years without issue… it’s just that such things don’t get built because that’s not profitable for manufacturers. If an organization like NASA puts in an order for computers or handheld devices specifically designed to not break for long stretches of time, it wouldn’t be a problem to fulfill said order.

This is why I have such little respect for billionaires who leave no long-lasting meaningful impact at all.

Gates/Musk may be the only ones who appear to desire to have a many-generational-positive impact on Humanity.

Every one else are just egos.

Unless I am not aware of some of the greater things that ilk is doing?

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

#100

Post by notatoad » Sun, Mar 03, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #7

Does anyone else find the title confusing? What's a "Crew Dragon"?

"Crew Dragon" is what SpaceX is calling the dragon capsule what can carry people. Whether or not that is confusing is the fault of SpaceX, not the title chosen for this article.