How NASA and SpaceX Get Along Together 110
mblase writes "SpaceX and NASA have been working hard to make this weekend's launch happen — and that has meant navigating the cultural differences between this small, young startup and the huge veteran space agency. The relationship involves daily calls and emails between people who live in two different worlds: age versus youth, bureaucracy versus a flat startup-like structure, and a sense of caution versus a desire to move forward quickly. But they both have an almost religious belief in the need for humans to venture forth into space, a geeky love for rockets, and technical know-how — plus, they both need each other to succeed."
The launch is scheduled for 4:55AM EDT (08:55 GMT) tomorrow morning. NASA TV will begin coverage at 3:30AM EDT, and there will be a press conference at 8:30AM. SpaceX's press kit (PDF) has mission details. The rendezvous with the ISS is scheduled for day 4 of the mission after a series of maneuvering tests to ensure the Dragon capsule can approach safely. It carries 1,200 pounds of supplies for the people aboard the ISS, and it carries 11 science experiments designed by students.
The pathetic US space program (Score:5, Informative)
One-half of one penny of every tax dollar [imgur.com]. That's what the NASA budget is. We spend an assload more money on trying to kill people than we do planning for the future of the human race. On top of the measly NASA budget, we still have to outsource most of our space program.
Did you know the US spends more on the military's Air Conditioners than the entire NASA budget? http://gizmodo.com/5813257/air-conditioning-our-military-costs-more-than-nasas-entire-budget [gizmodo.com].
Too damn Early (Score:1, Informative)
NASA you suck at public relations. Why in the hell is this launch so damn early? How are people supposed to watch this live?
Re:Too damn Early (Score:5, Informative)
Well, obviously they did have a rendezvous element, it's just that the target wasn't moving terribly fast (relatively speaking) and there was a valid launch window more or less every day.
There was a valid launch window every once in a while, because they had to arrive at their landing site early in the lunar morning so that their entire stay was during the lunar day and, I believe, so that the sun was still low so it they wouldn't exceed LEM cooling margins.
They were somewhat flexible in launch time during that window because they would spend some time in orbit around the moon before landing, so if they had to pick a launch window an hour or two earlier than the ideal because of other constraints, they could potentially wait a few orbits before the landing.
If you look up the NASA documents on Apollo launch planning there were a number of constraints they had to work within. Unfortunately I can't remember them all :).
Re:be warned (Score:3, Informative)
and now that is almost half-owned by foreign companies.
One of the main goals of the COTS program [wikipedia.org] is to use U.S. companies for LEO cargo and crew capability. Right now, we're completely dependent on Russia, EU, and Japan for crew and cargo launches to ISS.
And it's not about just privatizing a lot of space stuff. It's really more about (IMHO) pushing the "frontier" for NASA to be responsible for exploration out beyond LEO, and let LEO get commercialized.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
The real news here is that NASA is conceding the idea that launches into low-Earth orbit are now routine enough that they really shouldn't be spending money on building rockets going there. This is a very recent admission that has only happened under the Obama administration.
What will likely not be mentioned is how a great many other companies are also involved with this effort of having NASA get rid of its native launch capacity, or how nearly $20 billion is currently being spent on a heavy lift rocket that has no mission and will likely be cancelled in the next presidential administration (whomever that may be... in 2013 or 2017 of either political party). The other companies that are involved at the moment is really exciting, and shows amazing potential for America being a real leader in developing technologies for spaceflight.
The hope and dream of many people here is that travel into low-Earth orbit will become something as routine as sending passengers and cargo on intercontinental flights by airplane. There was a time that deservedly justified 40 point type headlines in newspapers, just as early flights into orbit did several decades later. The sad thing is how long it took for routine intercontinental flights to happen compared to when the first such flights happened, and then how long it is taking from when the first flights to low-Earth orbit happened to when they've become routine. As evidenced by the fact this is a major story and posted here in Slashdot, flights into orbit still aren't routine. That can and should change.