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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

#291

Post by hprotagonist »

jp_sc wrote: post #277
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…

- International travel (anywhere in the world in less than two hours) could be one of those things. - Asteroid mining

>in less than two hours

plus or minus 48, depending on the clouds today.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#292

Post by 1915cb1f »

Anyone else feel that some parts were kind of tacky? I tuned in a few hours before the launch, and I happened to watch the astronauts get loaded into a branded Tesla car, and the announcers were gushing about how cool the side doors were. I couldn't shake the feeling that half the stream was just marketing for marketing for Elon's companies.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#293

Post by _0w8t »

runawaybottle wrote: post #239
sneak wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand it runs Chromium code and that the UI is written in Javascript. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/9243/what-computer...

Wait wait, you’re telling me there’s Javascript floating around in space (not including web traffic being sent through satellites)?

I am skeptical about UI. How do they implement that triple redundancy as a protection against radiation damage?

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#294

Post by blackrock »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #238
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…

Most people are floating the idea that eventually we would either have commercial companies adding a "space hotel" to the ISS for testing purposes and when the ISS is retired that the hotel would continue to exist. Once you have companies either vying for real estate in orbit the demand for people to visit the hotel could eventually spur demand for other places to go.

SpaceX should build space modules next, after they finish Starship. And interconnect them to make a ring. Then spin the ring to generate artificial gravity. And leave a center pod for zero-g activities.

Now that would make a fantastic space hotel.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#295

Post by TeMPOraL »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #213
Gwypaas wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, shakes the whole rig causing the satellite dishes to not transmit most of the times. Last time they missed we got a perfectly streamed cloud from the booster crashing in the ocean instead. Also such a low priority, spend engineering hours on the perfect feed which they either way collect in a couple of hours or more pressing matters.

Well, they likely could stream from another ship, bit affected by shaking. And I think it should not be a 'low' priority task, given how big this is for marketing and PR. Literally millions of people are watching these livestreams. I bet if they placed some Disney/HBO logo on a landing pad, it would more than earn back the additional expenses.

> I bet if they placed some Disney/HBO logo on a landing pad, it would more than earn back the additional expenses.

Huh, that reminds me; a friend and I had a half-serious plan as teenagers, to get Microsoft to invest in our venture to secure the (then) remaining Buran orbiter, build a rocket and a launchpad for it, in exchange for plastering the shuttle and the rocket top-to-bottom with Windows logos.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#296

Post by chipsa »

elliekelly wrote: post #16
avmich wrote: post #9

The big and annoying issue with the Crew Dragon design seems to be the chosen RCS fuel (AFAIK, monomethylhydrazine and N2O4), which makes both fueling and clearing after landing a delicate process. Hopefully Crew Dragon proves itself as a capable platform for Earth-orbit transportation, but this fuel issue is a hard one to counter.

Earlier this week when they were de-fueling they mentioned that the "escape system" was still active during that process. Is that because the fuel is potentially dangerous? Tangentially related, can the "escape system" be activated even when the rocket itself hasn't left the ground? I watched the escape system test but IIRC it involved launching and then aborting so the pod that carries the crew was already high off…

The abort system is like ejection seats: the greater the part of the flight envelope it works in, the better, because you have smaller portions of the flight that problems are unsurvivable. The abort system tests were for the most difficult regimes of flight: maximum dynamic pressure, and zero altitude, zero airspeed. Having tested that, they can be sure it'll work in less difficult sections.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#297

Post by cortesoft »

stickfigure wrote: post #288
babesh wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just need to look further. You get access to rare materials that can be immensely valuable. Read https://www.amazon.com/Case-Space-Revolution-Spaceflight-Pos... Also with that short term outlook you wouldn’t have many things. The Internet was not initially commercial. It was designed to provide communications in the event of a nuclear attack. Yet here we are now and we have reaped immense benefits from that inves…

> You get access to rare materials that can be immensely valuable. Why would you want to send humans to get it? Space is really inhospitable for humans, but machines seem to like it just fine. Offshore oil and gas mining is rapidly being automated, and if they could, they would eliminate humans from the process altogether. Nobody wants to go out and live on a frozen windblown metal can full of industrial machinery, i…

> but machines seem to like it just fine.

I think you are underestimating the challenges they have to overcome to get machines to work in space.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#298

Post by kortilla »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #279
gfodor wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often you need to build the new thing before the business model emerges, because you can’t visualize or evaluate the latter until the former exists.

I think it's the general problem of infrastructure-like endeavors. "If you build it, they will come" absolutely applies to infrastructure.

Not quite, it’s “If you build it, they might come.” You only need to look to the history of railroad in the US to see how infrastructure frequently didn’t pay off.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#299

Post by TeMPOraL »

andy_ppp wrote: post #282
TeMPOraL wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I fail to see why robots wouldn’t be able to adequately do the job. Because they can't adequately do the job, even now, on Earth. Maybe they will, in 20 years. Right now, there are whole classes of missions for which the choice isn't between humans and robots, but between humans and not doing them at all .

Even when robots can do this, the defiance of our physical limitations is beyond something we should be able to do. It’s the best of us as a species risking our lives for progress and similarly to something like free solo, even if I’m not capable of doing something so death defying it makes me feel alive to see people who push the boundaries of what’s possible so far.

That's a fair point. Hell, I'd argue that half the interest in spaceflight (except those of people seeing it all through the lens of an Excel sheet) is because of the idea of sending people up there. That alone makes an occasional manned mission worth it, just to keep the general interest alive.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#300

Post by CodeGlitch »

pknerd wrote: post #132

I am not American but as a human I feel so good about this mission. We all have a habit of looking up to sky with an awe and appreciate the beauty. My 10 years old son was so excited. Who knows he might get into this field. I wanted to study astrophysics while I was a teen. He was also watching live stream with me. Congrats and lots of love from Pakistan. Desperately waiting for Docking moments.

Same here- my 5yo daughter stayed up late to watch the launch. She was asking questions throughtout, which made me a proud dad.
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