SpaceX Dragon Launch To ISS Set For April 30th

Spy Handler writes "NASA announced today a tentative April 30th date for SpaceX launch to the International Space Station on an unmanned cargo mission. 'Everything looks good as we head toward the April 30 launch date,' said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations. If successful, SpaceX will become the first private company to launch a space vehicle and dock with the ISS."

Comments

Most Excellent

[Penguinshit]

It's time to turn LEO over to commercial operators and let NASA get back to pushing frontiers. It was right to kill Constellation and Ares.

Re:Most Excellent

[Canazza]

This is a *brand new* private market. We need competition. So far who do we have? SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. And even Virgin only go Sub-orbital and is mostly publicity runs.
There's alot of players missing at the moment. For example: Where's Boeing? One of the biggest Government contractors for aircraft hasn't thought to invest in their own space vehicles?
I get the feeling that when SpaceX actually has a proper, reliable, regular launch schedule that the market for private space launches will absoloutly boom.

Re:Most Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Boeing is in it. They are designing a capsule called CST-100, together with Bigelow Aerospace. There is also a more direct competitor to SpaceX, the Antares rocket built by Orbital Sciences and also scheduled to launch this year. Not to mention many smaller but ambitious players like XCOR that work on upper stage engines with ULA.

Re:Most Excellent

[Razgorov Prikazka]

It's just a matter of time you know... if enough people go there, it's just a waiting matter before:
  - space hippies go collect garbage (and re-invent the cradle2cradle concept, making nice new stuff from spacejunk);
  - greenpeace goes there with big solarsail-made-into-banners;
  - Al Gore will say he invented space and then make a movie about how terrible the whole spacejunk problem is;
  - We will see spacejunk-sceptics;
  And when they are all up in arms, here on /. we will discuss the next big thing... terraforming Mars. Someone will say that is a bad Idea, and I would say: It's just a matter of time you know... if enough people go there, it's just a waiting matter before:
  - Space hippies will go there hugging the marstrees
  - Greenpeace will go there and... well you get the point huh? :-D

The deeper problem

[zippo01]

The failure of NASA, speaks to a much deeper issue growing in US culture. People only care that it works, not how or why it works, and make no effort to understand. This is also why the US is falling behind as the world leader in tech. This is the same thing that causes us to buy cheap products from china, that break, and instead of fixing them, we just buy more. It makes me sad.

Re:The deeper problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually what makes westerners, you and me included, to buy new items instead of fixing them is the just cost of repair. Let's say a reasonably well-performing nondescript toaster from your local hypermarket costs $50 or $100 for a "high end" one. Let's also suppose that you get $20 an hour. You basically have three choices:

1. Find out what is broken, get a replacement part, and replace it yourself.

Sounds easy, but if it's anything except the heating element, you need more than a multimeter to figure out which individual component is broken. Suppose you're so lucky that you actually find it in the local repair shop. Now, just do that math between cost of replacement part + cost of labor versus cost of new toaster. Even if you get the part for free, and you are such an amazing tech that a fixed toaster is as good as new, anything over 3 hours is a waste as that's about how long it takes, after taxes, to get the money for a new toaster

2. Take it to the repair shop.

Still easier, but you cannot be guaranteed that cost of troubleshooting + cost of repair + cost of parts + cost of trip to take the toaster + cost of trip to pick it up will be less than cost of a new toaster. Anyhow, since the cost of labor in this case has to be paid with after-tax money, this is guaranteed to be more expensive than DIY (Assuming you are every bit as competent as the repair guy)

3. Just buy a new one

Sadly, this is the cheapest choice. I say sadly, because I for one would rather buy sturdy appliances that last for ages, especially when the underlying user requirement stays unchanged. Would go a long way in saving the planet

Of course, if people were willing to pay more for repairability and ecological soundness then maybe such solutions would emerge, but behavioral economics tells us otherwise...

Re:The deeper problem

[dpilot]

How do you buy a much higher quality toaster? On occasion I have tried to buy higher quality appliances. Price is no indicator. Brand is only a weak indicator. Reviews are only a weak indicator, because product lines are constantly being churned, even if the name has remained the same.

Arianespace

[captainpanic]

The European Arianespace is commercial since 1980. They launch their Ariane rockets on a regular basis. You want competition? You got it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianespace

Re:Arianespace

[crutchy]

it aint rocket science

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TM-17

Re:Arianespace

[Necron69]

Are you people really that stupid to think that both SpaceX and NASA haven't spent tens of thousands of man hours planning, testing, retesting, and triple testing this docking procedure? Are you aware that the only reason it takes two people to do the docking is that NASA won't _allow_ SpaceX to do the docking automatically like the Russian Soyuz? Instead, they have to pull up close to the station, and then get grabbed by the robot arm, for SAFETY.

Do you have any idea how many ex-NASA and space shuttle contractors have been hired by SpaceX? Do you know how many former astronauts work there?

God, it is like some people think Elon Musk hired a bunch of high school rocket club kids and is being allowed to dock with the space station based on plans drawn on the back of a napkin.

Get a freaking clue, people.

- Necron69

Future progression...

[Covalent]

Orbital flight is great. So is docking with the ISS.

But my hope is that the future of private space is a private space station that does what a space station really should: Serve as an rotating orbital way station (e.g. see 2001). If you store fuel there, NASA can purchase fuel for fast-track missions to Mars, Europa, whatever. Let SpaceX raise money via space tourism and charging for the fuel. People can LIVE there (artificial gravity eliminates many problems) and train for Lunar or Martian missions there (closer to the rotating hub there are natural low-gravity zones). People can also increase their gravity on the return trip from these missions so as to be able to return to earth.

This would make the space station a usable thing for MANY missions, not just an extremely expensive orbital platform. It would also facilitate our permanent colonization of other worlds. And (best part) it can be done with existing tech.

Reality check

[damburger]

A little perspective is needed here.

SpaceX is doing something that the US managed during the Gemini program, the USSR perfected in the 1970's with the Salyut stations, and the Chinese have just done. The first two of those national programs did so without any help or prior knowledge to draw on, and the Chinese had less help from the Russians than is commonly acknowledged.

SpaceX has had their hand held every step of the way by NASA, and have benefitted greatly from NASAs expertise, experience and technology - as have all commercial space launch companies in the US. The people running these companies freely admit this, but the libertarian fanboys simply refuse to, and demand NASA "get out of the way". This is like a teenage, entirely dependent on his parents income to live, demanding they "get out of the way" of his life.

Secondly, the "commercial" label is quite a stretch. These companies are offering a service that is almost exclusively used by a government agency (the very one that fanboys want to die right now quickly please) - they are not catering to a market. The artificial generation of demand that they are exploiting is pure Keynesian. No wonder the space libertarian crowd don't want to talk about this aspect of it.

It is nice that the US is working towards a Shuttle replacement, regardless of how it achieves this - but it is wrong to take this as a sign of the Ultimate Capitalist Triumph In Space, or as a cue to tear apart NASA in the name of ideology.

The reality at present is this; you can support the Libertarian Party, Ron Paul, and any other markets-above-all nuts - OR you can support the continued presence of the US in space. You cannot do both, at least not honestly.