

Space Station grabs SpaceX Dragon ship - mocko
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18195772

======
ak217
[2008] "Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we're going to make it happen. As God
is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work."
(<http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2008/08/musk_qa>)

Elon Musk doesn't seem like the easiest person to work with, but I'm having a
hard time thinking of a more accomplished human.

~~~
morsch
The enthusiasm shown for this accomplishment on Hacker News is borderline
ridiculous. This comment seems particularly over the top to me. What does this
even mean, how do you measure the attribute of "being accomplished" on a 1d
scale across vastly different _kinds_ of accomplishment? To me it seems
obvious that some of the medical accomplishments of the past 100 years are
easily and vastly more important than a private space launch, but I wouldn't
normally compare those things in such a manner. I had to rewrite this
paragraph multiple times because it feels so bizarre. I haven't even touched
on the question whether and to what degree you can ascribe an accomplishment
of a group of people to an individual, which makes the whole comparison even
stranger and less meaningful.

I mean, I guess some people here subscribe to the notion that space travel is
imperative for human survival. In that case, you might argue that each step
towards it is more valuable than anything else that does not immediately push
towards human space travel. Human space travel will save humanity, your piddly
vaccine only saves a couple of hundred million people. But that seems a
bizarre argument to make (and maybe that's why one really makes it).

Edit: -3 in one hour? Wow. For what it's worth, I made this comment in good
faith.

~~~
srl
I too find the enthusiasm, displayed here and on reddit and everywhere in
between, for this to be patently ridiculous, although not for the same
reasons. I'm a great fan of space exploration, in all forms - observation,
robotic, and human - but this docking is simply _not_ a significant event. Not
in space exploration terms, and not in the grander scheme of human activity.
It is neither a scientific nor a societal accomplishment, it showcases neither
innovation nor courage. It's just - something that happened. Something that
happened roughly on a monthly basis until a few months ago. I don't care.

I think a great deal of the enthusiasm stems from the fact that it's a private
company doing this, and not a government. Well, I'm most emphatically _not_
enthusiastic about that. In fact, it smells rather dystopian. Governments can,
with care, be kept under control. However bad corruption gets, democratic
governments will always be bound to the electorate. Corporations - no. I don't
want space exploration to be led by a private company, and certainly not by a
small group of insanely rich individuals. As much as I admire Elon Musk - and
Jeff Bezos, and all the others trying to get us back into space - these people
are not the ones who ought to be leading us.

Part of my discomfort with this course of events is no doubt just my personal
political views - I'm about as far left as you can go. But what's happening
also reminds me of some of Heinlein's stories - when space exploration was
fueled by money, human rights (especially the collective right of self
determination) fell by the wayside.

If the cost of going to space is the permanent privatization of exploration, I
can't be enthusiastic about it.

~~~
sasha-dv
_It is neither a scientific nor a societal accomplishment, it showcases
neither innovation nor courage. It's just - something that happened._

While governments are cutting down their budgets for scientific research and
basically accepting the status quo regarding the spaceflight, there's this guy
from Africa doing something extraordinary and you see no innovation or
courage?

If you describe what happened today as "there was this thing that came close
to some robotic arm or something, and then the arm slowly captured it, and ...
that's about it.", then I agree with you - that is boring. But, that's not
what happened today.

Today we saw one guy's _insane_ vision becoming reality. And if that is not
something I don't know what is. And what's even more exciting about it is that
this is just the beginning.

 _Governments can, with care, be kept under control. However bad corruption
gets, democratic governments will always be bound to the electorate.
Corporations - no._

Aren't corporations regulated by the laws made by the governments elected by
the electorate?

~~~
srl
_there's this guy from Africa doing something extraordinary_ ... _Today we saw
one guy's insane vision becoming reality._

What happened today is only different because it was not government-funded[0].
I'm not allergic to the idea of government doing things (I agree with Barney
Frank that "government is just the name for the things we decide to do
together"), and so I really don't consider it to be interesting, or
extraordinary, or insane. It's exactly what many others have done, just funded
differently.

 _Aren't corporations regulated by the laws made by the governments elected by
the electorate?_

The obvious, cliche response is "not nowadays". But, more helpfully - who has
jurisdiction in space?

That is my fear. At the moment, the power with jurisdiction in space is the
power that can get to space. And I want that power to be elected.

Up until now, space operations have always been nonpartisan, co-operative, and
peaceful. As eager as I am for humans to go further, I can't help but think
that if we can't maintain that way of doing things - if humanity must, in
order to get to space, give up on the hope of universal rights and self-
determination (meaning democratically elected bodies of power) - then we're
not ready. If we can't decide to go to space cooperatively, as one unit - if a
few lucky individuals have to do it for us, _even if they're right_ (which I
believe they are), then we're not ready to go.

[0] That's a lie, of course. It _was_ partially government-funded, because the
promise of contracts with NASA et al is what's making this possible (to my
understanding). But that's beyond my argument.

~~~
nknight
> _Up until now, space operations have always been nonpartisan, co-operative,
> and peaceful._

Oh please. Space operations grew directly out of unbridled Cold War
militarism, and have been pure political football at least since the approval
of the absolutely insane space shuttle program.

I want high taxes, I want big government, I want single-payer health care, I
want a welfare and social security system that makes Scandinavia look like a
libertarian wasteland. I want ten times the corporate regulation we have now.

But there is no reason for the government to be the primary driver or provider
of routine space launch services, especially when it's done such a piss-poor
job of it since Apollo.

Private companies like SpaceX have ample incentive to advance the state of the
art in launch services and are demonstrably doing so for less than the
government has ever managed before. NASA can and should take advantage of
that.

------
Arjuna
I mentioned this yesterday, but I believe Reisman's quote really captures that
feeling we are all having about SpaceX and particularly their first ISS
mission:

Pelley: _"You know, I'm curious... you have so much background in engineering,
you could have easily gotten a job at Boeing, or at Lockheed, but you came
here..."_

Reisman: _"If you had a chance to go back in time, and work with Howard Hughes
when he was creating TWA, if you had a chance to be there, at that moment,
when it was the dawn of a brand new era, wouldn't you want to do that? I mean,
that's why I'm here."_ [1][2]

[1] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNwg8FvfuuU#t=425>

[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Reisman>

------
christiangenco
Here's an animated gif of it docking:
[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/123449/dragon/Dragon%20docking%20wit...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/123449/dragon/Dragon%20docking%20with%20ISS.gif)

~~~
stevenleeg
For anyone who wants a smoother video version of this,

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_NBoSFpykY>

------
cobrausn
My favorite quote about this is from Don Pettit, right as the ISS grabbed the
Dragon capsule.

"Looks like we've got a Dragon by the tail," station flight engineer Don
Pettit said moments after grappling the craft over northwest Australia.

<http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/status.html>

~~~
Maxious
And after that "okay, this was a great sim. now to turn it around and do it
for real".

------
kayoone
Honey how was work ? \- Oh nothing special, i just helped the first private
company in history dock a space capsule to the international space station.

~~~
vecinu
I think it must be quite humbling to be a part of one of humanity's
accomplishments, whether it be inventing an aqueduct or traveling through
space.

~~~
wtetzner
Are you sure you mean humbling, and not the opposite?

------
zecho
On one hand, this is a momentous day for private space flight. On the other,
we're closer to Moon lobbyists than ever.

~~~
vecinu
Privatizing area on the Moon is quite frightening to think about. I wonder if
one day copyright law will also reach other planets and moons.

~~~
jerf
Where humans go, human concerns will follow. The sole, singular, and only
alternative is for humans not to go.

(And for those inclined to take that as their cue to strike the fashionable
misanthropic pose where they claim that would be a good thing, remember: The
moon is a dead, sterile rock. The Moon has no copyright law because there is
no creative activity of any kind there taking place that could be copyrighted.
There is nothing there to abuse, no "environment" to foul, no natives to
exploit, nothing, not even bacteria. The alternative to humans going there is
death, forever. And not "human" death, either, but total death. No life.
Deader than the worst possible nuclear holocaust could ever make Earth. If
that is truly your position, fine, but I hope I can at least remove the
fashionableness from your pose.)

~~~
DanI-S
> There is nothing there to abuse, no "environment" to foul, no natives to
> exploit, nothing, not even bacteria.

I agree with the sentiment of your post, but this is incorrect. The Moon is a
uniquely pristine environment that holds irreplaceable evidence regarding the
formation of both our and other solar systems. It may even contain bacteria,
trapped long-dead within meteorites, that could tell us more about the
development of life on Earth or elsewhere.

It is of huge importance that we are able to extract as much of this
information as possible before we start tearing it up.

~~~
jerf
There is a _planet_ full of it. An _entire planet_. If we made a conscious
effort to deliberately go forth and destroy all evidence, it would take us
_millennia_... with generous technological assumptions.

Also an entire solar system and indeed an entire _universe_ full of further
such stuff.

Space is _big_.

This is a terrible argument.

~~~
DanI-S
How could we possibly eat _all_ these pigeons? There are flocks, 300 miles
long, that turn the sky dark.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Pigeon>

~~~
jerf
Complete bollocks. This is a _planet_. You are talking about taking a shovel
to an entire _planet_. This is not something that's going to just, whoops,
accidentally happen in a couple of hours, sorry, didn't think about all that
science lying around. We haven't even done that level of "damage" to Earth, by
orders of magnitude, _with the entire history of human civilization_ , on a
much larger planet, and you're sitting there worrying about bespoiling a dead
rock.

By the time we've "wrecked" all that precious precious data about the
formation of the solar system we'll have better recording equipment than we
can even dream of now anyhow, since we're talking centuries and centuries from
now in the "best" case. Not to mention we'll have visited a few other places
in this case.

~~~
DanI-S
There's no need for the aggression. We're two grown-ups here, having a
discussion about a subject we both find fascinating.

That aside, here's some elaboration.

Trillions of meteorites have landed on the Moon's surface since its formation.
Some of these may be remnants from violent collisions between other planetary
bodies. A few of these events may have happened at a time where life was
starting on Earth. An tiny portion of these pieces of rock may actually
contain fossil evidence of early life, in the form of bacteria or complex
biochemistry. Similar evidence that once existed on Earth is likely to have
been destroyed by our active geology, or by more recent biological processes.

The likelihood of life being preserved in this manner is so vanishingly small
that, out of the trillions of meteorites on the Moon's surface (an area around
20% larger than that of Africa), only a minute number of them are likely to
contain anything like it.

It would be a shame if the key to understanding abiogenesis was lost in an
industrial rock-grinder.

------
jasonadriaan
It's incredibly difficult to overstate the importance of this moment for
science and humanity as a whole. The commercialization of space travel is the
only way that we will ever see the stars, as no longer are we at the mercy of
the fluctuating interest in space travel from the already over-extended tax
payers of certain nations. This is a beautiful moment for humanity, and a damn
awesome way to start the weekend!

~~~
impldefined
Personally my view is the exact opposite. Privatizing space travel will never
bring us to the stars. It will get us into orbit for very high fees but e.g.
deep space exploration? Too expensive, too low likelyhood of payoff. But for
the really long term survival of humanity, it's a must.

~~~
crusso
I'll see your exact opposite view with with my own exact opposite view.

Privatizing Space will do the same thing for it that privatizing the Internet
did for all of us. It will take a government-pioneered oddity that was out of
reach of the masses and explore millions of ways to make it of financial
benefit to the entrepreneurs who can get there first. Like with the Internet,
society will be pulled along in the vortex of the Race to Space. Space will
become accessible for a price and in ways that would have been inconceivable a
decade before.

The technical challenges with space travel are much greater and so the time
before we reach the exponential part of the curve is further away, but when
the critical mass of Space travel technology has been reached it will be like
the Internet in the 1990's. The Internet had been around for 20 years and only
governmental and academic types even knew anything about it. Within a few
years of its commercialization, its use and uses had exploded. We went from
the average joe not knowing anything about it to seeing an abundance of
commercials on television for it within just a couple of years.

I mention the Internet, but the pattern is one that you can see in the
adoption of transatlantic sailing, rail travel, electricity, automobiles, etc.
Space travel will be no different.

------
forza
I must say I was more excited when SpaceX did their first successful launch,
but this is a lot of fun for essentially being parking. Can't wait for the
future though. If there's one things that sets Elon Musk apart from other
entrepreneurs it's his ability to make long-term plans. It seems like
everything he (and his team) does leads up to somethings even greater.

~~~
kyleslattery
"essentially being parking"

I gotta say, that is one hell of a simplification—launching a rocket into
space and meeting up with another craft, already in orbit, is a _little_ more
difficult that parking your car. :)

~~~
camiller
I think they let the valet actually park it. ;)

------
rodh257
Amazing stuff, also amazing is being able to watch the live feed from space on
my phone!

------
mikemarotti
Is it me or is this getting absolutely no press?

~~~
ChuckMcM
I don't think its you. I've talked with various folks about the events playing
out and the split between amazed enthusiasm and barely cognizant is not smooth
at all. There is a noticeable number of people who don't care at all.

I think that is in part that a lot of people don't understand the significance
of what has just occurred. Even now there are people in government who are
'alarmed' that a private company has this capability. After all, its a
technology we're attempting to deny the North Koreans and now Elon Musk's
company has all of the parts it needs to build an intercontinental weapons
delivery system. The Dragon capsule can be 6 tons. Even neophyte nuclear
weapon designers could probably make a device that is less than 6 tons. What
is worse is the company won't just die a horrible death if our government
pulls all of its contracts.

So where does that leave us? In a very very interesting spot. We are
approaching a point where orbital launch technology will be available to
'everyone' and we have to deal with everyone having it. If you were around for
the 'great super computer panic' that was when our government realized that
there were no microprocessors they could constrain from export that would
allow bad guys to build their own super computer using clustering techniques.

Its a similar problem but with the twist of being actionable (or being able to
exploit it against the national interests of the US more easily)

Its also one of the reasons I've been following the progress of SpaceX trying
to build their own launch facility in Texas. You might see how that
combination (private space craft company + private launch facility) would
exacerbate the problems for people who wish to keep this particular genie
contained as long as possible.

~~~
morsch
Is being able to launch into orbit equivalent to being able to launch an ICBM?

I must admit I haven't thought about what the privatization of space (and
SpaceX specifically) means regarding weaponization and proliferation. I
suppose I always figured the main thing restricting proliferation is
engineering the payload and not the delivery system. I guess that's only true
for nuclear proliferation, though.

~~~
ChuckMcM
There are three things that non-proliferation folks talk about; mass to low
earth orbit, guidance, and multiple payload deployment.

If you can put something into a pre-chosen orbit you've got the launch and
navigation down (after all an ICBM in in 'orbit' that just happens to be
highly elliptical and intersects the planet rather than goes around it.) But
there is always the mass problem, conventional bombs, combined with relative
lack of orbital precision, means that even a 2,000 lb bomb which is a 'big'
iron bomb if you can't accurately get it within a mile or two of its target it
won't be very effective. A nuclear weapon clearly can 'miss' by a couple of
miles and still be very effective, but they are really really heavy unless you
know what you are doing. The first bombs built by the US weighed in about 5
tons, but they did damage equivalent to more than 20,000 tons of explosive (a
'gain' of 4000). State of the art weapons have much higher yields. But if
you're new at the game you have to have a rocket that can lift 5 - 6 tons
before you are a 'threat' to the rest of the world.

"I suppose I always figured the main thing restricting proliferation is
engineering the payload and not the delivery system."

Well if you can build a bomb, but the only way to hit someone with it is to
fly it in on a huge transport plane, or drive in with it on a truck, it is
both easy to defend against and you have plenty of time to figure out if you
_need_ to defend against it. If on the other hand you can launch it into space
and have it fall out of the sky some where in 45 minutes to an hour, that
requires a different strategy on the part of folks you might seek to attack.

------
savrajsingh
What's amazing is SpaceX beat companies like Boeing to the punch. That's
pretty remarkable!

~~~
fidotron
Not at all. It's classic innovator's dilemma where Boeing, Lockheed etc.
simply can't face the implications of competing with someone coming in from
outside.

SpaceX just won't have the same baggage that bigger outfits do.

~~~
ippisl
The innovator's dillema mainly talks about the lack of motivation of
established entities to offer a lower cost service so they won't hurt current
profits. this doesn't seem the case.

~~~
fidotron
It's not necessarily about current profits, but future ones for sure. They
will have people internally capable of doing it, but their structure will
prevent them being cost-competitive, so they resist entering the whole area at
all.

------
jaysignorello
Truly inspiring. Elon Musk has and certainly will continue to inspire me as an
entrepreneur and technologist. I hope I can get the chance to meet him one
day.

In his interviews, he seems like a very nice guy...I wonder what it is like to
work for him.

------
pbharrin
One small step for man, One giant leap for private enterprise.

------
agnuku
Truly historic feat. I'm working for the man on screen 1 as I watch more
interesting happenings in space on screen 2.

------
camiller
Dragon was berthed to the Harmony module of the #ISS at 12:02 p.m. EDT

------
someone13
Official time: 9:56AM EST, and it took place over Western Australia. Congrats
to SpaceX!

------
antimora
It looks like SpaceX control room is using VLC to stream video =)

------
akandiah
Hatch Opening now in progress: <http://www.spacex.com/webcast/>

------
jaems33
Go Canada(rm)!

------
joxie
This is so cool! I can't wait to see more humans in space.

------
kghose
Not docked yet.

------
maeon3
Pass a law that whoever parks their pasty butt on the surface of another
planet owns x square meters of it, but they have to land in person and affix a
notary.

there has got to be a way to monitize seeding a civilization on mars.

~~~
johneth
I know you're probably not being serious, but this would stop that:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty>

~~~
nitrogen
Yes, it would affect the "pass a law" part of the OP's proposal, but would
Mars-bound indiviual colonists, representing only themselves and no nation, be
bound by treaties between the dinosaurs of Earth?

~~~
jlgreco
I believe the correct response from any future colonists to cries about
international treaties would be _"Come and stop us."_

