Reply to post: What's it really all about?

What's it really all about?

The article states:

"the Crew Dragon [2] is currently just another way to get to and from the ISS (which will almost certainly be a home for fish at some point within the next 10 years). Going further afield requires NASA's Orion capsule, which is still a year or so away from its first SLS flight."

Then again, you could say that the Mercury spacecraft (at the time of its first manned mission in 1958) was just another way to lob a man up high and bring him back down again. But it was the first big step in a development programme which led to the Apollo spacecraft that ferried Neil, Buzz, and Michael to lunar orbit a mere 11 years later.

SpaceX is currently working on flying two Starship "test articles" this year - you know, non-space-going versions of its planned beyond-LEO crewed spacecraft. Yes, that puts it currently behind the Orion test and development schedule: the first space flight of an Orion test craft was on 5th December 2014, but would you bet against SpaceX's schedule being able to catch up with Boeing and friends? - especially since the next space flight planned for Orion is in mid-2020.

To me, it looks like SpaceX has just flown a crew-capable spacecraft on a test mission as part of a development programme leading to the craft's use in the near future by a paying customer on missions that are pretty certainly going to happen, and that's great. And it's working on developing a spacecraft for beyond LEO work too.

In the meantime, the SLS hasn't flown with (or without) the Orion spacecraft. They're both still under development, as is SpaceX's Starship/Super Heavy spacecraft/launcher combination (formerly known as the BFR system), which last time I looked is intended to be able to out-do the planned performance of the SLS/Orion combination.

Crew Dragon 2 is operational, if not fully evaluated. The Orion MPCV and Starship are works in progress. Different types of creature entirely.

It's like this: SpaceX is proving its currently operational second generation orbital spacecraft while developing a beyond-LEO capable spacecraft and launch system. The "usual suspects" are working on something similar, only they're revamping old technology in their attempt to get the SLS and Orion combination operational - okay, calling Orion "old tech" is quite unfair (the shape might have come from the 1960s, but I bet very little else has), but the SLS certainly is old hat, what with those solid fuel engines straight from the 1970s. I don't doubt that the SLS/Orion setup will work well. What I'm not so sure about is that it'll ever see serious use, not if SpaceX's plans come off. If nothing else, SpaceX has shown that it can put things into orbit a good deal cheaper than the competition.