141–150 of 839 posts
I'm glad that the space age has been rekindled. I wish Europe would do something similar.
Thinking of Europe, I have a feeling that it's just surreal that this launch is happening in America at the same time with the events in Minneapolis
Does anyone have a back story on that?
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…
Not to detract one iota from this amazing achievement, but what definition of sustainable are you thinking of? This was still paid for by the government.
The government paid for Apollo. And once they decided they no longer wanted it, it became impossible to use Apollo parts, technology, or any of the engineers or technicians to put people into orbit. The capability "vanished."
If the government never bought another ticket to space, Crew Dragon could be made available to people who want to go into space and are willing to pay for a ticket. So even if NASA got defunded completely tomorrow, the ability to go into space would still be there. Because the market for space, when served in an economic way, is self sustaining.
This has never been true before, and now it is. That is my definition of sustainable.
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…
Not to detract one iota from this amazing achievement, but what definition of sustainable are you thinking of? This was still paid for by the government.
Does anyone know what happens to the 2nd stage engine? Does it stay in orbit or does it eventually fall back to earth/go into space?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do they have to stay seated & buckled the whole 19 hours? Dare I ask how they eat or go to the bathroom on the 19 hour trip?
No, there's room for them to get "up" and take their suits off. Eating is no problem, the food is basically MREs. There is a toilet.
Would you get a reference to M&Ms? I know SpaceShip1 was 16 years ago now. How time flies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would expect Elon to push really hard to send something to Mars in 2022 aboard Starship, even if it's just an empty ship. They need to try navigating with precision and landing. It's a 2 year delay if they miss that window.
They could continue the tradition and drop a Cybertruck to Mars.
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…
Not to detract one iota from this amazing achievement, but what definition of sustainable are you thinking of? This was still paid for by the government.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would expect Elon to push really hard to send something to Mars in 2022 aboard Starship, even if it's just an empty ship. They need to try navigating with precision and landing. It's a 2 year delay if they miss that window.
They could continue the tradition and drop a Cybertruck to Mars.