quade 4 #1 May 30, 2014 In case you missed it, this is amazing. It's the new crew capsule from SpaceX with powered descent (parachutes as backup). Link includes animation showing all stages of usage. http://www.spacex.com/webcast/ And the interior . . . beautiful. Really, just amazing. High res photos here; http://www.spacex.com/gallery/dragon-v2quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
akarunway 1 #2 May 30, 2014 How much and how much did I have to pay?I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #3 May 30, 2014 I'm not entirely certain I understand the question. SpaceX is a privately funded company. It will be selling launches to whoever wants to buy them. My guess is to stay competitive they will have to be less expensive than what people pay the Russians, who are currently the only players in the game. Right now if you want to go to the ISS, you have to buy space on the Russian launches. This includes NASA. NASA will be the major purchaser of seats on the Dragon 2 launches to the ISS and I think all-in-all that's still a pretty good deal even if for some bizarre reason it ended up costing slightly more than dealing with Russia since the money would be staying in the US. That said, I'm nearly 100% certain the entire point is to be not just a little less expensive than the Russians, but a hell of a lot less expensive. Additionally, the Russia capsules hold three people, while this can hold seven. The Russian capsules are +30-year-old 47-year-old technology. They might as well be steam powered and pretty much looks like they are. Dragon 2 is . . . incredible. Absolute state of the art, well beyond anything NASA is doing as far as manned space flight is concerned.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
champu 1 #4 May 30, 2014 Interesting, though not surprising, to see it using APAS rather than CBM. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #5 May 30, 2014 champuInteresting, though not surprising, to see it using APAS rather than CBM. APAS is the international standard for manned space flight; isn't it?quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
champu 1 #6 June 5, 2014 quade***Interesting, though not surprising, to see it using APAS rather than CBM. APAS is the international standard for manned space flight; isn't it? "The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from." -Andrew Tanenbaum Dragon v1, Cygnus, HTV, and the US orbital segment modules use CBM. STS, Dragon v2, and Zarya, use APAS (as did Apollo-Soyuz and Shuttle-Mir) ATV, Progress, and Soyuz use a Salyut probe and drogue Most of the Russian segment is held together with a hybrid of the APAS and Salyut systems The Chinese use a home-brewed APAS look-alike on their spacecraft. To make matters worse, NASA cooked up another "standard" called NDS which will result in stacked adapters in two locations on the ISS (CBM to APAS then APAS to NDS) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites