
SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station - lultimouomo
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-03/spacex-crew-dragon-docks-with-international-space-station
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Klathmon
Congratulations to the team at SpaceX!

They are opening the hatch right now on the stream if anyone here wants to
watch along [https://youtu.be/21X5lGlDOfg](https://youtu.be/21X5lGlDOfg)

~~~
api
I really hoped they would hide a rubber face hugger next to Ripley, but I
doubt it. Such a missed opportunity.

~~~
clort
If I were those guys up there, I would check the chest cavity, just to be
sure..

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zargath
Fantastic, very impressive.

But somewhere inside (my little star-wars/trek spirit), I wish that it was not
so tricky. That we all could just travel and explore the universe.

Everybody always talk about how difficult it is in space and how much better
earth is. Wish the debate would be more about all the possibilities in space
or on other planets. What can we do with zero gravity? For all the bad things
with living on Mars, could there be some amazing benefits, new materials and
so on..

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JohnJamesRambo
I honestly don’t see any benefits to living on Mars until every inch of space
on Earth is used up. Everything about living on Mars is hostile to life. Doing
anything there like mining and manufacturing will be orders of magnitude more
difficult and for what? To say we are somewhere else that looks like the
Atacama but infinitely more difficult to get to? It seems silly to be trying
to rush to a place that wants to kill you when we have a great place here
already that we could just stop messing up.

~~~
simplicio
Yea, I think a good demonstration is Antarctica. Antarctica is both much more
accessible and much more hospitable than Mars. But there's very little human
activity there.

It's hard to imagine there's an economic case for Mars or the Moon while
Antarctica remains undeveloped.

~~~
dwaltrip
Antartica is not a stepping stone to further and greater endeavors out into
the cosmos It's more of a "dead end", cosmically speaking. This is why it
doesn't have same interest or appeal.

There are also other reasons. You can't learn about the possibility of life on
other planets in Antartica, and seek to answer one of the greatest questions
of all time: "are we alone?". You can't closely study another planet in
Antartica. You can't be a brave new explorer seeing incredible places for the
very first time in Antartica. There are far less new scientific and
engineering challenges in Antartica whose solutions will greatly benefit
everyone here on Earth. And so on.

Note, these things are true for any next-gen space endeavor in our corner of
the solar system. It doesn't have to be Mars, or even just Mars. For example,
we could build larger and more advanced facilities and machinery in LEO, while
also building a small base on the moon and exploring Mars for the first time.

~~~
greglindahl
Antarctica is a great place to do science, and the majority of the activity at
the US South Pole base is currently astronomy. Mars and the Moon will pass
through that sort of phase before they might become actual colonies.

~~~
dwaltrip
Yeah, I don't mean to put down Antartica. I think the research we do there is
very cool, and we should keep doing what we can there. But it isn't even close
to an alternative to humanity pushing further out into space.

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samcday
I'm sitting on my couch, just idly watching live footage of some people doing
stuff 200 miles above me. Above the place I will spend the entirety of my
life. Watching them do complicated things that, if we're lucky and don't
destroy ourselves first, will ensure our species becomes multi-planetary.
Maybe even space faring someday.

Life is weird.

~~~
spookyuser
I watched Free Solo not long ago, yesterday I watched Falcon 9 launch then
land flawlessly and today I watched Dragon 2 dock with the ISS.

It's mind boggling how apt humans are to what should be impossible.

~~~
samcday
Oooh, I'm eagerly awaiting that film to screen in Berlin later this month! I
loved Alex's TED talk. Just that little taste had my palms very, very sweaty.

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mandeepj
Which film?

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Joe-Z
Apparently there's a documentary coming out about Alex Honnold's free solo
ascend of El Capitan. It's called "Free Solo"[1]

[1]
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7775622/?ref_=nv_sr_1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7775622/?ref_=nv_sr_1)

~~~
lintroller
It was already released and won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at the
2019 Academy Awards.

It's something that you should consider viewing if you have the chance. The
cinematography alone is worth the price of admission // rental.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/movies/oscar-
winners.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/movies/oscar-winners.html)

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vilius
My “cool things to do once in a lifetime” list just got a new item - Watch
SpaceX send humans to ISS. There is this strange urge to actually witness my
species achieving great things.

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whatislovecraft
That's definitely neat, but why not aim higher? Depending on your age?

I'm in my 30s: My goal here is to live on Mars. SpaceX's colony is aimed at
being able to support 1M people, with something like 80,000 leaving Earth each
Mars transit window on a BFR/Starship. Save some money now, wait 20-30 years
for them to get the initial _hard colony built_ and then buy my ticket.

Might not work, but I think I'll at least get close. You can definitely aim
higher than watching them send people to ISS! That'll happen in the next few
months/years, but _so much more_ is happening after that, like the 7 people
going around the Moon, or the first Mars launches on Starship, etc!

Woo!

(and lol that this is at -3, I'm just excited about stuff okay? no need to
bury it deep underground and hate it so much!)

~~~
vilius
I like you ambition. However I seem to become more conservative and nostalgic
with age. The thought of going on a one-way trip to Mars when you are 60 is
scary. It is probably too cold and monochromatic for my taste.

But thank you for the idea of longer term goals - "Experience zero-gravity and
see Earth from outer atmosphere" is now on the list.

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sixothree
Virgin Galactic might make that happen sooner than later.

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isostatic
They’ve been promising that since spaceship one, 15 years ago.

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areoform
Do you ever wonder how people felt when they say Magellan or Captain Cook set
off? Or, when they watched the Apollo missions happen?

I'm guessing that this is what it felt like. We're at the dawn of a new space
age.

~~~
isostatic
Soyuz takes people to the space station every few months, has done for years.

Why is this specific mission new?

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Klathmon
It costs about $81 million USD per seat round-trip to go to ISS on Soyuz.
SpaceX is doing the same for around $58 million per person (last I read). That
alone is a HUGE deal. And that cost is expected to drop as SpaceX gets more
comfortable with launching humans, whereas Soyuz has been raising prices.

Not to mention that it's increasing the number of countries and rocket designs
that can send people to and from the ISS. Without alternate launch providers,
if some flaw were to be found in Soyuz or political issues begin to get in the
way of launches, then the US could find itself unable to get astronauts to and
from the ISS safely.

Boeing is also in this race, and will be sending up humans to space in their
Starliner soon as well, it's still up in the air which will get to the with
humans on board ISS first.

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rayiner
A cost reduction of less than 50% for something that the Russians have been
doing routinely with 1960s technology is akin to Magellan setting sail? I like
SpaceX but man the spin is blinding.

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oldgradstudent
The cost reduction is relative to the price Russia charges, not compared to
their costs.

Supposedly[1], it was $23 million in 2007. but Russia raised the prices since
then. The cost of the Soyuz to the Russians could well be lower than SpaceX
still.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20090604111935/http://www.kommer...](https://web.archive.org/web/20090604111935/http://www.kommersant.com/t795701/r_3/n_25/Space_Rocket_Launch/)

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buboard
Nice that it went flawlessly, the first stage landed back well, and they
reached the ISS a bit ahead of time. They even did some intentional back and
forth maneuvers to test the dragon. Do they need more tests before the manned
flight?

~~~
Klathmon
They still need to do an in-flight abort test, which i'm super excited for.

They are going to send the whole thing up a second time (I believe they will
be using this EXACT Crew Dragon capsule after it comes back down), but this
time they will abort the launch mid-flight around max Q which will trigger the
capsule to eject safely away from the explosion behind it.

It's going to be quite the sight, and if everything goes to plan the first
stage will basically be blown up and the dragon capsule will rocket away in a
"Cool guys don't look at explosions" style!

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legohead
For anyone that hasn't seen the ground abort test:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_FXVjf46T8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_FXVjf46T8)

It's pretty rocking.

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rplnt
I wonder if this one is still valid (for the human certification) as it was
done with a very different capsule. Wasn't there a new one since?

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Klathmon
Yeah the current Crew Dragon is different and needs to be "re-certified" for
at least some things. NASA wants the exact configuration used to be validated.

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xfitm3
When I was a kid I always thought about what it would be like growing up in
the 60s - ultimately watching a man land on the moon. I tried my best to live
vicariously through documentaries. I'm humbled to be around during this boom.

Watching a launch live in 1080p? With footage from the craft and booster?
Truly amazing.

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jasonwen
Amazing achievement. Next step is a successfull return to Earth on 8th March.

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jayess
> No astronauts or humans were on board the maiden flight, which completed the
> initial link to the ISS about 5:51 a.m. Eastern time.

Is there a difference?

~~~
Retric
First astronauts where animals. [https://www.space.com/17764-laika-first-
animals-in-space.htm...](https://www.space.com/17764-laika-first-animals-in-
space.html)

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basicplus2
On a tangent..

if advances in space travel are to be done by private means, does paying
company profits become the new tax to do the things that government previously
did?

Is there a presumption that the rich/corporations "know whats best" for
humanity?

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bamboozled
Does anyone else find the title confusing? What's a "Crew Dragon"?

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mikejb
It's a dragon spacecraft, but with configuration for crew. Hence Crew Dragon

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Klathmon
To explain a bit more, this is "Dragon 2", the second (major) version of
SpaceX's capsule.

It has multiple configurations, one for crew, one for cargo, and possibly
others.

This launch was significant as it was the first time they sent the crew
configuration up as a demo and had it do automated docking procedures to dock
(the old dragon had a more complex and manual docking procedure).

For simplicity sake, they tend to refer to this one as "Crew Dragon" to
signify that it's in the crew configuration.

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amedvednikov
Congratulations to SpaceX!

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zeofig
Is it weird that the title brought only one word into my head: Shadman?

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jonplackett
"No astronauts or humans were on board the maiden flight"

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zimlu
This got me giggling too

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tjpnz
It looks like we're finally getting the spacecraft we previously only
experienced in Sci-fi. It must've been a surreal experience for the astronauts
and cosmonaut entering the capsule for the first time.

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warp_factor
Congratulation to SpaceX.

That being said, we should take a step back and stop drinking the Elon Musk
Koolaid. This has been done flawlessly by Russian Soyouz hundreds of times
over the last decades (with almost no failures). This has also been done with
the Shuttle.

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napsterbr
Docking to the ISS? Sure. But a reusable first stage? _That_ has tremendous
implications and had never been done.

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warp_factor
The landing of first stage is definitely worth celebrating. But I honestly
don't get all the hype about today's news:

\- SpaceX already sent multiple times almost the same capsule to the ISS
before for cargo. Today's launch is just a small modification of those ones.

\- Soyuz is mundanely sending astronauts all the time to ISS.

~~~
_Microft
It isn't _almost the same capsule_. That was discussed during the post-launch
press conference. It's almost a complete redesign and they actually regretted
not using more of Dragon 1.

