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SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight

scientificamerican.com

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Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight

#111

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

ShorsHammer wrote: post #92
ChuckMcM wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume free cash flow would be the reason. Let's assume that you could get $20M per seat on a 7 seat dragon with 2 of those seats going to crew and the other 5 going to paying passengers. You, launch them on a re-usable F9 which you currently charge $80M for a non-reusable booster flight into low orbit. Could you clear 25 - 35 million in margin on that? Could you do that for doing "nothing" special other than…

> 2 of those seats going to crew Why exactly do you need crew taking up nearly 30% of the seats on a vessel that can provably operate without them?

Keep order, etc.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight

#112

Post by TheTruth321 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #4

This 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…

Is obvious, advetirsement is obvious.

This place is a joke.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight

#114

Post by monk_e_boy »

antpls wrote: post #105
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

or something non liquid - plastic balls, foam pit etc.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight

#115

Post by anovikov »

Who knows the actual weights? How much did the capsule weight dry? Consumables ex. fuel and pressurization gas for it? Fuel and pressurization gas? Trunk section? All data i can find is extremely contradictory and makes an impression that project went way way way out of it's initial mass budget and SpaceX is trying to conceal it to avoid losing face, as it exposes troubles managing the project. Ofc it's not a deal breaker, as F9 rocket has grown in capability a great log along the way too, but still?

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight

#117

Post by billfruit »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #7
ChuckMcM wrote: post #4

This 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…

Incidentally why does NASA prefer splashing down in the water, rather than a soft landing in dry land like the Russians do?

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight

#118

Post by jryle70 »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #73
simonh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is in the context of the OP saying SpaceX will soon also own and operate their own launch facility, so that comment was contrasting the situation SpaceX will be in then to other companies. So I’m afraid your comment kind of misses the point.

Last I heard, SpaceX won't be using Boca Chica for Falcon 9/Heavy launches. So they do have their own launch facility, and they do have their own rockets, but they don't currently have any rockets that they can launch from their LF (which isn't ready yet)

Spacex lease LC39 and LC40 at Cape Canaveral. They are exclusively used for Spacex's launches. SpaceX need approval for launches obviously, but they have full control of the cadence and timetable. NASA and US Air Force are just customers (albeit with higher priority).

They don't own the land like they do with Boca Chica, but from the operational perspective they are the same.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight

#119

Post by jryle70 »

computerex wrote: post #77
mitchellgoffpc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s special isn’t so much putting people into LEO, so much as a private company having done it! It’s one thing for a nation-state to send a mission across the Atlantic or to the moon, but it’s a VERY different thing for companies to begin doing those things — developing rockets has always been enormously expensive, and this test (among others) signals that companies are finding ways to do it profitably. If this tr…

I think you are getting ahead of yourselves. For one thing, SpaceX is a launch provider. Whether there is even demand for Mars launches remains to be seen. I think SpaceX itself has said that it can't/won't be funding the Mars launches. And secondly, this was an unmanned test launch to LEO. I think it'd be more prudent to wait till we get reliable manned launches to LEO before dreaming about other planets. It's very…

> I think SpaceX itself has said that it can't/won't be funding the Mars launches.

What they said was they couldn't be funding the whole Mar endeavor. They certainly can and plan to fund Mars launches. They stated their aspirational goal of sending the first unmanned spaceship to Mar in 2022, followed 2 years later with a manned one. They have seemed to pivot a bit to Moon, so I'm not so sure what their current plan is, but a trip to Mar isn't out of their reach financially.

Re: SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight

#120

Post by Symmetry »

billfruit wrote: post #117
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Incidentally why does NASA prefer splashing down in the water, rather than a soft landing in dry land like the Russians do?

The plan had been for landing legs with shock absorbers to come out through the heat shield and NASA saw that, understandably, as too big a risk.
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