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After Trip to ISS, SpaceX's Dragon Capsule Returns Safely To Earth
thomas.kane writes "SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft has successfully reentered and is now safely in the waters of the Pacific Ocean after more than 9 days in space. The Dragon capsule became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station on May 25; SpaceX is contracted by NASA for at least 12 more flights in the coming months bringing supplies to the space station and returning science done on board back to Earth."
Reader MightyMartian adds a link to coverage at the BBC.
This is fantastic news. I don't care what you think of space policy or anything, this is a good day for everybody.
Now, let's see NASA make good on their promise to hand over LEO to the private sector so they can think about Mars and beyond!
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
In digging around various information sources on Dragon, I noticed something odd: It appears in thisphoto that the capsule is equipped with standard red/green navigation lights. Are these actual nav lights? Are they an FAA requirement?
Have gnu, will travel.
Details:
On July 21, 1961, Grissom was pilot of the second Project Mercury flight, Mercury-Redstone 4, popularly known as Liberty Bell 7. This was a suborbital flight which lasted 15 minutes and 37 seconds. After splashdown, emergency explosive bolts unexpectedly fired and blew the hatch off, causing water to flood into the spacecraft. Quickly exiting through the open hatch and into the ocean, Grissom was nearly drowned as water began filling his spacesuit. A nearby helicopter tried to lift and recover the spacecraft, but the flooding spacecraft became too heavy, and it was ultimately cut loose before sinking.
Grissom asserted he had done nothing to cause the hatch to blow, and NASA officials eventually concluded that he was correct. Initiating the explosive egress system required hitting a metal trigger with the side of a closed fist, which unavoidably left a large, obvious bruise on the astronaut's hand,[citation needed] but Grissom was found not to have any of the tell-tale bruising. Still, controversy remained, and fellow Mercury astronaut Wally Schirra, at the end of his October 3, 1962 flight, remained inside his spacecraft until it was safely aboard the recovery ship, and made a point of deliberately blowing the hatch to get out, bruising his hand.[26]
Free Martian Whores!
Ice Road Space Truckers.
Had to be the video of the astronauts opening up the space capsule with the required safety goggles and masks. If something failed and an astronaut got sucked into space I am sure his final words would have been "The goggles, they do nothing...".
Its great to see private enterprise enter the space race now, maybe NASA will stop billing $20k for a toilet seat and $30k for a hammer because SpaceX can get them at Walmart for $5 a piece.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Re-Enter The Dragon
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
SpaceX has just announced the great success of its new heat shield technology. It turns out they were burning facebook shares to protect the craft.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Truckers is just what we need. In order for space exploration to be successful we need boring, easily repeated, safe access to LOE. If they can make LOE boring and trucker like then we have a much better chance of getting past LOE. Until then every flight into space beyond earth will have weight and power constraints placed on it be the launch vehicle. Once shipping to LOE is easy and cheap we can build ships that are no longer constrained by the need to be completely contained in the payload compartment of the launch vehicle.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
I read your post and immediately thought "How did he link to the Wikipedia article and not see where it mentions piloted spacecraft?" only to find out someone deleted all references to spacecraft in January with no explanation.
You can see the previous version here.
My understanding is that manned, piloted spacecraft are supposed to have nav lights on them. The Shuttle didn't have them because the FAA gave them a waiver and special airspace.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Elon just answered that they were off by a few seconds because of wind. He said that if it weren't for wind, they could land Dragon in someone's backyard.