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SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

nasa.gov

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Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#351

Post by octygen »

aeturnum wrote: post #205

How wonderful! Congratulations to the entire Space X team, this is a real accomplishment and I'm sure not one that came easily. It's exciting to see relatively small companies fulfilling roles that people thought might require massive military contractors. Elon is an interesting figure. He is, I think, a paradigmatic example of the imperfect creator. His undeniable success in difficult endeavors can create an aura of…

We simply need capable egomaniacs to move society forward via exploration. The type of people that shrug at loss of life and say "That's the cost of exploration. Next?" and then somehow motivate a whole slew of people to dedicate their lives to trying again. Not sure he'd do this if life was lost but he does ask for the type of efforts/sacrifices few are willing to give that most view as unspeakable. I say this knowing people at both SpaceX and Tesla.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#352

Post by tsimionescu »

NortySpock wrote: post #259
tsimionescu wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Crew Dragon is only making money from the government, how would it still be there tomorrow if the government weren't paying? Do you really imagine that there will be a market for this as it stands today? How much training and medical evaluation have the astronauts gone through to ensure they could survive the trip and know how to operate?

I think your parent poster's point was that previously the IP was owned by NASA. The companies contracted to build Apollo or the Space Shuttle was unable to reuse the IP to sell rides to another company or fly private citizens, nor could they bundle and sell the IP. SpaceX owns the Crew Dragon IP and tooling, and they can sell flights to private citizens - in fact I believe they said today that they are contracted wi…

I can't imagine the thought process that feels that the IP being owned by a private company who answers to no one and has no accountability to anyone is 'more sustainable' than it being owned by the public through a non-military organization (NASA)...

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#353

Post by spopejoy »

Reedx wrote: post #128
ChuckMcM wrote: post #86

It is hard to convey how "sustainable" this feels to me. For the first time, humans have gone into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture. All of the NASA missions prior to this have an ambience of "uneconomical but useful". Even the shuttle, which was supposed to be this cost effective space truck, turned out to be not even close. And the last thing I'm feeling is the a…

A new normal has just been defined. Amazing to see. "Thank you for flying with Falcon 9 today", as though it's an airplane.

So many cheeky touches! It's such a different vibe than the NASA launches of old. It's old news but I still was caught off guard by announcers flatly referring to "Of Course I Still Love You"

EDIT this is not a criticism, I really like it. Maybe "cheeky" is the wrong term, I'm bad with Anglicisms

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#354

Post by JshWright »

cma wrote: post #163
rrmm wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX has brought the costs down a lot. Around $500mil for a shuttle launch.

Didn’t shuttle have a larger payload? Up to 8 people and larger cargo. NASA gave a $55million estimate on cost per seat on crew dragon, which would be about $440 million to launch 8 people. Not sure that is factoring in reusability once they are willing to use that for crew missions (or offset price reusing crew boosters on non crewed missions). Another issue with shuttle was reliability though. It may take hundreds…

The cost would not increase linearly for 8 people. Dragon 2 was originally designed for 7, NASA requested it be configured for 4. If they wanted to go to 7, my guess is it would be a pretty marginal increase in cost.

The shuttle didn't have any real abort capabilities (other than very late in the flight, when they were already in space, just not in the correct orbit). It had some crazy schemes for earlier stages of flight, but they were never tested, and no one actually thought they would work.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#355

Post by losvedir »

runarberg wrote: post #269
sandworm101 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture. If we are talking pure commercial travel, it is a vehicle without a destination. The ISS is definitely not a commercial project. There are lots of reasons for the ISS to exist, and they have changed over time, but it has never been a money-making venture. While the dragons certainly do come in under budget, they are a more…

I’m not super well informed on this, but is there any reason for sending humans to space at this moment in time (or for the next 20 years for that matter). The only reason my layperson understanding can think of is mining minerals in space, but I fail to see why robots wouldn’t be able to adequately do the job. In fact wouldn’t sending humans make future space ventures even more costly and put people into unessisary…

Maybe intercontinental travel?

I was watching the launch live stream and at one point, they said, "if they abort in this zone, the crew will land just off the coast of Ireland". That was like 9 minutes after liftoff!

So if I understand that correctly, if you go to space, you can travel from Florida to Ireland in ~20 minutes?

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#356

Post by tenpies »

rkagerer wrote: post #347
haunter wrote: post #60

I'm actually surprised they use a touchscreen interface, and they will use that for the manual docking too! https://i.imgur.com/YKiqIqO.jpg

You can try out the docking maneuvers in this official minigame: https://iss-sim.spacex.com/ Personally I found the lack of analog input control harrying toward the end. A toggle between "large" and "normal" thrust mode is all you get. Normal felt like it wasn't fine-grained enough.

It's the Tesla approach, form > function.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#357

Post by spopejoy »

varjag wrote: post #246
justatestttt wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pulled over on the side of the street to watch this with my kiddo on my phone. It was a historic moment that I didn't want to miss. I really wish that we didn't have to make EVERY experience ultra casual these days though...it was disorienting to keep hearing the astronauts referred to as "Bob and Doug". These are veteran Air Force and Marine pilots. They deserve their honorifics being honored if anyone does.

To be fair they called the president by the last name and honorific, in that brown-nosing speech towards the end of broadcast.

> brown-nosing speech towards the end of broadcast

Was there any truth to the claims made that Trump has been exceptional in space support?

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#358

Post by JshWright »

modeless wrote: post #329

Perhaps of interest to HN, the cockpit displays seen in the videos are HTML pages rendered in Chromium. https://twitter.com/alteredq/status/1266853705632145409?s=19 SpaceX recently released a browser game where you use the real flight UI to dock with the ISS: https://iss-sim.spacex.com/

So you're saying even in space we can't escape Electron?

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#359

Post by caiobegotti »

I have followed all the news about Dragon's development for a while but having just watched the live tour of the internal area of the capsule... that was just crazy. It currently has a 4 seat layout (despite supporting up to 7 IIRC) and one of the guys performed a "backflip" in the free space. It's really ridiculous.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#360

Post by yreg »

modeless wrote: post #329

Perhaps of interest to HN, the cockpit displays seen in the videos are HTML pages rendered in Chromium. https://twitter.com/alteredq/status/1266853705632145409?s=19 SpaceX recently released a browser game where you use the real flight UI to dock with the ISS: https://iss-sim.spacex.com/

Aren't physical buttons that you can feel with your touch safer than touch screens?
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