SpaceX is an antidote to the idea that home food delivery is great innovation. It’s a beacon to nerds everywhere. You may not be able to build a space company, but spend at least some of your time and skills doing things that are truly new.
SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight
101–110 of 152 posts
Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vomit-comet ICBM video? I'm a big fan of SpaceX, but I think they'll get to Mars before governments on Earth allow that concept to happen. Your passengers do multiple g's to altitude, then go weightless, then go back to taking g-forces on descent. That's the vomit part. Not a great customer experience. Meanwhile, the Starship looks like an ICBM to every early warning radar on the planet. It's only during reentry…
Let's also not forget about the climate impact of turning rockets into business class travel. It's pretty ridiculous. If we want any change and chance for this planet we should squash initiatives like this in the butt.
Fuel them with Hydrogen/Oxygen produced from electrolysis with solar power.
Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
The big rockets of the past were in very large part designed by NASA. The contractors did have a lot of input, but NASA drew up the detailed specifications and had the final say on every aspect of the design and engineering. Different components often had different manufacturers. For example each of the three stages of the Saturn 5 had a different manufacturer and all three were designed by NASA. The first stage was…
> It really is a completely different paradigm It has been done before; for example the Thor IRBM was a competitive bid between Douglas, Lockheed and NAA. Official specs specified the equipment to be carried but the bidders designed their own airframes and launch facilities.
From Wikipedia: The Rocketdyne division of North American Aviation was awarded the engine contract, AC Spark Plug the primary inertial guidance system, Bell Labs the backup radio guidance system, and General Electric the nose cone/reentry vehicle.
Douglas only won the contract to do the airframe and integration. It looks like a typical arrangement of the era. It’s not as if competitive bids have never been part of this process, they very often have. That’s not the point at all.
Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight
#104This is a better article on the recovery than the one I linked from TechCrunch. I would like to reiterate the point made before which is that SpaceX is on the verge of being in a place that no company has ever been before with regard to space. The are on the cusp of having a capsule that they can send into orbit for days and then return to Earth. They already have rockets capable of putting tons of material into ever…
They are unlikely to do this at this point. The big problem is that while the capsule will be reusable, since NASA killed the propulsive landing for Dragon 2, it now needs to splash down in saltwater and therefore is not considered safe for humans after the first use. This makes Dragon 2:s too expensive for large-scale space tourism. Unless there is suddenly a huge market for this, I think SpaceX would prefer to sell…
> since NASA killed the propulsive landing for Dragon 2
What was the price of that program module for propulsive landing? $2B or the amount of money wasted on the knucklehead category of Ofo bikeshare app business model?
Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight
#105This is a better article on the recovery than the one I linked from TechCrunch. I would like to reiterate the point made before which is that SpaceX is on the verge of being in a place that no company has ever been before with regard to space. The are on the cusp of having a capsule that they can send into orbit for days and then return to Earth. They already have rockets capable of putting tons of material into ever…
They are unlikely to do this at this point. The big problem is that while the capsule will be reusable, since NASA killed the propulsive landing for Dragon 2, it now needs to splash down in saltwater and therefore is not considered safe for humans after the first use. This makes Dragon 2:s too expensive for large-scale space tourism. Unless there is suddenly a huge market for this, I think SpaceX would prefer to sell…
Cannot it be reused because of the splash or because of the salt? What about splash landing in a natural/artificial lake?
Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight
#106SpaceX has single handedly revived the space industry over the past decade. Kudos and Good luck!
Rovers on asteroids, landing on comets, exploring rocks on the edge of the solar system, returning asteroid samples to earth, landing on the far side of the moon, orbiting mercury
But sure, single handedly.
Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight
#107Could anyone explain what is historic about this test flight? Why is that so different from a bog standard Soyuz or Mercury/Gemini/Apollo?
If you read the article you’d probably be able to work it out, but essentially: - it marks the return of American human launch capabilities after a several year hiatus from the retirement of the space shuttle - it is being done on by a private company (with government funding), which is unprecedented - dragon crew is intended to be reusable (in opposition to Shuttle/mercury/Gemini/Apollo - the capsule is designed to…
Small nitpick, but the shuttle was technically reused. It needed some refurbishment, yes, but if that doesn't cut it, it should be mentioned that Dragon 2 is not reused for crewed missions at all (Used capsules will be reused for cargo missions only).
Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight
#108This is a better article on the recovery than the one I linked from TechCrunch. I would like to reiterate the point made before which is that SpaceX is on the verge of being in a place that no company has ever been before with regard to space. The are on the cusp of having a capsule that they can send into orbit for days and then return to Earth. They already have rockets capable of putting tons of material into ever…
> I would like to reiterate the point made before which is that SpaceX is on the verge of being in a place that no company has ever been before with regard to space. Excuse my ignorance, but what have they done that's so revolutionary? We have been putting people into LEO for decades. What's so groundbreaking about this test?
The first time I saw this I found it revolutionary and was amazed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B6oiLNyKKI
Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight
#109SpaceX is an antidote to the idea that home food delivery is great innovation. It’s a beacon to nerds everywhere. You may not be able to build a space company, but spend at least some of your time and skills doing things that are truly new .
SpaceX is an antidote to the idea that home food delivery is great innovation.
Not to mention all those time tracker/scheduler/todo/chat apps hailed as such as well.
Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight
#110This is a better article on the recovery than the one I linked from TechCrunch. I would like to reiterate the point made before which is that SpaceX is on the verge of being in a place that no company has ever been before with regard to space. The are on the cusp of having a capsule that they can send into orbit for days and then return to Earth. They already have rockets capable of putting tons of material into ever…
They are unlikely to do this at this point. The big problem is that while the capsule will be reusable, since NASA killed the propulsive landing for Dragon 2, it now needs to splash down in saltwater and therefore is not considered safe for humans after the first use. This makes Dragon 2:s too expensive for large-scale space tourism. Unless there is suddenly a huge market for this, I think SpaceX would prefer to sell…
At the post-launch press conference [1], Musk was asked a question whether they intend to use the capsule for tourism if there were interested individuals. His answer was affirmative, but not for the very near future. Also, it seemed as if they don't intend to go down that path for the general public, but rather have that capability ready for interested people willin to pay a premium.