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Astronauts Open Dragon Capsule Hatch
Hexydes writes "Early in the morning (5:53 am EST) on May 26th, 2012, NASA gave the go-ahead for the Expedition 31 crew to begin the procedure to open the hatch on the Dragon capsule, now directly attached to the ISS. 'The hatch opening begins four days of operations to unload more than 1,000 pounds of cargo from the first commercial spacecraft to visit the space station and reload it with experiments and cargo for a return trip to Earth. It is scheduled for splashdown several hundred miles west of California on May 31. Wearing protective masks and goggles, as is customary for the opening of a hatch to any newly arrived vehicle at the station, Pettit entered the Dragon with Station Commander Oleg Kononenko. The goggles and masks will be removed once the station atmosphere has had a chance to mix air with the air inside the Dragon itself.' Here is a video of the procedure."
Union rules requires at least three workers over four days
I would have rigged up two things.
1 - a huge "planet express" sticker on every box.
2 - a small device rigged to play "never gonna give you up" 30 seconds after they open the hatch.
Come on, a futurama joke and a ISS rickrolling would be utterly epic.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It is revolutionary from the standpoint that the government didn't lay down the requirements for what they wanted (or just designed the item themselves) in a space vehicle, just ISS interface requirements. SpaceX built what they wanted without NASA or DoD people sticking their noses in. And SpaceX actually completed the project and docked with the space station, instead of just making a ton of Powerpoints and 3D animated videos on what it would look like if they actually did it. If others follow SpaceX, then instead of Slashdot bitching about the difference between a capsule and a delta winged re-entry vehicle, private companies can actually BUILD it and we'll conclusively see which is better. THAT is what is revolutionary.
The Dragon spacecraft is the first vehicle which has been built primarily with private funds, where the "ownership" of the vehicle does not belong to a government agency. When this vehicle returns to the Earth, while NASA will get all of the stuff that is inside of the vehicle, it doesn't "belong" to NASA. In fact SpaceX has even hinted that this particular vehicle might see a 2nd or 3rd flight in the future (in terms of the capsule itself). NASA's COTS contract requires a new vehicle for every flight, so those subsequent flights will likely go to paying commercial (read non-government) customers, but the spacecraft doesn't "belong" to NASA.
The comparison here is more like how commercial airlines can lease their aircraft and crews to other people, including government agencies.
In the case of most of those "privately built spacecraft", there is a huge difference between them and the Dragon. For things like the Space Shuttle, the Apollo spacecraft, or even things like the probes to other planets, they were designed by NASA engineers where all of the specifications and design requirements were decided upon by NASA management and had NASA personnel at nearly all levels of production. Any "private" companies were really contractors and sub-contractors who followed the lead of NASA supervision.
Also it is important to point out that the other spacecraft that have flown to the ISS by American companies have also all been "owned" by NASA. If you tried to buy a Space Shuttle from North American-Rockwell International (yes, I know those companies are now owned by Boeing), you would have been politely told you simply can't buy them at any price. There were some people who tried to buy a Shuttle in the 1980's and simply couldn't. In the case of the Dragon, SpaceX will gladly sell you one and even help you out with the government paperwork needed to be able to use it and help schedule a launch for you as well. They will even help you through the process if you aren't an American (which does add paperwork and some hassles, but it can be arranged).
I'll admit that commercial companies have been involved with the construction of spacecraft in the past, but this is something new. How different it can be will be seen with other projects that SpaceX is doing that will be completely private for-profit ventures not involving NASA at all.
SpaceX built what they wanted without NASA or DoD people sticking their noses in.
Mod parent up. There is a huge infrastructure of NASA and DOD folks whose job it is to stick their noses in. They are expensive, their cost comes out of your budget, and they cause huge delays in your program. SpaceX is a brilliant idea in that it keeps those expensive noses out of most things.
There are places for those noses, like launch safety and docking, where there can be risk to citizens or government equipment (the space station). But, many times, those noses simply waste money assuring 100-percent space mission success.
everyone is an immigrant on ISS..