
SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down After Historic Test Flight - LinuxBender
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacex-crew-dragon-splashes-down-after-historic-test-flight/
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ChuckMcM
This is a better article on the recovery than the one I linked from
TechCrunch.

I would like to reiterate the point made before which is that SpaceX is on the
verge of being in a place that no company has ever been before with regard to
space.

The are on the cusp of having a capsule that they can send into orbit for days
and then return to Earth. They already have rockets capable of putting tons of
material into every orbit level (Low, mid, and geo-stationary). SpaceX is also
nearing completion of their own launch facility in Texas.

When all of those things are added together, SpaceX can do space 'tourism'
like nobody else. They could offer a 'day trip' on a Dragon into orbit. By
partnering with Bigelow Aerospace[1] they could launch a habitat into orbit
where they could ferry their own paying customers to spend a week in space.
With their own launch facility they are freed from the scheduling hassles of
the dozens of other clients who compete for space on those launch pads.

That would definitely feel like living in the future to me.

[1] [https://www.bigelowspaceops.com/](https://www.bigelowspaceops.com/)

~~~
Tuna-Fish
They are unlikely to do this at this point.

The big problem is that while the capsule will be reusable, since NASA killed
the propulsive landing for Dragon 2, it now needs to splash down in saltwater
and therefore is not considered safe for humans after the first use.

This makes Dragon 2:s too expensive for large-scale space tourism. Unless
there is suddenly a huge market for this, I think SpaceX would prefer to sell
interested space tourism customers flights on Starship instead.

~~~
sourkremlin
where did you hear that dragon 2 is not safe for humans after splashdown?
that's not accurate

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trashaccount123
Can confirm it’s not accurate.

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alexanderdmitri
thank you for the confirmation trashaccount123

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yingw787
And it's a wrap! A big congratulations for all those who made this possible,
public and private entities. The United States has almost restored its ability
to send manned crews to space, via re-usable, cheap, and privately
funded/sustained spaceflight as a bonus.

To LEO, the Moon, Mars, and beyond!

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randomsearch
SpaceX is an antidote to the idea that home food delivery is great innovation.
It’s a beacon to nerds everywhere. You may not be able to build a space
company, but spend at least some of your time and skills doing things that are
truly _new_.

~~~
ric2b
Space is cooler than home deliveries, but pretty much all economic evolution
comes from ordinary things getting much cheaper, not crazy things becoming
possible but still absurdely expensive.

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zaroth
Is there any more technical data on performance during re-entry (was there any
issue will roll?) and at splashdown (how did the parachutes perform?)

Those were the two big question marks from what I understand.

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WestCoastJustin
There is a great 2h+ video, recorded live from earlier today, that soft-
answers a couple of these questions. There was a panel discussion with NASA
folks [2], where they talk about some successes of re-entry and parachutes
deployment. You can watch the parachutes deployment yourself [3]. But, I think
they will be sifting through this data for a few weeks before you have hard
answers. Reddit is also a super active place for early news via
[https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex).

It is also incredible that we can watch all this real-time too. Just amazing!

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aAe0GWIWGI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aAe0GWIWGI)

[2] [https://youtu.be/8aAe0GWIWGI?t=6219](https://youtu.be/8aAe0GWIWGI?t=6219)

[3] [https://youtu.be/8aAe0GWIWGI?t=4303](https://youtu.be/8aAe0GWIWGI?t=4303)

~~~
xvf22
I watched and and while to me it seemed like there was a whole lot of
buffeting / oscillation it very well could have been much less or more than a
Soyuz. Unsurprisingly I don't have the domain experience to judge it and would
appreciate some perspective from those in the know.

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zaroth
I am so damn proud of what SpaceX has accomplished!

At the same time, it just seems a bit lame to watch this whiplashing splash
down in the ocean with parachutes instead of a perfectly smooth VTOL landing
on a pad.

Particularly as the chutes seems to billow and twist, one seemed to trade
positions with another which I’m sure is fine but in the moment seemed
worrisome, and the craft bobbing and twisting at the end of the ropes...

Is the ultimate longer term plan a Dragon that can land properly under its own
power?

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grey-area
They thought about it, but no, the ultimate long term plan is that huge
shining steel starships will take off and land on the same pad carrying lots
more people or cargo. Some things are easier when you’re bigger.

~~~
zaroth
Apparently the SuperDracos have the necessary thrust and fuel to bring Dragon
to a stop from terminal velocity, Dragon just lacks the landing gear.

So then why not use that to slow down just before a splash down?

Perhaps if you throttle them down to the point where the G-force is
reasonable, the losses to gravity add up too quickly and you run out of
thrust. Too bad :-(

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Faark
The primary reasons they don't do this are likely economic, but the hypergolic
fuel used by SuperDracos also isn't particularly healthy [0].

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/29qwj9/how_toxic_wi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/29qwj9/how_toxic_will_the_superdraco_exhaust_be/)

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8bitsrule
Goin a little 'get off my lawn' : what's the big deal here? What's it leading
to? Where is it taking us? What's the return on all of the investment (except
further enriching a few of the right pockets)?

We aren't going to the stars. We're not colonizing space. Do we need to mine
resources off-planet because we waste so many resources on-planet? Our robotic
solar system explorers don't really need any help.

OTOH, we are destroying the spaceship we were born on, with so many
indifferent tactics that it sometimes almost seems planned. Other, helpless
species are disappearing regularly. So I find it hard to feel celebratory
about these minor victories on the way to ... ???

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anovikov
Who knows the actual weights? How much did the capsule weight dry? Consumables
ex. fuel and pressurization gas for it? Fuel and pressurization gas? Trunk
section? All data i can find is extremely contradictory and makes an
impression that project went way way way out of it's initial mass budget and
SpaceX is trying to conceal it to avoid losing face, as it exposes troubles
managing the project. Ofc it's not a deal breaker, as F9 rocket has grown in
capability a great log along the way too, but still?

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sidcool
SpaceX has single handedly revived the space industry over the past decade.
Kudos and Good luck!

~~~
isostatic
Rovers on asteroids, landing on comets, exploring rocks on the edge of the
solar system, returning asteroid samples to earth, landing on the far side of
the moon, orbiting mercury

But sure, single handedly.

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Gravityloss
Nice work, but they have flown and landed capsules for many years already.

It's still well possible congress will find a way to prevent crewed flights.
Or there might some Falcon 9 mishap.

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oldgradstudent
Could anyone explain what is historic about this test flight? Why is that so
different from a bog standard Soyuz or Mercury/Gemini/Apollo?

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robbiep
If you read the article you’d probably be able to work it out, but
essentially:

\- it marks the return of American human launch capabilities after a several
year hiatus from the retirement of the space shuttle

\- it is being done on by a private company (with government funding), which
is unprecedented

\- dragon crew is intended to be reusable (in opposition to
Shuttle/mercury/Gemini/Apollo

\- the capsule is designed to have inflight abort capability, which is
unprecedented and a differentiator from the Boeing effort (previous abort
capability came from a ‘towed’ approach (the big pointy thing on top of
Apollo) and was only available on the pad, not in-flight, so if something goes
wrong during flight the crew is probably buggered)

(Edit: removed Soyuz from list of non-in flight abort capsules)

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geuis
Question about the inflight abort: Soyuz has this too. It was used a few
months ago when a launch to the ISS went non-nominal. How is the one on Crew
Dragon different?

~~~
robbiep
You’re right. I believe the Soyuz uses two modes, the first is architecturally
similar to the Apollo system (ie uses the ‘towed’ mode) whereas the crew
dragon has abort built into the capsule.

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avmich
Soyuz has one "tower", which can work both before liftoff
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_7K-ST_No._16L](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_7K-ST_No._16L)
and in flight.

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pageandrew
How do they plan to land it when humans are aboard?

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willio58
Into the ocean just like the test. This is how it is always done with the
exception of the space shuttle program I believe.

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walrus01
In terms of capsule spacecraft, by volume of recoveries, mercury/gemini/apollo
using the ocean are actually a statistical anomaly compared to the total
number of successful land based Soyuz + Shenzhou recoveries.

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basicplus2
Film...

[https://youtu.be/gsIkeFaC1vg](https://youtu.be/gsIkeFaC1vg)

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phkahler
I wish they wouldn't call it historic. What word will they use when it
Carrie's actual people?

~~~
lostapathy
That will also be historic. History is made every day.

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bangelo
So I'm a fan of spacex in the sense that they're taking an atraditional
approach to space exploration and colonization. However, our current ride to
space has been operating reliably since 1978, we've been building and sending
large space stations up since the early 70s. Spacex only very recently got
their closed cycle engine working, the pinnacle of rocket efficiency, catching
up to, again, early 1970s Russian technology. Taking the human out of the loop
by automating Dragon is great, but remember, we sent three humans to the moon
in, you guessed it, the 70s, with less computing power than my toaster oven.
Hats off to the team for what they've done thus far. it's a momentous
achievement for the private sector, but they have a ways to go before any kind
of groundbreaking achievements. Fantastic marketing though |)

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agildehaus
I like how you list all these things and entirely leave out the landing an
orbital class rocket, which no private company nor governmental agency has
ever done.

They're also pretty much doing it all themselves for a fraction of the price
due to vertical integration, which is also unique.

Raptor is a full-flow staged combustion engine. Others have been made, yes,
but none have flown. Right now Raptor is the only methalox variety of such an
engine to ever reach a test stand.

~~~
avmich
Agree. As it's usually the case, they achieve a lot by standing on the
shoulders of giants, but they achieve nevertheless. Space Shuttle was
splashing down solid boosters since early 80's - but SpaceX lands softly
liquid first stages, which require much less pampering to prepare for the next
flight. Capsules are built and flown since early 60's - but SpaceX first tests
a capsule for more than 3 people. And reuses a cargo spacecraft after
splashdowns. And has lots of launches per year of a rather heavy rocket
(previously some years have seen similar activities with Soyuz rockets, but
then a government was fully behind it). And all of that in commercial
environment, not when a government first articulates the orders, even though
SpaceX has to adapt to then a great deal.

