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SpaceX Crew Dragon Docks with International Space Station

755 points by lultimouomo 8y ago

areoform 8y ago
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.
- taneq 8y ago
  I've felt that about SpaceX ever since seeing the Grasshopper testing videos. Up until that point, if a rocket slowed down during takeoff something had gone horribly wrong. Then it just... hovered... and landed, and I realised this was the start of a new era of space travel. The Falcon Heavy launch is still the highlight for me but this one is probably more important, simply because it's so normal and routine now and paves the way for drastically cheaper crewed orbital flights.
  - dEnigma 8y ago
    I don't know which mission it was exactly, but I think it was the first one where they tried to recover two booster stages (I hope that's what they are called). Watching the live stream of both of them landing simultaneously back on the pad gave me goosebumps and sent shivers down my spine, in a good way.
    - Klathmon 8y ago
      Not to diminish that feeling, but there was a kind of funny mistake made in the livestream for the Falcon Heavy launch (which was actually attempting to land 3 stages at around the same time, but one of them had an issue and suicided into the ocean as designed). Turns out, both of the video streams for the 2 side rockets were actually of the same rocket! You can go back and watch the corrected footage of both landing at once, but it was funny when many watching along (myself included) were like "wow they are so identical" only to find that it was the same footage!
      - dEnigma 8y ago
        Haha, no worries, I was aware of that while watching. What impressed me was the footage from the ground based (or helicopter?) camera that showed them landing side by side. Edit: I didn't know that three boosters were supposed to land. That probably would've blown my mind if it had succeeded ^^
        Klathmon 8y ago
        Yeah they were attempting to land all 3, but the center booster (which would have landed on a barge at sea) had issues relighting it's engines during the landing burn. They setup the landings so that they are on a trajectory to hit the ocean, and only if everything goes right do they then adjust course to the landing pads. This gives them an additional failsafe which the center booster took advantage of here. Instead of crashing into an expensive barge in the ocean, it just splashed down into the ocean purposely missing the barge. [1] is a diagram that kind of shows what this looks like for land based landings, but it's very similar for barge landings too. And don't worry, they are going to be flying Falcon Heavy again soon-ish, so there's another chance to land all 3! [1] http://i.imgur.com/D9BdO86.png http://i.imgur.com/D9BdO86.png
        gpm 8y ago
        > or helicopter? Probably a quad/octocopter - I know they've used one before for footage. Third booster was supposed to land on a droneship - it was a near miss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXd5UHFuZVI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXd5UHFuZVI It needed to relight three engines, it ran out of igniter before lighting more than one.
    - gdpgreg 8y ago
      That was the falcon heavy test launch. The two rockets that landed were side boosters which so happened to be two other falcon 9s.
    - the_duke 8y ago
      That was the Falcon Heavy test launch that also brought a Tesla to orbit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c
      - dEnigma 8y ago
        Oh yeah, there was something else to that launch too. Thanks for reminding me of that! I'll have to rewatch it at some point.
    - mcv 8y ago
      That shot was epic. Rocket ballet. Seeing those two boosters land together was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. They may have lost the third booster, but as a demonstration of what SpaceX does, it was brilliantly done.
  - Ankaios 8y ago
    Up until that point, if a rocket slowed down during takeoff something had gone horribly wrong. Just in case anyone is unaware of the most notable exception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-X https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IWIv2MKcyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IWIv2MKcyg DC-X has been a major inspiration and proof-by-example for commercial reusable rocket efforts. Its technical achievements and focus on aircraft-like low-cost operations showed a path out of (or into?) the darkness.
    - taneq 8y ago
      I'd actually missed that one! In my defense that was just before I got the internet at home. :P Super impressive for 25-year-old tech.
- isostatic 8y ago
  Soyuz takes people to the space station every few months, has done for years. Why is this specific mission new?
  - Sabrosas 8y ago
    Because in a world lacking traditional religious figures to worship, Elon Musk fits the bill.
    - jjuhl 8y ago
      Why are "figures to worship" (religious or not - preferably not) needed at all?
  - grey-area 8y ago
    Reusable rockets is new. Rather than ditching in the sea, the rocket landed back on earth and could in theory take up another payload a few days later, which is much cheaper and more efficient. It opens up space to a lot of other uses. Compared to the cost and use of the shuttle (nominally reusable but not so much in practice), or other disposable rockets, this is a large step forward in reliability and efficiency, which will enable things like travel to Mars at low cost (by refuelling in orbit with multiple reusable vehicle launches for one mission).
  - gdpgreg 8y ago
    It's the first new crew vehicle launch from the US since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. It's also in theory a lot cheaper than the Soyuz.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    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.
- theothermkn 8y ago
  > Do you ever wonder how people felt when they say Magellan or Captain Cook set off? Or, when they watched the Apollo missions happen? Yeah, I do wonder: https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?t=24 https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?t=24 I think how they feel probably depends on their perspective, their financial situation, their susceptibility to public relations, and so on. Let's say everything goes "great," and there are a million people living on Mars in 50 years. Will it matter to people dying in a war, or ailing next to an open sewer, or what-have-you back on Earth that there's some depressed Martians trapped in smelly cans and covered in perchlorate- and iron-laden dust 4 to 12 light minutes away? I don't think it will. I think that when many of us "wonder" or "imagine" what people felt like when they watched or participated in these events, what we're really doing is projecting the relief and and other pleasant emotions that we experience when we imagine them, when we use imagining them as an escape fantasy to cope with our own anxieties, to that imagined audience. Frank Borman actually went to the Moon, and his feelings about it, are definitely situated inside of his own perspective: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/655/the-not-so-great-unknown/act-one-4 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/655/the-not-so-great-unknow... It's probably important for us to face this phenomenon square on, to check in with what's really going on with our "dreams of space" or sense of Solar "manifest destiny." There's a reason that space-age propaganda seems so successful, both in its own time, where its object was removed from us only by the impassable gulf of 10 km/s, and now, when it is behind the second impassable gulf of nearly 60 years. If that reason is escapism, we should possibly check in with what it is we think we're escaping from, what we actually, really, fear. If our hope is in a fantasy, perhaps it indicates that we feel our reality is hopeless.
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Klathmon 8y ago
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 8y ago
  I really hoped they would hide a rubber face hugger next to Ripley, but I doubt it. Such a missed opportunity.
  - clort 8y ago
    If I were those guys up there, I would check the chest cavity, just to be sure..
- srcmap 8y ago
  Here's the recording of the space station astronauts / cosmonaut entering the "Crew Dragon". https://youtu.be/tfrBm3ZR99M?t=306 https://youtu.be/tfrBm3ZR99M?t=306 Very nice!
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zargath 8y ago
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..
- kakarot 8y ago
  Navigating the open seas used to be tricky. Settling new land used to be tricky. Have faith. :)
  - CondensedBrain 8y ago
    The Enterprise theme started playing in my head.
    - jordz 8y ago
      Did you notice how they slightly jazzed it up after a couple of seasons?
      - ravenstine 8y ago
        The last 2 seasons are pretty great. It's too bad the show got sacked. Enterprise is my second favorite behind TNG.
        blhack 8y ago
        There are at least several of us! Also have found myself really enjoying enterprise. It is by far my favorite premise of any of the Star Treks.
        holoduke 8y ago
        Did u try the expanse?
bamboozled 8y ago
Does anyone else find the title confusing? What's a "Crew Dragon"?
- mikejb 8y ago
  It's a dragon spacecraft, but with configuration for crew. Hence Crew Dragon
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    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.
  - huhtenberg 8y ago
    Yet, it was actually redone nearly from scratch and only remotely related to the cargo Dragon.
- beamatronic 8y ago
  Yes, but it’s better than something like Dragon Crew D1 C D 1 (looking at you XBox)
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    I have a feeling SpaceX intentionally names things kind of weirdly just because it's almost a running joke among fans. The progression of Falcon 9 rockets is: * Falcon 9 * Falcon 9 V1.1 * Falcon 9 Full Thrust (also called V1.2 for a small period of time) * Falcon 9 Fuller Thrust (I think this one was renamed to Block 4 at some point, but I distinctly remember hearing it called "Fuller Thrust" at first) * Falcon 9 Block 5 (the current version and one that launched this capsule) And their Dragon capsule has gone through several names as well: * Dragon (the first version) * Dragon CRS (an extended version with additional space) * DragonLab (never flown as far as I know) * Dragon 2 (cargo only I believe) * Crew Dragon (the current one that just flew up to ISS, also technically a "Dragon 2" but with a different internal configuration.)
jasonwen 8y ago
Amazing achievement. Next step is a successfull return to Earth on 8th March.
samcday 8y ago
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.
- campercoder 8y ago
  Might want to focus on that "don't destroy ourselves first" part.. And consider all the other things on the planet & maybe it's a good thing to save those too. Just because, when is the last time we discovered another planet with intricacy and diversity of Earth?
- dkobia 8y ago
  Well said.
- bobl 8y ago
  As far as I understand there is still some time before humanity becomes interplanetary in any meaningful way, maybe even many generations. And what is going on so far these days is mostly about not regressing.
  - leesec 8y ago
    Making rockets re-usable is a massive step forward and not about 'not regressing'.
    - johannes1234321 8y ago
      In the past we even had space ships, which could start from ground, go to space, do stuff, come back and the could be reused. Having just a rocket isn't that much of an improvement. That said: All the constraints on making it reusable and safe for humans are also a key factor why Space Shuttle was so expensive. With SpaceX's rockets not all parts need to resist the stress of reentry etc.
amedvednikov 8y ago
Congratulations to SpaceX!
jayess 8y ago
> 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 8y ago
  First astronauts where animals. https://www.space.com/17764-laika-first-animals-in-space.html https://www.space.com/17764-laika-first-animals-in-space.htm...
- ThePadawan 8y ago
  I'm personally also not sure if space tourists would be referred to as "astronauts" (which might only be the crew).
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  I believe that national origin can make a human a cosmonaut, taikonaut, or spationaut. Are those also astronauts? Not sure.
- buboard 8y ago
  So the rumours about nasa hiding the aliens were true ...
- icelancer 8y ago
  All astronauts are humans but not all humans are astronauts.
buboard 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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!
  - grecy 8y ago
    Everyone on /r/spacex keeps flip-flopping on this, but there have been indications SpaceX will try to recover the first stage after the abort. Should be interesting either way!
    - Klathmon 8y ago
      Last I heard they weren't even going to have the landing hardware on the booster, but you are right that there are rumblings about how exactly the abort test will happen. IIRC we know stage 2 is going to be mostly a mass simulator, but not much else.
      - grecy 8y ago
        I read a tweet from Elon that said Stage Two is flight hardware, with the exception of the vaccum Merlin engine that is a mass simulator.
  - legohead 8y ago
    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.
vilius 8y ago
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.
- whatislovecraft 8y ago
  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!)
  - deleted 8y ago
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  - vilius 8y ago
    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.
    - whatislovecraft 8y ago
      > The thought of going on a one-way trip to Mars Oh my it's not a one-way ticket! Those people selling 1-way tickets were scammers. A key tenet of SpaceX seems to be that you can come home to Earth whenever you want, or at least when the planets align for a fast journey. They will need to transport a lot of Starships back to Earth, and as long as they are like 30% empty it works out for people to come home any time at all. I'm banking on that too, coming back to visit Earth in the future. > when you are 60 is scary. Yeah okay, it is a bit scary to think about now. But I don't think it will be scary then. Should be just like airplanes now - that's the goal for SpaceX anyway. > But thank you for the idea of longer term goals - "Experience zero-gravity and see Earth from outer atmosphere" is now on the list. Woo! You are welcome!
warp_factor 8y ago
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.
- xPhobophobia 8y ago
  Agreed! Notable achievement, but not game-changing. One thing I remind myself is that Elon really didn't start Tesla. He's been snow balling off initial success and continues to accelerate thanks to collaboration with brilliant people.
  - xenospn 8y ago
    Some might argue thats an achievement in itself.
    - warp_factor 8y ago
      How to be successful? You need to be associated with early stage successful projects. Sometimes it is luck, some people have also talent to discover those early successes.
  - nickik 8y ago
    Tesla was a utter disaster when Elon took over and would have failed. Making a tiny as car maker into a very large on is 100x harder then starting a little car company and running it into the ground. Elon didn't start Tesla but he wanted to start a car company when he heard that another company had just started with the same idea so he joined them instead. Since then he saved Tesla by taking over and investing his own money. > He's been snow balling off initial success and I'm sorry but that is just insane. The company was not very successful when he took over, so 'snow balling of early success' is just nonsense. > continues to accelerate thanks to collaboration with brilliant people. So like all successful business people/inventors in the history of the world?
- napsterbr 8y ago
jonplackett 8y ago
"No astronauts or humans were on board the maiden flight"
- zimlu 8y ago
  This got me giggling too
xfitm3 8y ago
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.
tjpnz 8y ago
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.
basicplus2 8y ago
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?
zeofig 8y ago
Is it weird that the title brought only one word into my head: Shadman?

755 points by lultimouomo 8y ago

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.

taneq 8y ago
I've felt that about SpaceX ever since seeing the Grasshopper testing videos. Up until that point, if a rocket slowed down during takeoff something had gone horribly wrong. Then it just... hovered... and landed, and I realised this was the start of a new era of space travel. The Falcon Heavy launch is still the highlight for me but this one is probably more important, simply because it's so normal and routine now and paves the way for drastically cheaper crewed orbital flights.
- dEnigma 8y ago
  I don't know which mission it was exactly, but I think it was the first one where they tried to recover two booster stages (I hope that's what they are called). Watching the live stream of both of them landing simultaneously back on the pad gave me goosebumps and sent shivers down my spine, in a good way.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    Not to diminish that feeling, but there was a kind of funny mistake made in the livestream for the Falcon Heavy launch (which was actually attempting to land 3 stages at around the same time, but one of them had an issue and suicided into the ocean as designed). Turns out, both of the video streams for the 2 side rockets were actually of the same rocket! You can go back and watch the corrected footage of both landing at once, but it was funny when many watching along (myself included) were like "wow they are so identical" only to find that it was the same footage!
    - dEnigma 8y ago
      Haha, no worries, I was aware of that while watching. What impressed me was the footage from the ground based (or helicopter?) camera that showed them landing side by side. Edit: I didn't know that three boosters were supposed to land. That probably would've blown my mind if it had succeeded ^^
      - Klathmon 8y ago
        Yeah they were attempting to land all 3, but the center booster (which would have landed on a barge at sea) had issues relighting it's engines during the landing burn. They setup the landings so that they are on a trajectory to hit the ocean, and only if everything goes right do they then adjust course to the landing pads. This gives them an additional failsafe which the center booster took advantage of here. Instead of crashing into an expensive barge in the ocean, it just splashed down into the ocean purposely missing the barge. [1] is a diagram that kind of shows what this looks like for land based landings, but it's very similar for barge landings too. And don't worry, they are going to be flying Falcon Heavy again soon-ish, so there's another chance to land all 3! [1] http://i.imgur.com/D9BdO86.png http://i.imgur.com/D9BdO86.png
      - gpm 8y ago
        > or helicopter? Probably a quad/octocopter - I know they've used one before for footage. Third booster was supposed to land on a droneship - it was a near miss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXd5UHFuZVI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXd5UHFuZVI It needed to relight three engines, it ran out of igniter before lighting more than one.
  - gdpgreg 8y ago
    That was the falcon heavy test launch. The two rockets that landed were side boosters which so happened to be two other falcon 9s.
  - the_duke 8y ago
    That was the Falcon Heavy test launch that also brought a Tesla to orbit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c
    - dEnigma 8y ago
      Oh yeah, there was something else to that launch too. Thanks for reminding me of that! I'll have to rewatch it at some point.
  - mcv 8y ago
    That shot was epic. Rocket ballet. Seeing those two boosters land together was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. They may have lost the third booster, but as a demonstration of what SpaceX does, it was brilliantly done.
- Ankaios 8y ago
  Up until that point, if a rocket slowed down during takeoff something had gone horribly wrong. Just in case anyone is unaware of the most notable exception: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-X https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IWIv2MKcyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IWIv2MKcyg DC-X has been a major inspiration and proof-by-example for commercial reusable rocket efforts. Its technical achievements and focus on aircraft-like low-cost operations showed a path out of (or into?) the darkness.
  - taneq 8y ago
    I'd actually missed that one! In my defense that was just before I got the internet at home. :P Super impressive for 25-year-old tech.
isostatic 8y ago
Soyuz takes people to the space station every few months, has done for years. Why is this specific mission new?
- Sabrosas 8y ago
  Because in a world lacking traditional religious figures to worship, Elon Musk fits the bill.
  - jjuhl 8y ago
    Why are "figures to worship" (religious or not - preferably not) needed at all?
- grey-area 8y ago
  Reusable rockets is new. Rather than ditching in the sea, the rocket landed back on earth and could in theory take up another payload a few days later, which is much cheaper and more efficient. It opens up space to a lot of other uses. Compared to the cost and use of the shuttle (nominally reusable but not so much in practice), or other disposable rockets, this is a large step forward in reliability and efficiency, which will enable things like travel to Mars at low cost (by refuelling in orbit with multiple reusable vehicle launches for one mission).
- gdpgreg 8y ago
  It's the first new crew vehicle launch from the US since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. It's also in theory a lot cheaper than the Soyuz.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  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.
theothermkn 8y ago
> Do you ever wonder how people felt when they say Magellan or Captain Cook set off? Or, when they watched the Apollo missions happen? Yeah, I do wonder: https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?t=24 https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?t=24 I think how they feel probably depends on their perspective, their financial situation, their susceptibility to public relations, and so on. Let's say everything goes "great," and there are a million people living on Mars in 50 years. Will it matter to people dying in a war, or ailing next to an open sewer, or what-have-you back on Earth that there's some depressed Martians trapped in smelly cans and covered in perchlorate- and iron-laden dust 4 to 12 light minutes away? I don't think it will. I think that when many of us "wonder" or "imagine" what people felt like when they watched or participated in these events, what we're really doing is projecting the relief and and other pleasant emotions that we experience when we imagine them, when we use imagining them as an escape fantasy to cope with our own anxieties, to that imagined audience. Frank Borman actually went to the Moon, and his feelings about it, are definitely situated inside of his own perspective: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/655/the-not-so-great-unknown/act-one-4 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/655/the-not-so-great-unknow... It's probably important for us to face this phenomenon square on, to check in with what's really going on with our "dreams of space" or sense of Solar "manifest destiny." There's a reason that space-age propaganda seems so successful, both in its own time, where its object was removed from us only by the impassable gulf of 10 km/s, and now, when it is behind the second impassable gulf of nearly 60 years. If that reason is escapism, we should possibly check in with what it is we think we're escaping from, what we actually, really, fear. If our hope is in a fantasy, perhaps it indicates that we feel our reality is hopeless.

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Klathmon 8y ago

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 8y ago
I really hoped they would hide a rubber face hugger next to Ripley, but I doubt it. Such a missed opportunity.
- clort 8y ago
  If I were those guys up there, I would check the chest cavity, just to be sure..
srcmap 8y ago
Here's the recording of the space station astronauts / cosmonaut entering the "Crew Dragon". https://youtu.be/tfrBm3ZR99M?t=306 https://youtu.be/tfrBm3ZR99M?t=306 Very nice!

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zargath 8y ago

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..

kakarot 8y ago
Navigating the open seas used to be tricky. Settling new land used to be tricky. Have faith. :)
- CondensedBrain 8y ago
  The Enterprise theme started playing in my head.
  - jordz 8y ago
    Did you notice how they slightly jazzed it up after a couple of seasons?
    - ravenstine 8y ago
      The last 2 seasons are pretty great. It's too bad the show got sacked. Enterprise is my second favorite behind TNG.
      - blhack 8y ago
        There are at least several of us! Also have found myself really enjoying enterprise. It is by far my favorite premise of any of the Star Treks.
      - holoduke 8y ago
        Did u try the expanse?

bamboozled 8y ago

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

mikejb 8y ago
It's a dragon spacecraft, but with configuration for crew. Hence Crew Dragon
- Klathmon 8y ago
  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.
- huhtenberg 8y ago
  Yet, it was actually redone nearly from scratch and only remotely related to the cargo Dragon.
beamatronic 8y ago
Yes, but it’s better than something like Dragon Crew D1 C D 1 (looking at you XBox)
- Klathmon 8y ago
  I have a feeling SpaceX intentionally names things kind of weirdly just because it's almost a running joke among fans. The progression of Falcon 9 rockets is: * Falcon 9 * Falcon 9 V1.1 * Falcon 9 Full Thrust (also called V1.2 for a small period of time) * Falcon 9 Fuller Thrust (I think this one was renamed to Block 4 at some point, but I distinctly remember hearing it called "Fuller Thrust" at first) * Falcon 9 Block 5 (the current version and one that launched this capsule) And their Dragon capsule has gone through several names as well: * Dragon (the first version) * Dragon CRS (an extended version with additional space) * DragonLab (never flown as far as I know) * Dragon 2 (cargo only I believe) * Crew Dragon (the current one that just flew up to ISS, also technically a "Dragon 2" but with a different internal configuration.)

jasonwen 8y ago

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

samcday 8y ago

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.

campercoder 8y ago
Might want to focus on that "don't destroy ourselves first" part.. And consider all the other things on the planet & maybe it's a good thing to save those too. Just because, when is the last time we discovered another planet with intricacy and diversity of Earth?
dkobia 8y ago
Well said.
bobl 8y ago
As far as I understand there is still some time before humanity becomes interplanetary in any meaningful way, maybe even many generations. And what is going on so far these days is mostly about not regressing.
- leesec 8y ago
  Making rockets re-usable is a massive step forward and not about 'not regressing'.
  - johannes1234321 8y ago
    In the past we even had space ships, which could start from ground, go to space, do stuff, come back and the could be reused. Having just a rocket isn't that much of an improvement. That said: All the constraints on making it reusable and safe for humans are also a key factor why Space Shuttle was so expensive. With SpaceX's rockets not all parts need to resist the stress of reentry etc.

amedvednikov 8y ago

Congratulations to SpaceX!

jayess 8y ago

> 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 8y ago
First astronauts where animals. https://www.space.com/17764-laika-first-animals-in-space.html https://www.space.com/17764-laika-first-animals-in-space.htm...
ThePadawan 8y ago
I'm personally also not sure if space tourists would be referred to as "astronauts" (which might only be the crew).
Pfhreak 8y ago
I believe that national origin can make a human a cosmonaut, taikonaut, or spationaut. Are those also astronauts? Not sure.
buboard 8y ago
So the rumours about nasa hiding the aliens were true ...
icelancer 8y ago
All astronauts are humans but not all humans are astronauts.

buboard 8y ago

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 8y ago
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!
- grecy 8y ago
  Everyone on /r/spacex keeps flip-flopping on this, but there have been indications SpaceX will try to recover the first stage after the abort. Should be interesting either way!
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    Last I heard they weren't even going to have the landing hardware on the booster, but you are right that there are rumblings about how exactly the abort test will happen. IIRC we know stage 2 is going to be mostly a mass simulator, but not much else.
    - grecy 8y ago
      I read a tweet from Elon that said Stage Two is flight hardware, with the exception of the vaccum Merlin engine that is a mass simulator.
- legohead 8y ago
  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.

vilius 8y ago

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.

whatislovecraft 8y ago
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!)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- vilius 8y ago
  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.
  - whatislovecraft 8y ago
    > The thought of going on a one-way trip to Mars Oh my it's not a one-way ticket! Those people selling 1-way tickets were scammers. A key tenet of SpaceX seems to be that you can come home to Earth whenever you want, or at least when the planets align for a fast journey. They will need to transport a lot of Starships back to Earth, and as long as they are like 30% empty it works out for people to come home any time at all. I'm banking on that too, coming back to visit Earth in the future. > when you are 60 is scary. Yeah okay, it is a bit scary to think about now. But I don't think it will be scary then. Should be just like airplanes now - that's the goal for SpaceX anyway. > But thank you for the idea of longer term goals - "Experience zero-gravity and see Earth from outer atmosphere" is now on the list. Woo! You are welcome!

warp_factor 8y ago

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.

xPhobophobia 8y ago
Agreed! Notable achievement, but not game-changing. One thing I remind myself is that Elon really didn't start Tesla. He's been snow balling off initial success and continues to accelerate thanks to collaboration with brilliant people.
- xenospn 8y ago
  Some might argue thats an achievement in itself.
  - warp_factor 8y ago
    How to be successful? You need to be associated with early stage successful projects. Sometimes it is luck, some people have also talent to discover those early successes.
- nickik 8y ago
  Tesla was a utter disaster when Elon took over and would have failed. Making a tiny as car maker into a very large on is 100x harder then starting a little car company and running it into the ground. Elon didn't start Tesla but he wanted to start a car company when he heard that another company had just started with the same idea so he joined them instead. Since then he saved Tesla by taking over and investing his own money. > He's been snow balling off initial success and I'm sorry but that is just insane. The company was not very successful when he took over, so 'snow balling of early success' is just nonsense. > continues to accelerate thanks to collaboration with brilliant people. So like all successful business people/inventors in the history of the world?
napsterbr 8y ago

jonplackett 8y ago

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

zimlu 8y ago
This got me giggling too

xfitm3 8y ago

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.

tjpnz 8y ago

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.

basicplus2 8y ago

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?

zeofig 8y ago

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