Splashdown of Crew Dragon DM-1

https://twitter.com/Commercial_Crew/status/1104015953531203584

by jamesknelson • 7 years ago

75 26 7 years ago

emerongi• 7 years ago

Seems like the whole mission was a 100% success?

Seems that way. The program director is on the stream right now saying "Everything happened perfectly, almost right down to the second".

It's pretty amazing watching this. I've been following this company since when I was in high school, before their first (failed) launch. However many years later, they're one step away from actually launching humans.

Can't wait to see them launch people later this year!

sebazzz• 7 years ago

From the looks of it, it does. But don't forget the test dummy Riley is stuffed with sensors and those also need to show acceptable values.

lykr0n2• 7 years ago

Good job SpaceX and NASA. Whenever I feel like the future is not that bright, I look at what is happening in the new American Space Race.

I'm calling it now. Within a year Crew Dragon is going to be landing the same way the Falcon is now.

skykooler4• 7 years ago

That was the original plan, but NASA asked SpaceX to do splashdowns instead as it's viewed as a less risky landing method for a crewed vehicle.

JulianMorrison3• 7 years ago

I figure it's less important to them for Mars etc, now that they plan to land the whole "second stage".

nickhalfasleep• 7 years ago

I assume they will pull off a few unscrewed cargo rocket decelerations before offering it as a crewed option.

rojobuffalo• 7 years ago

Aren't splashdowns bad for re-usability? Doesn't all the saltwater do more damage than a falcon-style landing would do?

awrence3• 7 years ago

That is most probably not going to happen. It was the original plan but it would have involved landing legs coming out of the heat shield which NASA was queasy about and would have involved quite a bit more effort to develop.

Crew dragon is (on the cusp of) delivering human launch to ISS capabilities back to NASA which was the core mission and a crucial objective for NASA so it wouldn't be dependent on Russian launch capabilities now so unsurprisingly inflated to outrageous prices since the shuttle was retired (not that the shuttle wasn't outrageously expensive either). Roscosmos had charmingly started charging 90mm per seat. Space X will charge 20 and will be capable of launching 7 astronauts vs 3 max capacity on Soyuz.

But Crew Dragon will have little to no part to play in the final objective of planetary colonisation so Space X doesn't care for it beyond that and is focusing full steam ahead on Starship.

Terrific mission though. Bravo Space X.

Diederich3• 7 years ago

Yes. I think it's easy to understand most everything SpaceX does.

Musk wants humans to become an interplanetary species, full stop. Everything SpaceX does is in support of that.

Vast amounts of money and resources will be required for the final goal, likely more than SpaceX will ever have or control. So, in order to get others to spend big on the main goal, SpaceX needs to demonstrate realistic capabilities, such as bootstrapping a permanent settlement on Mars, though dependent on regular shipments from earth.

To accomplish that, SpaceX needs a lot of cash.

Crew Dragon is about the cash. Starlink is (mostly) about the cash.

I'm less certain about the following, but it might be accurate: Tesla is about the cash necessary to bootstrap a Mars settlement. If Tesla really goes big, Musk's shares will be worth many more billions than they are worth right now. I would not be surprised if, at some time in the future, he cashes out of Tesla and drops it all on SpaceX.

kevin_thibedeau• 7 years ago

Roscosmos should have been smart and required China to license back any improvements. Then they could have gotten a bigger and cheaper Soyuz with no development costs.

TrevorJ• 7 years ago

The only way propulsive landings might come back on dragon is if Red Dragon or Lunar Dragon missions happen.

benj1112• 7 years ago

I remember back in the day watching videos of the Grasshopper going up and down and thinking impressive, but they're just going to disappear like 99% of other tech companies that do impressive demos.

I'm glad to be eating my hat, and to reminded that perennially '10 years away' tech does occasionally make it to market.

JulianMorrison3• 7 years ago

They did the work of getting there incrementally. Small, then big. Expendable, then landable. Cargo, then crew.

benj1112• 7 years ago

Yes, they got here incrementally, but then any journey is done one step at a time.

At the time of Grasshopper the whole idea of a reusable private rocket was 10 year away tech.

I just went to check the Grasshopper dates, thinking it would be about 10 years to first successful landing. Grasshopper started testing in 2012, so my mentions of '10 years away' are definitely metaphorical.

davedx• 7 years ago

Meanwhile, in Boca Chica...

https://twitter.com/TheFavoritist/status/1104023515630571531

"Starhopper is being moved right now! Most likely going to the launch pad in Boca Chica."

Splashdown of Crew Dragon DM-1

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