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Space Station grabs SpaceX Dragon ship
- forza 14y agoI 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 14y ago"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. :)
- someone13 14y agoOfficial time: 9:56AM EST, and it took place over Western Australia. Congrats to SpaceX!
- kayoone 14y agoHoney how was work ? - Oh nothing special, i just helped the first private company in history dock a space capsule to the international space station.
- christiangenco 14y ago"That's great, could you do the dishes?"
- vecinu 14y agoI 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 14y agoAre you sure you mean humbling, and not the opposite?
- gyaresu 14y agoInternational Space Station space station. /pedantry :)
- kayoone 14y agoof course you are right, fixed ;)
- zecho 14y agoOn one hand, this is a momentous day for private space flight. On the other, we're closer to Moon lobbyists than ever.
- vecinu 14y agoPrivatizing area on the Moon is quite frightening to think about. I wonder if one day copyright law will also reach other planets and moons.
- cglace 14y agoI disagree. Privatizing the moon has been a dream of mine since I was a kid. I like to think of it as Galt's Gulch in space.
- philwelch 14y ago...because there's no better place for a group of self-sufficient Randian heroes to live in complete isolation from the rest of the world than a barren rock in space that would have to import nearly everything from the earth?
- jlgreco 14y agoWhat's wrong with imports?
- unimpressive 14y agoWell, earth then has the power to dictate terms to the moon-colonists. Such a situation is not favorable for the sort of thing the grandparent post had in mind.
- jlgreco 14y agoHowever when we are talking about a reality in which there are multiple independent and competing launch entities, the idea of "the earth" as a single entity capable of deciding not to service colonists makes much less sense.
- agnuku 14y agoTruly historic feat. I'm working for the man on screen 1 as I watch more interesting happenings in space on screen 2.
- mikemarotti 14y agoIs it me or is this getting absolutely no press?
- mikemarotti 14y agoI guess it's now on the frontpage of CNN but still - I haven't heard any fanfare over this and it's pretty monumental.
- twoodfin 14y agoMatt Drudge had it in bright red at the top of the "fold" until a few minutes ago. It's still there now, but without the color highlight.
- chucknelson 14y agoYou'd think that of all groups of individuals, mainstream media would be able to come up with some ultra-hyperbolic headline to make this seem more exciting to the general public.
- Dexec 14y ago"Member of the PayPal MAFIA launches a ROCKET directly at the International Space Station. More at 11."
- DanBC 14y agoI agree. More people watched European Song Contest than are seeing this. Yet again something profoundly depressing about modern life.
- vecinu 14y agoI find that ESC used to be a great contest that launched some great artist (think ABBA). While it may not be as powerful or entertaining as it once was, I don't see why someone should be judged for choosing to watch it over a space launch. I think you'll find that the majority of the population is not interested in space exploration or development so it is quite okay to assume they would watch ESC over the launch.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- christiangenco 14y agoHere's an animated gif of it docking: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/123449/dragon/Dragon%20docking%20with%20ISS.gif http://dl.dropbox.com/u/123449/dragon/Dragon%20docking%20wit...
- stevenleeg 14y agoFor anyone who wants a smoother video version of this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_NBoSFpykY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_NBoSFpykY
- rodh257 14y agoAmazing stuff, also amazing is being able to watch the live feed from space on my phone!
- jaems33 14y agoGo Canada(rm)!
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jasonadriaan 14y agoIt'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 14y agoPersonally 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 14y agoI'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.
- impldefined 14y ago
- kghose 14y agoNot docked yet.
- pbharrin 14y agoOne small step for man, One giant leap for private enterprise.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- camiller 14y agoDragon was berthed to the Harmony module of the #ISS at 12:02 p.m. EDT
- cobrausn 14y agoMy 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 http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/status.html
- Maxious 14y agoAnd after that "okay, this was a great sim. now to turn it around and do it for real".
- ak217 14y ago[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 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 14y agoThe 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.
- paulsutter 14y agoSpaceX is exciting because Elon is one of us. He's a silicon valley founder who put all his personal money on the line to change the world. Paraphrasing PG, he didn't forget his dreams and he's inspiring many of us to remember our own. SpaceX is just beginning. His launch costs are now as low as the Russians (the cheapest). The Falcon 9 heavy will cut that in half, and reusability is intended to cut it by 80% again (10x improvement is the next goal). Watch this animation to see reusability, it's awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IbxqsWLXsw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IbxqsWLXsw Elon has said he will consider the company to have failed if they dont get reusability to work. These cost improvements will make many things possible and change the world. And these too are just the beginning.
- Arjuna 14y agoI 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNwg8FvfuuU#t=425 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Reisman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Reisman
- savrajsingh 14y agoWhat's amazing is SpaceX beat companies like Boeing to the punch. That's pretty remarkable!
- khuey 14y agoTo what punch? Boeing built parts of the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo missions 45 years ago.
- jlgreco 14y agoBuilt parts. As wikipedia puts it: "Each section was designed by von Braun in Huntsville and built by outside contractors such as Boeing, North American Aviation, Douglas Aircraft, and IBM." The extreme vertical integration (and pricing model) SpaceX has is what makes it special.
- khuey 14y agoI think the pricing model is far more interesting than the vertical integration here. Boeing has been building Delta rockets for a long time too.
- jlgreco 14y agoIt's the combination of the two I think. (Not to mention the comparative capabilities of the two systems.. there is a reason the Delta's are not servicing the ISS right now)
- fidotron 14y agoNot 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 14y agoThe 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.
- maeon3 14y agoPass 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 14y agoI know you're probably not being serious, but this would stop that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
- nitrogen 14y agoYes, 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 14y agoI believe the correct response from any future colonists to cries about international treaties would be "Come and stop us."
- danielweber 14y agoTreaties can be, and have been, renegotiated.
- antimora 14y agoIt looks like SpaceX control room is using VLC to stream video =)
- jaysignorello 14y agoTruly 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.
- joxie 14y agoThis is so cool! I can't wait to see more humans in space.
- akandiah 14y agoHatch Opening now in progress: http://www.spacex.com/webcast/ http://www.spacex.com/webcast/