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ISS NASA

SpaceX Successfully Delivers Supplies To ISS 87

Posted by timothy from the eggs-and-dye-mostly dept.
Reuters reports on the successful SpaceX-carried resupply mission to the ISS: "A cargo ship owned by Space Exploration Technologies arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, with a delivery of supplies and science experiments for the crew and a pair of legs for the experimental humanoid robot aboard that one day may be used in a spacewalk. Station commander Koichi Wakata used the outpost's 58-foot (18-meter) robotic crane to snare the Dragon capsule from orbit at 7:14 a.m. (1114 GMT), ending its 36-hour journey. ... "The Easter Dragon is knocking at the door," astronaut Randy Bresnik radioed to the crew from Mission Control in Houston. Space Exploration, known as SpaceX, had planned to launch its Dragon cargo ship in March, but was delayed by technical problems, including a two-week hold to replace a damaged U.S. Air Force radar tracking system."
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SpaceX Successfully Delivers Supplies To ISS More

SpaceX Successfully Delivers Supplies To ISS

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  • SpaceX - Mother of Dragons (Score:4, Funny)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Sunday April 20, 2014 @03:12PM (#46801047)
    Can't wait until they get Dragonrider working.

    • Since it's intended for space walks, why the ${IMPRECATION} does it needs legs?

      I was going to say 'why on Earth', but that's kind of the point. It's not going to be on Earth. It's going to be in zero-gravity, where legs are completely useless.

  • NASA's LADEE [thespacereporter.com] ends it's mission to explore the Moon's atmosphere, and Space-X docks at the ISS.

    Where are all those who keep saying the US has lost it's interest in Space?

    • Without the glamor of our own human transport though.

      Yeah, there's been problems, and there is increasing budget pressure. It seems NASA is the only government organization that actually get consistently cut. I kind of agree with Ares I getting cut, it was a boondoggle and suffing some problems that weren't well-publicized.

  • Yay for SpaceX (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Sunday April 20, 2014 @04:45PM (#46801471)

    Not only can they deliver supplies to the ISS without the need to pay the Russians to do it but they can probably do it cheaper than the Russians too.

  • The first space station went up in 1971. Forty-three years later, private industry figures out how to send a rocket up there. With taxpayers footing the bill.

    John Galt is half a retard.

    • The first space station was designed by private industry (what, you thought NASA did its own design work?).

      Apollo and Shuttle, which provided transport to Skylab and ISS, were designed by private industry.

      And the only reason taxpayers are footing the bill for rockets to ISS is that NASA is the one that wants supplies sent up there. And can't do it on its own, since it has no spacecraft capable of reaching ISS.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The first space station was designed by private industry

        Many decades ago, my mother made bank flying to Moscow to sell cars to the USSR, so I'm perfectly aware that apparatchiks had a habit of enjoying delicious capitalist toys... but Salyut and Almaz were the product of a technocratic, centrally-managed Soviet government... and to suggest that Skylab was "designed by private industry" is thoroughly dishonest. MD made an obvious contribution, as did a surprising number of others firms, but the design was directed throughout by NASA. It was public-private partner

      • Sorry friend, the design of the NASA space stations were done by NASA. They had private industry do the industrial part because they wanted to reward big political donations.

        Either way though, it's a good thing we didn't wait for "private industry" to go to space, or we'd still be in the Sputnik stage.

        • the design of the NASA space stations were done by NASA.

          Alas, no. The NASA work on the space stations was limited to design studies that were limited to 'this is what we want a space station to do, and this is the space we have to do it in".

          When it came to the engineering part of the design, McDonnell Douglas did Skylab and various companies did ISS (hell, ISS had parts from other countries, much less from outside NASA).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tyrione ( 134248 )

        The first space station was designed by private industry (what, you thought NASA did its own design work?).

        Apollo and Shuttle, which provided transport to Skylab and ISS, were designed by private industry.

        And the only reason taxpayers are footing the bill for rockets to ISS is that NASA is the one that wants supplies sent up there. And can't do it on its own, since it has no spacecraft capable of reaching ISS.

        Go buy this book and stop spouting crap you know nothing about: ``This New Ocean: The story of the First Space Race,'' by William E. Burrows. You'll learn a lot.

    • Re:Big Whoop. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by the gnat ( 153162 ) on Sunday April 20, 2014 @07:40PM (#46802309)

      Forty-three years later, private industry figures out how to send a rocket up there. With taxpayers footing the bill.

      Unlike every previous launch, however, we the taxpayers are paying a fixed price to SpaceX, instead of the bloated cost-plus contracts that are large part of the reason why there hasn't been much progress in manned spaceflight in the last four decades. Not all of the free-market claims about government inefficiency are nonsense - the previous contractors (all "private industry", loosely defined) had no incentive to develop reusable rockets, because the government just kept paying for new ones.

      • Unlike every previous launch, however, we the taxpayers are paying a fixed price to SpaceX, instead of the bloated cost-plus contracts that are large part of the reason why there hasn't been much progress in manned spaceflight in the last four decades.

        Well, it's theoretically less expensive, but not yet. If you extrapolate out 50 missions, you start seeing SpaceX making an actual profit instead of a projected profit based on a fee stream.

        My problem is that the entire thing still relies on government. If t

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          If there is value in a "private" space industry, it hasn't been found yet.

          Yeah, because that multi-billion dollar satellite business just doesn't exist.

          My God, Slashdot is full of retards these days.

        • Or, convince me that without the initial public investment, any private company would have done the basic research required to send the first satellite into space.

          It's not my job to convince you that the private sector would have magically brought about the space age without government intervention, because that isn't what I'm arguing in the first place. Sure, there are lots of examples of technology invented (or aggressively developed) by governments - pretty much anything with military utility, in partic

        • Well, it's theoretically less expensive, but not yet. If you extrapolate out 50 missions, you start seeing SpaceX making an actual profit instead of a projected profit based on a fee stream.

          Hmmm. Russia would charge us 200 million to launch progress to the ISS with 2.3 tonnes and no return.
          SpaceX charges us 120 million to launch dragon with 3.3 tonnes up and 2.5 tonnes back.
          And Russia WAS the cheapest going.

          So, yeah, I would say that it is in fact, less expensive.

        • My problem is that the entire thing still relies on government. If there is value in a "private" space industry, it hasn't been found yet.

          Hmm, you haven't heard about the market for launching satellites, have you? Which is mostly private. Which 3.5 of the Falcon 9 launches have been.

          Projected launches for Falcon 9 over the next few years include eleven launches for the US government, and 17 other launches.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Teancum ( 67324 )

          Unlike every previous launch, however, we the taxpayers are paying a fixed price to SpaceX, instead of the bloated cost-plus contracts that are large part of the reason why there hasn't been much progress in manned spaceflight in the last four decades.

          Well, it's theoretically less expensive, but not yet.

          You don't even need to get theoretical here. NASA does not have their own way to bring cargo (or passengers for that matter) to the ISS, so the only realistic comparison is whatever the Russian government (through Roscosmos) wants to charge the U.S. government for delivery to the ISS. Furthermore, the Dragon spacecraft is the only spacecraft built by any country of the Earth that has the capability of bringing cargo from the ISS to the Earth (except for perhaps 20 pounds or so of cargo on the Soyuz space

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by uncqual ( 836337 )

        My kingdom for mod points right now :(

  • The BFD (Score:5, Interesting)

    by iroll ( 717924 ) on Sunday April 20, 2014 @05:27PM (#46801725) Homepage

    Lost in the moronic editing by the eggs-and-dye-mostly department:

    After the Falcon 9's first-stage section separated from the upper-stage motor and Dragon capsule, the discarded rocket relit some of its engines to slow its fall back through the atmosphere and position itself to touch down vertically on the ocean before gravity turned it horizontal. The booster also was equipped with four 25-foot-long landings for stabilization.

    Data transmitted from an airplane tracking the booster's descent indicated it splashed down intact in the Atlantic Ocean - a first for the company.

    "Data upload from tracking plane shows landing in Atlantic was good! Several boats enroute through heavy seas," SpaceX's chief executive, Elon Musk, posted on Twitter late Friday.

    This is a Big Fucking Deal. SpaceX publicly gave odds for this working at about 1 in 3. This is an important incremental step in (literally) landing their lower stages, rather than trashing them (like every other launch system) or attempting to recover them after splashdown (like shuttle boosters).

  • What's this note on the air lock? What the - we were in! They didn't even bother to hail us! Frakkin' SpaceX, I'm sick of this shit!

    .

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