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The Dragon Ascendant - Commercial Space Flight Takes A Major Step Forward
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, if you haven't heard, SpaceX has successfully launched their Dragon spacecraft on a mission to dock and resupply the ISS:
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/spacex-dragon-launch-succeeds-now-comes-the-hard-part.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
There's still a lot to do with testing the craft and getting it safely docked, but this is a historic moment - commercial space flight is moving forward.
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/spacex-dragon-launch-succeeds-now-comes-the-hard-part.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
There's still a lot to do with testing the craft and getting it safely docked, but this is a historic moment - commercial space flight is moving forward.
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I saw an infographic a while ago showing the maneuvers the craft would be making in perpetration for docking with the ISS. Very interesting. It doesn't fly right in of course; what if something were to go wrong, with this newfangled, remote opperated, private space craft? Well the ISS has imaginary boundaries around it, inside which travel is restricted. So Dragon will come to a relative stop outside this zone and perform some test maneuvers to verify that all systems are working properly. Simply stuff, like forward backward, rolling, pitching etc. It will then be cleared by NASA to move closer to the ISS. Within 10m of the station the craft will halt, and the crew of the ISS will use the arm to grasp the craft and dock it manually. The crew can call off the attempt at any time, so can NASA.
It was just a neat reminder to me how much planning and co-ordination goes into a "simple" docking procedure.
A few links of note:
A satellite orbit tracker, showing the real-time orbits of the ISS and Dragon
A recording of the live commented webcast from SpaceX during the launch (see spoiler). It starts 11 seconds before launch, and concludes shortly after solar panel deployment.
http://www.space.com/15853-spacex-dragon-spaceship-pictures.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: spaceheadlines (SPACE.com Headline Feed)
It would take way more fuel and/or hardware than is feasible to do so. Remember, an orbit of around 245 miles in altitude is an extremely low orbit despite how it sounds.
And if you want to get to the sun, you can't do that by shooting at it directly, since the Earth is moving 30km/s to the side. Instead, you shoot opposite the direction you're moving to cancel out that sideways momentum, so it can fall straight in. Also remember, with orbits, it's just as difficult to move closer to the object you're orbiting as it is to move further away.
Also, haven't done the math recently, but I seem to remember it being cheaper to loft something out of the solar system entirely than to get it to impact the sun.
Likewise SpaceX will shortly be testing "Grasshopper" in Texas, the auto-landing 100% re-usable Falcon 9 first stage.
If they pull this off, they'll be able to reuse most of the craft. Which will make their prices per lift go down.
EDIT: New docking estimate at around 10:40 AM EST.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
Edit: Or the NASA TV channel that should be available on any cable or satellite provider's service
It was... well... it was boring to watch, but epic for what it represented. Seeing both control rooms applaud and joke with each other afterwards was kind of cool.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I don't think NASA trusts them to be able to dock on their own.
But well before they locked in with the arm, the dragon achieved 100% perfect sync in orbit and space with the ISS, and lined up a perfect shot for the arm, such that they accomplished the docking an hour ahead of schedule.
It was smooth sailing.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I think that's SOP for all noncrewed craft after what happened to Mir (an accident had a Progress rear end it.)
Wait, so all you have to do to get at a Dragon's loot is perform a mating ritual with it first?
My RPG sessions are going to be much weirder from now on...
Commercial space travel will never lead to exploration. But, hopefully this will free up NASA's budget so that we can go to strange new places.
Space travel is very different from any other form of exploration if jsut for the sheer cost and safety considerations.
Unless we find a thing that is worth money out there (and we would find it through NASA missions) companies won't be footing the bill.
I don't know if I would class planting a few flags on the moon and a handful of robots on and around the planets with the exploration of the Americas or the westward expansion. The space race was exploring in the same way that walking backwards to the mailbox is exploring.
Uh huh. One of the greatest technical achievements of mankind is just like walking backwards to a mailbox.
Methinks you know not what you speak.
I tried politeness and instead you tried to say I was going down a gooseroad so I thought, why not be a dick
Again, apologies.
What
No, the gooseroad came after you were a jackass.
I spend more time dealing with people who can't read/don't care to double-check before shooting their mouth off than discussing things in this subforum.
To show that I was being honest with that, let me break it down as I read it. Perhaps it was not misrepresentation on my part, perhaps instead it was simply you not being clear. Either way, we can get down to the nitty gritty of it:
The space race was a lot more than "planting a few flags on the moon and a handful of robots on and around planets..." and it is certainly, at least in my opinion, in the same class as westward expansion and colonization if only for the technical aspects required. It also kicked off an age of exploration (via satellites and robots because it turns out putting people in space is hard, expensive, and dangerous) that continues to today.
It wasn't done for material so much as tactical profit in the beginning which goes to your original statement of "I don't know any exploration ages that didn't start off for profit."
And even going there, the age of exploration was started by governments and government created companies, not private enterprise. It was only after colonies proved viable that private industry, for lack of a better term, came into the picture.
I wouldn't say easier at all, except perhaps technologically speaking. Their fruitfulness was probably about even. There are very few pieces of technology we use right now that didn't come from the space race in some fashion. I'm saying they're equals on the human endeavor spectrum, not that one is better than the other.
It's true, performing a successful cargo run is still a long way from having a reliable crewed craft. Then again, NASA and Roscosmos have had a fair share of crewed vehicle failures in their time. Hopefully such incidents can be reduced with what we know about past events. In my view, unless NASA had a massive increase in its budget the switch to commercial LEO vehicles was inevitable. There are so many better uses for funding than having a suite of vehicles designed and operated in-house.