Crew Dragon [video]
spacex.com
spacex.com
This spacecraft looks really nice. Amazing that a luxury ride like this will be the most inexpensive option for American astronauts (at least, as far as we can tell right now).
Why do you think so? Russians are charging a steep price because of their monopoly, but it doesn't mean they have similarly high costs. As soon as a competitor surfaces, they can reduce the price. Do you think SpaceX will be able to compete on price? Why?
They built their platform from scratch. The Russians are using 1960s tech still.
It also helps SpaceX that Russia is always threatening to embargo exports of their rocket motors. Better to have a homegrown supplier versus being dependent on Vlad.
Yes, but SpaceX makes rather different ship from scratch. Crew Dragon should be nicer to ride than Soyuz - more space, better aerodynamics. But better qualities don't mean less price.
> The Russians are using 1960s tech still.
Yes, but that makes some tech more flight-proven and amortized over time. Like rockets - Soyuz and Proton are old, but quite inexpensive (albeit with reliability issues lately). At the same time, lots of internals of Soyuz were changed.
> It also helps SpaceX that Russia is always threatening to embargo exports of their rocket motors.
Fully agree here. But that's not quite economical issue.
Also, I feel like the video is missing a Jony Ive Voiceover.
While I'm sure it's not the case, this seems like something SpaceX designed before talking to astronauts (and I doubt that's actually the case). However, it's a crew transport and not payload transport, so their space (volume, that is) considerations could be much less particular.
They mention they have nice windows to get a good view of things. Might they be planning to use this capsule for space tourism? (i.e., send a few people up to do an orbit or two and give them a chance to get out of their seats and move about.)
http://www.zmescience.com/space/spacex-reusable-rocket-100-t...
It seems like those are emergency signals... but I wonder what "DEORBIT NEXT" means?
And also... It seems like an interesting choice to not have physical buttons, especially if they are going to be in some sort of spacesuit.
No idea about the digital buttons...
Of course, one could argue that in both cases it depends on the implementation. Nonetheless, I think it's fun to think about what kind of buttons would the average person prefer, when their life is on the line.
Um, that's a use case?
"Mars? Screw that. Let's hit the ISS for lunch first."
Especially during take off or re-entry I'd imagine a touch screen would be super hard to use in a violently shaking vehicle.
Yes, that probably means astronauts --as well as other domain experts and stake holders-- are in the design loop.
Is this the final design? Probably not. Any engineer looking at this knows exactly what this is: An evolutionary step towards a solution.
Ease-up folks, you are being given a front seat to a pretty amazing moment in our history: Humans travelling and landing on another planet.
I, for one, can't wait.
I know it's a TV show, but holy crap, we are on our way...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmQsrXLofMY
...enjoy the ride.
Every system has a direct mechanical/elctro-mechanical connection override in case of an emergency and every thing is redundant to the point of mechanically operating the heat deflector and opening the chutes.
Touch screens and capacitive buttons are nice but that capsule has more room than an SUV while every other spacecraft we had had less leg room than flying coach so would be interesting to see what they've had to give up to get that.
The ride to and from orbit itself doesn’t take that long (measured in minutes) and indeed doesn’t really require a lot of space for human passengers. The space is for the rest of the journey, which normally also should go by quickly (a couple hours), at least with the modern approach they use to get to the ISS, but can take longer depending on the exact circumstances (a couple days). The recent Soyuz trip to the ISS took two days instead of a couple hours because ISS had just completed an obviously unplanned debris avoidance maneuver.
But and it's a big but the space is separated which means a great deal this means that the Soyuz orbital module can be used to bring cargo to the ISS the space in the Dragon capsule is really just wasted, there's no way there will be cargo in there no matter how well tied down during lift off no human flight program ever had anything in the cabin that wasn't a part of the space craft or needed for life support / emergency, so it's still a bloody waste of space.
compare with : http://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/ima...
(and that is the 21th century "TMA" version where "M" stands for modernized and "A" for anthropometric :)
On the other hand, the whole craft weight just above 7 tons - and that's with almost 9 cubic meters of internal volume, and lots of systems still using analog electronics. And, by the way, without toxic propellants in the capsule. Granted, today one can - and should - do better. We'll see.
Wait, are we still talking about a spacecraft?
Other than PR they play technicians to plug all the experiment modules to laboratories in the ISS and are guinea pigs for various experiments which are conducted on the astronauts them selves so they'll do an ultrasound of their eyes, keep a log of their feelings and take blood samples when needed.
"Although I pay dues, I don’t interact much with the planetary society. My last experiences with them was Carl Sagan arguing for more robotic exploration and abandoning manned space exploration. Making the universe safe for robots. Larry Niven told Sagan 'Carl, I hope you realize that every time you get a convert , you lose support for space exploration. People don’t hold ticker tape parades for robots.'”
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/why-icann-is-import...