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SpaceX Completes Dragon Parachute Test
mattclar writes "SpaceX just released footage and pictures of last week's Dragon parachute drop test. Using an Erickson Air-Crane, the Dragon capsule was carried to 14,000 feet, then released. After a few seconds of freefall, the drouge chutes appeared, followed by the main chutes. The test concluded with a gentle touchdown within the target area to conclude a test described by SpaceX as '100% successful.'"
Very nice. Now, about that 'getting people up to space in the first place for less than $10k/lb' part...
Seriously though, it's good to see things coming along.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
One wit(l/n)ess said "The chute was a pretty shade of rogue, and it slowed down like a sports car hitting the breaks!"
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
As someone who wasn't alive during the Apollo years, it's pretty exciting for me to see a company that might actually make travel to space sustainable.
I may follow Elon in retiring to Mars yet.
It seems designed to hit feet first, a bit like gemini, rather than slapping directly into the water with the heat shield completely level. With the parachutes attached on the side of the hatch, heads would presumably be towards the hatch.
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What is a Drouge? Perhaps that should say drogue instead? $lt;/Grammar nazi$gt;
I did not see dragons painted on the parachute.
I am not amused.
Droog, http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Concordance:A_Clockwork_Orange#D, Nadsat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadsat slang for 'friend' from the Antony Burgess novel A Clockwork Orange http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange made into a film by Stanly Kubrick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_(film)
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As someone who wasn't alive during the Apollo years, it's pretty exciting for me to see a company that might actually make travel to space sustainable.
As someone who was alive during the Apollo years[and the Mercury and Gemini years], I agree wholeheartedly; it was, and still is exciting. [I got the same goosebumps on launch, and was amazed at the vid quality and abundance!]
And you youngsters get added bonuses: ;-) ;-)
1. Better and higher quality coverage of the 'into space' events[see linked video in TFS]. Almost/or real time!
2. The internet.[see above]
3. Competition to drive 'Rocket Scientists®' to innovate again. 'Back then', it was USA astronauts vs. USSR cosmonauts...no holds barred. Now, it is similar, again no holds barred.
4. Maybe your favorite astronaut has a facebook page, or a twitter tweet?
5. Almost obligatory:
'And you get to get off my lawn!'
6. Did I mention the internet?
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it's so great that they've successfully reinvented the wheel, i mean the capsule landing. capsules were great in the apollo days when you didn't have much cargo to bring back down. we really need to be reinventing the shuttles as they are reusable, sustainable, and have much more cargo space. safety was the only issue and i'm guessing that was mostly related to age. surely we could overcome that with 2010 tech vs. 1970-80 tech.
by the Apollo missions in 1969. I suppose we're going to repeat going back to the moon next as a grand finale.
I remember when they invented dirt...
When I was a kid I followed every launch from Glenn onward, and I have to say it was kind of nostalgic to see a capsule hanging down from three chutes like that. I hope I can make it long enough to see Bigelow get his hotels started (I have no illusions of ever being able to go into space like I wanted to when I was a kid).
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Wheels are simple and they work. Cheap and good enough beats state of the art everytime.
What SpaceX is trying to do is move away from expensive overly complicated launchers to
simpler more reliable less expensive ones.
Getting people home safely is part of getting repeat business for your trip into space business. But nobody EVER claimed anywhere that an astronaut has to survive his trip for it to count as a journey into space.
Or are you saying that if I die on my trip to Australia (and may god have mercy on my soul) I have never visited Australia? Would make the entry into heaven a bit easier but somehow I think it will still be held against me.
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One thing that is certainly going to be different is the ability to have the miniature cameras in odd places that didn't exist before. I certainly liked the camera placed on the outside of the Dragon spacecraft that showed the whole splashdown from the perspective of a fly sitting on the outside of the capsule. Such a view perspective wasn't even possible during the Apollo era, where instead if they were lucky there was a U.S. Navy helicopter that had the one ton television camera in an otherwise stripped down aircraft that produced a grainy video feed.... presuming that the helicopter could even find the spacecraft as it was coming down.
In terms of internet coverage, you don't have to worry about some network executive deciding if a major league baseball game or some sitcom is going to get better ratings than a rocket launch... you just have to punch in the URL of some website like SpaceVidcast and you with several 10's of thousands of other people get to watch that launch live.... with or without commentary if you want. Rather than waiting for some public relations official telling you the weather forecast for KSC, you can simply go straight to the NOAA weather station and look up the latest weather radar scan and make your own forecast if you want.
Yeah, the internet has changed things, as has the miniaturization of electronic components. An iPhone has the computing power of all of NASA combined from 1969. Let's just say that the guidance computer is put into the Dragon spacecraft based on what the needs of the pilot are for a visual display and not due to considerations such as weight or power consumption of that computer. Its physical location is more of an afterthought. The largest and most power hungry device is going to be the flat-screen plasma panel for that display, not the computer itself.
I suppose we're going to repeat going back to the moon next as a grand finale.
The problem with Apollo 17 was the fact that it was a finale. NASA took some amazing hardware that could go places, and then simply threw it away like yesterday's garbage. There were a number of projects developed with the Apollo Applications Program that I believe could have been flown at a sustainable rate with the funds that ended up going to the Space Shuttle.
Admittedly this is with 20/20 hindsight, but for the cost that NASA dumped into the Shuttle program, they could have flown more astronauts, put more tonnage into space (including the construction of something the size of the ISS) and perhaps even reduced the cost of access to space considerably had they simply stuck with the Apollo family of spacecraft over the past 40 years. Even now, all these years later, the Apollo hardware is looking very good and a very elegant design solution to a very tough engineering problem. Compared to the Soyuz spacecraft it still looks sleek, shiny, and modern.... but the Soyuz spacecraft are still flying and the Apollo spacecraft aren't.
The reason why a "splashdown" in the Pacific is being redone here is because it works. If the goal is to get into space and come home safely.... how else do you propose to get the job done? Are you sure that will be cheaper and be ready to fly by next year?
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Clearly NASA could have done the same thing for a billion dollars, thereby creating much-needed high tech jobs for H-1b guest workers looking for a better life here in the US. I don't understand how anyone could celebrate this economic and humanitarian travesty.
Seastead this.
Wow, an article with pics! So it did happen! We're getting a bit more sophisticated than formatted text files now, so HTML is finally getting some use!
Question for those in the know: is SpaceX leading a charmed life, or are they just incredibly good at managing their press lately? To hear the press release, this sounds like another home run for SpaceX.
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Wow, what an amazing use of 50 year old technology.....Not.
I hope I can make it long enough to see Bigelow get his hotels started
Speaking of which, how are his Genesis test modules holding up?
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"After a few seconds of freefall, the drouge chutes appeared..." It's DROGUE, not DROUGE, for anyone trying to look up the definition. Good info, otherwise.
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