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SpaceX To Present Manned Dragon Capsule
camperdave (969942) writes "SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is set to unveil the Dragon V2 at a media event from Hawthorne, California, tonight at 7 pm. Pacific. The 'Dragon V2' is an upgraded, man rated version of the unmanned spaceship that has made several successful cargo trips to the International Space Station. The new craft will carry a mix of cargo and up to a seven crewmembers to the ISS. According to Musk, this is 'Actual flight design hardware of crew Dragon, not a mockup.' Following the space shuttle's forced retirement in 2011, US astronauts have been totally dependent on the Russian Soyuz capsules for ferry rides to orbit and back. The crisis in Ukraine, which has resulted in some U.S. economic sanctions imposed against Russia, also has the potential to threaten U.S. access to the ISS as the Russian government considers reciprocal sanctions of its own.
'Sounds like this might be a good time to unveil the new Dragon Mk 2 spaceship that @SpaceX has been working on with @NASA,' Musk tweeted. SpaceX is one of three commercial space companies competing for funding from NASA's Commercial Crew Transportation Capability program."
(You can watch the event as a webcast.)
He isn't going to stop with the moon, Musk's dream is to die on mars (and preferably not in the sudden stop of landing there)
Let's get this baby loaded, do a couple unmanned tests, including the crew escape system and lets roll.
I have to imagine if you're the Russian Space Agency this has to be very unwelcome news.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
The problem with most private commercial flight companies is that they usually end up serving exactly one customer: the U.S. Government. I don't think it's fair to characterize that as "private." The harsh fact is that, aside from satellite launches, there is pretty much no reason for any other entity to go into space
Believe it or not, the US Government (and other governments as well) are not the only people launching satellites or other spacecraft...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Musk is actually a huge Obama supporter, and Obama has been seen talking to, giving praise to, and visiting with Elon Musk. SpaceX and Elon Musk have been a huge part of the Obama Space Strategy. Any anti-obama sentiment comes from the ending of Republican-politican-approved programs, such as the Space Shuttle through companies like ATK and Boeing.
Sig: I stole this sig.
You do realize that inhabited Mars missions are assessed to be in the 10 to 50 billion dollars ballpark, right?
And billionnaires typically have that kind of money.
So it's not really being a gullible cultish fanboy to think that Musk has a good chance to pull it off...
The harsh fact is that, aside from satellite launches, there is pretty much no reason for any other entity to go into space.
Yeah, I guess that would explain why there has been at least one person in orbit every year since the last moon shot, and why the ISS has been continuously occupied for nearly 14 years.
As far as commercial flight goes, unlike the shuttle, anyone with the money can buy a launch from SpaceX. They're not restricted to government launches.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Looking at their upcoming launch manifest I see: NASA, Orbcomm, Asiasat, Space Systems, Loral, Thales Alenia Space, US Air Force, CONAE, NSPO, Spacecom, Bigelow Aerospace, SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation, SES, Iridium, and SATMEX.
The US government isn't even the customer for a majority of the launches through 2015. If you're specifically talking about manned missions you might have a better argument. But even then the Bigelow Aerospace launch is tantalizing hints of the future... even if it's only the future for the fabulously, ridiculously wealthy.
Long term goals for the launch recovery include recovery of the second stage, essentially the entire rocket would be recovered and reused. If that can be accomplished (a non-trivial "if" certainly), launch costs could drop to the hundreds of thousands range rather than the tens of millions. You could have 100 launches for the cost of a single one today (already one of the cheapest launch platforms in history). Most of the cost of major missions is getting stuff to orbit; cut that one item by 99% and a lot of budget math changes.
Right, this is the decade where we start worrying about the economies of space travel instead of just the plausibility.
NASA holding onto? Are you insane? The space shuttle was MANDATED by congress, just like the heavy lift rocket they are developing for no reason. Not only does congress tell NASA what to build, they insist certain companies and states manufacturing capacity be used. NASA often isn't even allowed to price shop because it would price ATK and other defense contractors out of competition. NASA is treated by congress as one great big pork barrel where rather than giving NASA options to reduce cost they force NASA to buy and build things they don't even want. Not unlike the military where congress frequently forces the military to buy defense products they don't want because some congresscritter's district holds the factory.
Remember Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex? Well NASA is a key component of that abuse because just like the DOD NASA spends enough money to draw the attention of those with influence who can make lots of money on those items.
Actually, my quibble isn't with the gender connotations of the statement, but with the verb tense of the statement. The V2 hasn't, as far as I know, actually received certification for manned space flight. Rather, it has been designed (and probably some testing complete) to be able to receive such a rating.
It hasn't been rated yet, just that it could be and is intended to be. In that sense, it is more accurate to call it "man ratable" (the subjunctive tense) rather than "man rated" (past tense).
NASA is helping SpaceX. Is Boeing a branch of the Federal Government? How is now different from before?
In fact, it's cold as hell.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
And only forty years after the US Government did it. Way to go, private sector!
And probably ten years before the government does it again, at a hundred times the cost if they're using SLS.
Next time NASA astronauts land on the Moon, there'll probably be a crowd of tourists from a SpaceX package tour waiting there to film them.
I'll say it again. Aside from satellite launches, there is just no other reason for non-governmental entities to go into space right now.
Well, duh. That's why SpaceX are working hard to slash the cost of launching things into orbit until other business opportunities make sense.
Only 28 years since its been legal for an American company to launch things into space using their own equipment, and even after that western governments (including the U.S) were actively hostile towards private space flight. For instance they forced OTRAG operations into a 3rd world country and then banned using them because it might help the 3rd world country to develop long range missiles.
So no, not 40 years you ignorant statist twat. You give the state so much power that they prevent free markets from working, and then later claim that the "free market" you set up to fail didnt work.
Give people liberty, and free markets work just fine.
"His name was James Damore."
GUTS: Getting Us To Space!
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
back in the days "man-rated" meant the ICBM was modified to not shake the man apart in pogo oscillations and speed the capsule up to 17,500 mph.
mfwright@batnet.com
Seven crew means it can be used as an escape capsule for the ISS.
Well, for seven of them, anyway. There have been times when there have been a dozen people aboard the ISS.
Not as ISS crew. This was only temporarily, while the Shuttle was visiting (record number
of people on board the ISS is 13, but just for a couple of days: 6 ISS + 7 Shuttle).
ISS design crew initially was 7 - but that has been reduced to 6 for the time being,
due to the unavailability of full crew rescue vehicles.
At the moment, 2x Soyuz are used as escape pods. A parked Dragon would help to get
back to the initial crew size and free up a docking port. Very cool.
Nah man. For one the Space Shuttle was planned to be retired back when W was still President. It was deemed necessary to retire it to save money for the abortive uber expensive Ares rocket that NASA Administrator Mike Griffin was pushing. When Obama got into power most of the Shuttle maintenance facilities had already been closed down like the rocket engine manufacturing and refurbishing plant. Little he could do but cancel it as scheduled at that point. The plan was always to rely on Soyuz launches until an alternative vehicle could be developed.
There is broad bi-partisan support for the SLS rocket (Ares Strikes Back) in the Senate against Obama's wishes and those people in the Senate are those opposing his space policy. Which was to privatize the ISS launch services and rethink how to do Moon and Mars exploration in an economically sustainable way.
The Senate basically cut the funding for the Commercial Crew program. Setting back for like 2 years a US crew transportation vehicle to the ISS and sploshed it all down on SLS