SpaceX Dragon SPLASHDOWN in Pacific! Private space triumph

Re: (as opposed to being made by a government space agency)

From what they were saying, although they want to get rid of the parachutes as soon as possible they also want to get a sighting of the capsule first. It's a lot easier to spot the slightly singed off-white capsule while there's still a bit of string tying it to three enormous red and white hankies than it is to find it when the wind has taken the chutes one way and the current has taken the capsule somewhere else.

Re: so dragons /can/ fly then ..

Maybe the fist manned one should be called Mnementh.

Re: I made that mistake too for a moment.

But at 560 miles out, it's beyond any economic zone. The splashdown occurred in international waters, well away from known shipping routes. Add to that the fact splashdown occurred on target and just slightly early, it looks like the entire Dragon mission went off just about as planned (only a minor launch hiccup which was detected and fixed and a minor delay in docking that was compensated), which as the article says has both SpaceX and NASA slapping backs.

The big difference is the cost

It didn't cost several billion dollars, involve a cadre of engineers bigger than the US Army, or several gigabytes of Powerpoints.

Look at the Boeing capsule that's supposed to do essentially the same job. It's still several *years* to its first flight IF it flies, and it's already cost something like twice the SpaceX program and produced nothing but one mockup and a couple terabytes of powerpoints and mission animations.

NASA is ecstatic that SpaceX got the job done so well because now they can turn to Congress and say "See! 'business as usual' does NOT get the job done!"

In mission terms this was a test flight where it was a brilliant surprise that everything went smoothly for a start.

Also don't forget that this entire effort was done using a rocket, capsule and launch site that didn't exist less than five years ago. All for less than a billion dollars which was less than an eighth of the effort expended on the Constellation system before it was cancelled where there was only one test launch and we have had two of the Dragon so far.

A terrific and successful effort. It's not mundane because unlike the sixties it shows the start of much more routine access to space! The speed at which they can start launching is what will be really significant.

Note that 75% of launch vehicles have had a failure in their first three launches while the Falcon 9 has been an unqualified success.

Please don't troll

This is the first privately-designed, built, and flown orbital craft. It just proved it can do the work the big boys can do, at a fraction of the cost and without being at the mercy of political cutbacks. Yes, it's a big deal. A REALLY big deal.

then think a little harder...

Um., the answer is there right in front of you. The difference is that "Governments" have been doing this since the 60s (kind of), but what this is, is "Private Enterprise". That's the exciting thing. It looks like they have found a way of doing this profitably at a fraction oft the cost of what government was doing it at (read that anywhere before).

When big business has worked out a way to make money out of something, then the pace of innovation accelerates accordingly. I believe that space exploration, and of more immediate relevance, space exploitation has just got a huge kick up the backside, and is on the cusp of expanding rapidly (I was going to say "take-off").

I also believe that I will now see full scale asteroid mining and associated habitats in my lifetime (I'm nearly 40).

If you still don't get it, go and read just about any science fiction book ever written...

I take your point -- the physical achievement has been done before, but it's who did it that's different.

Do you remember that awesome Pan-Am space clipper in the space-docking scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1m30s in to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpvOUnz4T7Q in case you don't)? That was the future of space travel as seen in 1968. 11 years late, but Dragon is the first one of those.

Re: Big event, mundane response from SpaceX mission control

Did you see their live press conference when the Dragon berthed with the ISS?, for a moment I thought I was watching the episode of The Simpsons where Homer goes to work for Hank Scorpio, utterly amazing, rounds of cheers and woooohs whenever Elon spoke, a complete contrast to the prim and proper conference from NASA.

The Dragon mission briefing is about to begin, so off I go. :)

Re: Secret cargo?

The secret cargo this time was the ashes of James Doohan, Gordon Cooper, and 306 other people who are all still in orbit for the next year on the spent second stage of the Falcon 9

Re: Next term at LSE: MBA in Spaaaace!

ParcelForce? Cheaper? Maybe, but you don't really want your space cargo to arrive a completely different shape and functionality (ie broken)..