

SpaceX's Dragon ship set for station visit - PaulMcCartney
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17732480

======
mukaiji
While Zuckerberg is busy buying vanity smartphone photo-filters for a billion
bucks, Elon Musk is busy putting America back in space.

Impact. Matters.

~~~
starpilot
Also, 95% of HN readers are doing work much closer to Zuckerberg's than to
that at SpaceX.

~~~
kamaal
Not a very accurate comparison.

The question is not, what would you do to make a living. The question is what
would you do in your time if you had enough money not to go out and make a
living. Many of us do what we do, because we need a monthly pay check to feed
us, pay our bills and send our kids to school.

If you had 20 billion dollars, what would be your bigger priorities. Building
and maintaining a Php site(which is important too, because that is what got
the 20 billion dollars) or Space Travel?

~~~
rfrey
_The question is not, what would you do to make a living. The question is what
would you do in your time if you had enough money not to go out and make a
living._

I think this is completely wrong. The question is exactly the same if you're
deciding what to do with your career or what to do with your fortune. Action
is difficult, fantasizing about what you'd do if you were rich is easy.

------
waiwai933
I can't believe that the launch is scheduled for April 30th; in my mind,
commercial spaceflight was at least another year away. Either way, if all goes
well, I think this marks the beginning of yet another era, and the milestone
is, quite frankly, amazing.

~~~
MikeCapone
I'm surprised at the rate of progress too. NASA used to be able to make rapid
progress like that, but I feel like - from my layman's perspective - they
couldn't do that now. It would cost billions more than it cost SpaceX to start
from nothing (well, not exactly, they had help from NASA, but still) and take
years longer.

~~~
nipunn1313
I know people who work at SpaceX. They recruit pretty heavily from CMU (where
I am now). From what I have heard, this is why they get things done so
quickly: 1) Elon Musk knows about every detail of the rocket's design. 2) They
make almost all the parts in house (literally in the same factory). 3) The
work ethic/culture at SpaceX is very high. If something needs to get done,
Elon will make sure it gets done fast. They somehow maintain a high rate of
progress despite how huge the undertaking is.

~~~
MikeCapone
So I guess Elon truly is Tony Stark.

------
burgerbrain
Interesting tidbit from the announcement about this on SpaceX's website:

> _In fact, Dragon has so much interior volume, that we could place an entire
> three-person Russian Soyuz capsule descent module inside Dragon’s pressure
> vessel._

That is just awesome.

~~~
lutorm
"The SUV of space capsules!" (It was after all designed in America! ;-)

------
bprater
They mention returning items from ISS. Does anyone know if this is the old
standard method of using a parachute and dropping into the ocean for recovery?

~~~
ChuckMcM
Previous Dragon Capsule recovery (and it was only once before) was parachute
to ocean landing. [1] So presumably to limit the number of things being tested
on this flight to a reasonable number they won't try to return it to land.

I am very hopeful that these guys succeed, and will be impressed as hell. Elon
is not kidding when he says it is 'tricky.' Although I think the speed thing
is over blown (17,000 MPH, wow! except you're both going about 17,000 MPH and
you're both going the same direction, so relative speed is more interesting)
But you do have to navigate there, rendezvous, and dock.

If successful they will have duplicated everything in Gemini and next up will
be the Mercury program (first manned missions) :-)

[1] [http://news.discovery.com/space/spacexs-dragon-capsule-
retur...](http://news.discovery.com/space/spacexs-dragon-capsule-returns-
safely-to-earth.html)

~~~
electromagnetic
I think the reason they're saying it's a bit more tricky than people realise
is because, even when dealing solely in terms of relative speed, you're
dealing with orbits.

If you try to accelerate, you'll actually end up in a higher orbit. It would
be like putting down the gas to overtake someone on the highway and end up
flying above them and even if you let off the gas, you will slowly drift
further away as you're now dealing with a small amount less gravity.

It's tricky, because the common person doesn't have any clue how to relate to
three dimensional movement in an orbit.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Actually, another funny story ...

One of the first programs I ever wrote was a BASIC game called 'orbit' which
simulated docking with other space ships and satellites in orbit. No graphics
other than things like closing speed and distance from target, sort of like
the old Lunar program at the time.

One of the things that always got people thinking it was 'broken' was that you
had to slow down to catch up, basically by slowing you moved to a lower orbit
and moved faster relative to an object in a higher orbit, and then you went to
a higher orbit to slow down (accelerating).

------
Metapony
While SpaceX is getting all the press, Orbital is working on the same thing.

~~~
mkn
I find your comment amusing in light of my particular frustration with the
near anonymity of SpaceX in relation to its accomplishments, especially in
addition to the nearly universally unfavorable press it gets over at
AviationWeek.com. And never mind that Orbital is not "working on the same
thing" by any reasonable understanding of the phrase.

Let's get one thing out of the way up front: SpaceX launched, orbited,
reentered, and retrieved a fully reusable capsule, one with an ablative heat
shield that can be used hundreds, if not thousands, of times over.
Disregarding the reusable aspects of the design, they're in the company of 3
nations. Include the reusability aspect and they're in the company only of the
United States and the former Soviet Union. I have a degree in engineering. I
have engineering friends, some of whom work in aerospace companies. Until this
recent PR push, I hadn't found one of them who'd even heard of SpaceX, to say
nothing of their groundbreaking and historical flight and recovery of a
capsule with private funds. If that's "all the press," then I have "all the
press," too. Go ahead. Ask me how it feels to be so famous!

The little press that they do get within the ossified aerospace industry has
been terrible. AvWeek recently ran a piece which was focused on how SpaceX had
"lost some of its luster" (not a direct quote, but close) with the slip from
February to April for the Space Station rendezvous launch, as if any
government-run space technology was ever delivered on time. A while ago, they
found some blow-hard "space policy expert" to opine about how space was hard
and how it was absolutely obvious that SpaceX was over-promising and destined
to radically under-deliver. They ran another piece about how congress was
unhappy with COTS. Only recently did they have to give some ground with a
piece about how commercial space was "already having benefits" now that the
launch is so near, and I was overjoyed with schadenfreude when they had to
provide neutral coverage of the uninteresting and everyday fact that Space
Station astronauts were rehearsing for SpaceX's visit to the station. There's
a reason, I'm sure, that SpaceX chose Muse's _Uprising_ as the theme song for
their animation about their plans for full reusability. It fits.

Further, Orbital's offering is not even close. Orbital's vehicle is not
reusable. It burns up on reentry, and therefore has no capacity to bring cargo
back from ISS. And their price point is nowhere near Musk's. In case you're
keeping track--and I mean the hypothetical "you", I'm not pissed at you,
Metapony--that's less for more. Less than SpaceX for more money. Furthermore,
the floor on Orbital's costs is the same trifecta that's always been around in
aerospace: expendability, costs of disparate components, and integration
costs. I'd love to see a viable competitor to SpaceX, but Orbital isn't even
close.

Make no mistake, the battle is not between "government" vehicles and private
industry. There are no "government" vehicles: Every vehicle gets built by
private contractors. The battle is actually between the established aerospace
industry, built around expendables and cost-plus contracting, and SpaceX, an
innovative and disruptive aerospace company based around competition,
reusables, and fixed-price contracts, with Orbital taking up the rear with the
worst aspects of both models.

I know. I come across as a strident cheerleader. I hope that has less to do
with any inherent fanboyism in my makeup than it does with my absolute
perplexity at and frustration with the bare fact that SpaceX has done
unprecedented, amazing, historic things, and hardly anyone knows about them at
all.

~~~
tybris
I don't think SpaceX is really seeking attention. They don't depend on
consumers or the aerospace industry at large. Musk certainly doesn't strike me
as the kind of person who craves attention. The interview on the Daily Show
was the first I had ever seen with him.

~~~
krschultz
They definitely do some amount of PR - in addition to Must going on Jon
Stewart he also did a great interview with 60 Minutes earlier this month.

Although they don't directly need consumer support, getting your name out
there helps with recruiting the best engineers. I know several people who were
tops in their field and heard about SpaceX, dropped what they were doing and
applied.

It also helps them with public support. It's very possible that the majors
will come in and try to use lobbying to crush SpaceX. Having the public on
your side will help SpaceX beat that back later.

