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SpaceX Developing Orbital Crew Capsule
iamlucky13 writes "Private aerospace firm SpaceX has revealed that it has secretly been working on a crew and cargo vehicle since late 2004. Development of the capsule, named Dragon, has so far been funded by SpaceX and its partners, which includes the Canadian company that built the robotic arm for the International Space Station. Dragon would be launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 and dock at the ISS with assistance of the robotic arm. While SpaceX founder Elon Musk is prepared to complete development of the capsule with his own resources, SpaceX is seeking funding from NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, which makes up to $500 million available through 2010 for private spacecraft development."
If they thought ahead they would have realized that it's much more efficient to put 2 robotic arms on IIS. One to catch the capsule and one to throw it back to Earth. Now IIS will have to take it's glove off before it can throw the capsule back down.
You talk better than you fool!
Eventhough some of the designs are flawed... it is still nice to see a sort of Spcae Race again, I am only 20 so i missed the first Space race, however i enjoy the prospects involved with the process, as well as the idea of making something that no one else has before. Remember the wright brothers, they had a few failing designs before the suceeded. Just because we are still in the early stages of development, flaws are to be expected, designs will crash and burn. But so what? isnt this what Space exploration is about?? learning and using what you have learned to further the learning??? I for one am thrilled that the spaceX foundation is doing great things, even if it isnt perfect. was the x1 perfect when chuck Yeagur broke the sound barrier??? NO. and neither will spaceX be perfect. Shit NASA still cant even get it right all the time.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The prototype lacks a reaction control system for maneuvering in space and a heat shield that would prevent it from burning up upon re-entry, Musk said, but could otherwise be launched into space.
LOL, that's brilliant. What does it have?
"As part of a top secret project, we've already built a prototype flight crew capsule, including a thoroughly tested 30-man-day-life-support system, which is sitting on our factory floor right now," Musk told Space News. "It doesn't meet all the NASA requirements, so it will probably not see flight, but it has served as a valuable learning experience."
So nothing. You have a tin can. Brilliant.
Neither Dragon nor its Falcon 9 rocket is ready to roll out to the launch pad. But the Falcon 9 is in development for a 2007 debut..
The Falcon I hasn't even got off the launch pad.
Look, I love SpaceX. Elon Musk is trying to dig a big hole in the middle of the overweight aerospace industry and so far he's doing a good job of it. But this is nothing but vapourware. I hope NASA gives them a big chunk of that funding but frankly, it's a high risk proposition right now.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Scaled Composites has the "White Knight", SpaceX has the "Dragon", what's next? The "Grand Wizard" orbiting space station?
The Dragon capsule is the centerpiece of the proposal SpaceX submitted March 3 under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration program.
An appropriate acronym, COTS, already used for "Commercial, Off The Shelf"...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Kerosene is not the most efficent, in terms of mass, but it is rather efficent in terms of density. It's rather much like jet fuel, so there's already hardware to deal with it.
Hydrogen is more efficent in terms of mass, but it's not very dense, so you need huge tanks to store it. Also, it's cold enough to give you nasty materials problems that you don't get with just LOX.
So usually it makes more sense to use kerosene + LOX on the first stage because you are going to need a lot of fuel and you are going to have to push it through the atmosphere and stuff. Then once you are above the atmosphere and have ejected the first stage, the rest of the stages work better with hydrogen as the fuel.
Gentoo Sucks
For 1st stage rockets that aren't going to burn for very long, the reduced tank volume possible with kerosene / LOX can be enough of a total weight savings to offset the lower ISP and greater mass of kerosene / LOX over hydrogen / LOX.
On upper stages, where you are going to carry the fuel higher, and burn the engines longer, the mass efficiencies and higher ISP of hydrogen / LOX win out.
Hence the Saturn V switched fuels as it went through its stages.
Musk supposedly has never said how much of his own cash he's invested in SpaceX, but the article, as well as other estimates, place it at around $100 million so far. No mention of other contributions.
SpaceX is almost entirely self-funded by Elon Musk, with a few small investments by "friends and family." He has mentioned though that after the first Falcon I flight he'll be pursuing some outside funding to raise another $50 - $100 million for the development of things like the next-generation Merlin 2 engine (which would be the largest rocket engine in the world). If the company's launch products are successful, he plans on an eventual IPO in "three to four years."
Very true. If you want to attribute anything to Von Braun, attribute in-orbit assembly. His proposals for military installations on the Moon in the late 50s were elegant and advanced. He relied on what today we would call medium-lift launch vehicles and in-orbit assembly. At the time the army had a proven capability to fire off hundreds of these rockets a month and had shown they can man and supply outposts in much harsher conditions. The only thing lacking was a mandate. From an economical point of view medium-lift launch vehicles make a lot of sense. See The case for smaller launch vehicles in human space exploration by Grant Bonin, part 1 and part 2.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Okay, so I'm not a petrol engineer... but then when does that sort of thing stop any good slashdotter?
RP-1 is a highly refined kerosine fraction.
Jet-A / Jet-A1 is a slightly less refined kerosine fraction.
K-1 Kerosine is yet another kerosine fraction. In some places, they skip out on K-1 and just sell Jet-A1 as kerosine for simplicity's sake.
There are other jet fuels that take a "wider cut" and include some napatha and gasoline fractions.
If you want, you can run turbines on all kinds of crazy stuff, although with modern catalytic oil processing, that's far less useful than it used to be.
Diesel engines can be made to burn Jet-A or RP-1.
Either way... the hardware to pump jet fuel/kerosine/etc. sorts of fluids is pretty well understood and easy to get ahold of. Not so for hydrogen.
Gentoo Sucks