SpaceX Capsule Returns To Earth With Lab Results

An anonymous reader writes SpaceX's unmanned Dragon spacecraft has splashed down in the Pacific Ocean carrying NASA cargo and scientific samples from the International Space Station. A boat is ferrying the spacecraft to a port near Los Angeles, where NASA said the 1.5 tons of materials will be removed and returned to the space agency by late tomorrow for scientists to pick apart. "This mission enabled research critical to achieving NASA's goal of long-duration human spaceflight in deep space," said Sam Scimemi, director of the International Space Station division at NASA headquarters.

Comments

Curious economics of private spaceflight

[CRCulver]

Back in the 1990s, I enjoyed reading Michael Flynn's future history beginning with Firestar . Flynn, an ardent libertarian, thought that as early as the turn of the millennium, private industry would be ready to offer all kinds of spaceflight services that the general public would rush to buy, such as FedEx delivery anywhere on Earth in 90 minutes. Years after Flynn's vision of when things would kick off, we finally are getting private spaceflight, but it seems like the only sure customer that these firms have is NASA. Isn't this less private spaceflight and more simple contracting out to aerospace firms that are friends to those in power just like in the olden days?

Re:Curious economics of private spaceflight

[SuricouRaven]

The problem appears to be a lack of profitability. There's just nothing to do for money in space beyond geostationary orbit. It's just a big empty nothing, in the most literal way possible. The only resource to be had is energy, which is cheaper to make down on earth. There are potentially valuable rocks far away, but no economically-viable means of getting at them. The ISS is doing some useful research, but it's not there to run a profit. The only reason any private enterprise would want to go into space is to run a satelite or because someone in government is footing the bill for science or military purposes.

Suborbital transport would be nice, but you're looking at a very limited market - the only advantage over first-class flights on a conventional aircraft is trip time, and who has enough money to pay that much extra to save a few hours? If that business model was viable, Concorde would have been updated and continued.

Re:Curious economics of private spaceflight

[Applehu Akbar]

Space tourism has emerged as an unexpected market, at the same time as the increasing difficulty of mining on Earth is leading to interest in extracting valuable minerals from asteroids. And the more satellites we put into orbit, the more servicing is needed to maintain them. Meanwhile, NASA finds itself, perhaps intentionally, with no domestic way of getting astronauts and material into LEO. Why not exploit this opportunity to develop and sell both materials ferries and manned craft? Once the private sector develops a man-rated craft, there will be no limits to what we can do.

Re:Curious economics of private spaceflight

[CRCulver]

Space tourism has emerged as an unexpected market

Even if a space tourism market exists, there is no guarantee it will survive. A Concorde market existed and it went bust nonetheless.

Re: Curious economics of private spaceflight

[WindBourne]

Less than 1\3 of spacex launches are us gov launches. They can now exist without them. However, NASA is speading up spacex's programs. And since these are saving America billions, it makes sense to continue.

Re:Curious economics of private spaceflight

[Alomex]

Contrary to what you say, many studies have found that the better educated and informed you are the more likely you are to be a liberal.

Of course it makes you feel better to state the opposite opinion as if it were a fact, which is yet another confirmation of the studies above.

Re:Curious economics of private spaceflight

[Kjella]

This is always my argument about suborbital travel. It is not seriously faster than Concorde was, and Concorde was so hideously expensive to operate that even the elite could not keep it going.

That's something of a misrepresentation, the elite never lacked the money and the rich have only gotten richer so it was more that they wouldn't than that they couldn't. Improved communication lowered the demand to send bigwigs between Europe and the US, I imagine the ~2*4 hours saved on a business trip was a key selling feature for the Concorde. That's fast but video conferencing is even faster. As for leisure travel I think the standard has gone up, travelling first class on a subsonic plane can be quite luxurious so the rich are not in that big a hurry to make the trip as short as possible.

Re:Curious economics of private spaceflight

[nitehawk214]

Yes, but to get out of the atmosphere you need to be going hypersonic speeds. Today it can only be done with rockets. In the 90's Aerospike egines was supposed to make hypersonic, suborbital and even SSTO flights possible. There is no commercially produced Aerospike engine yet.