Astronauts Open Dragon Capsule Hatch

Hexydes writes "Early in the morning (5:53 am EST) on May 26th, 2012, NASA gave the go-ahead for the Expedition 31 crew to begin the procedure to open the hatch on the Dragon capsule, now directly attached to the ISS. 'The hatch opening begins four days of operations to unload more than 1,000 pounds of cargo from the first commercial spacecraft to visit the space station and reload it with experiments and cargo for a return trip to Earth. It is scheduled for splashdown several hundred miles west of California on May 31. Wearing protective masks and goggles, as is customary for the opening of a hatch to any newly arrived vehicle at the station, Pettit entered the Dragon with Station Commander Oleg Kononenko. The goggles and masks will be removed once the station atmosphere has had a chance to mix air with the air inside the Dragon itself.' Here is a video of the procedure."

Re:To unload more than 1,000 pounds of cargo

[pesho]

There is this thing called inertia, and it is a bitch, especially at 0 G with no/little friction to help. Once the 1000 pounds of stuff gets in motion it will bounce around the place until everything gets smashed to pieces.

Re:To unload more than 1,000 pounds of cargo

[YrWrstNtmr]

It's not all in one box. Whatever it is has to fit through the hatch. Inventory, move (inertia!), stow. Now do it in the other direction for the stuff that needs to come back to earth.

Re:To unload more than 1,000 pounds of cargo

[queazocotal]

Slow and gentle.
Press on a thousand pounds in freefall with a force of a pound, and in ten seconds, it's moving at 10cm/s.

This is probably faster than you want in a confined environment.

If you need more than your little finger to exert the pressure - you're doing it wrong.

Re:Nice to see, but not really revolutionary

[Whatsmynickname]

It is revolutionary from the standpoint that the government didn't lay down the requirements for what they wanted (or just designed the item themselves) in a space vehicle, just ISS interface requirements. SpaceX built what they wanted without NASA or DoD people sticking their noses in. And SpaceX actually completed the project and docked with the space station, instead of just making a ton of Powerpoints and 3D animated videos on what it would look like if they actually did it. If others follow SpaceX, then instead of Slashdot bitching about the difference between a capsule and a delta winged re-entry vehicle, private companies can actually BUILD it and we'll conclusively see which is better. THAT is what is revolutionary.

Re:Nice to see, but not really revolutionary

[Anonymous Coward]

SpaceX built what they wanted without NASA or DoD people sticking their noses in.

Mod parent up. There is a huge infrastructure of NASA and DOD folks whose job it is to stick their noses in. They are expensive, their cost comes out of your budget, and they cause huge delays in your program. SpaceX is a brilliant idea in that it keeps those expensive noses out of most things.

There are places for those noses, like launch safety and docking, where there can be risk to citizens or government equipment (the space station). But, many times, those noses simply waste money assuring 100-percent space mission success [aerospace.org].

Re:To unload more than 1,000 pounds of cargo

[jandoedel]

everyone is an immigrant on ISS..