2nd SpaceX Demo Flight Slated For Feb. 7

TheNextCorner writes with the news that "Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX)'s second Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration flight will be Feb. 7, 2012. Pending completion of final safety reviews, testing and verification, NASA also has agreed to allow SpaceX to send its Dragon spacecraft to rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS) in a single flight." Update: 12/10 06:41 GMT by T : Reader BenJCarter adds a link to an L.A. Times article on the ISS rendezvous (with a great photo).

Comments

Suggestion to astronauts, private and otherwise

[Man On Pink Corner]

Record a video before you leave which can be publicized widely in the event you're killed in the course of your mission. Make it very clear that you accepted the risks willingly, that your motives included the betterment of humanity, and that you felt they were important enough to die for them.

Make it clear that your death was no different in spirit than that of a random, forgotten pioneer who might have suffered from dysentery or Indian attacks or smallpox or whatever. Explain that robots cannot, in fact, do everything a human might usefully do in space; that this sort of shit sometimes happens; and that everybody should just deal with it and get over it, already.

In short, make it clear that you would be very angry if people were to use your death as an excuse to cripple and delay manned space exploration any more than it already has been.

Why leave a video? Because sooner or later, one of the private US-based launch efforts is going to kill one or more of its crew members. Strong men will cry on TV, flags will wave solemnly, Jesus will be praised, and America will enter its usual 10-years-of-sackcloth-and-ashes routine. Politicians will compete to see who can ban X, Y, or Z first. No further progress will be made because, fuck, man, somebody got killed the last time!

You need to tell everyone that this is a bullshit attitude. Remind them that if we have to wait until space travel is as safe as boarding an airplane in order to make any forward progress, we will end up in the same place we would've ended up in if we had insisted on delaying aeronautical research until flying was as safe as walking.

Re:Suggestion to astronauts, private and otherwise

[ModernGeek]

This ten times over. Whenever the Apollo 1 fire happened, and whenever the shuttles broke apart, I felt that too many others were speaking for the fallen astronauts. However, I don't feel that it should be in the form of a video for post-death viewing, they should be vocal about their thoughts before going into space. I've never understood why people are so scared to think of the what-if's. I think we need to take the taboo out of death, and that we should all let our loved ones know our vision for the future for whenever we inevitably kick the bucket.