The First Crewed SpaceX Flight Could Happen In May (engadget.com) 36
Ars Technica's Eric Berger said on Twitter that the SpaceX Crew Dragon could take off on May 7th. "Though, due to 'a number of variables not hardware related' the launch could happen in late April or later in May," reports Engadget, adding: "We don't know yet how long the flight will be." From the report: It's been almost a year since the Crew Dragon achieved one major milestone: reaching the ISS. In January, SpaceX completed Crew Dragon's in-flight launch escape test, which proved that the capsule can break away from the Falcon 9 rocket and splash down in the Atlantic if necessary during launch. SpaceX has also successfully completed a round of engine tests without any explosions. At this point, it seems things are going well for SpaceX and Crew Dragon. It makes sense that, following these successful tests and Musk's previous estimate, Crew Dragon might be ready to launch on May 7th. When the flight does occur, it could look something like this simulated two-minute video clip that Musk tweeted late last year.
SpaceX is boring (Score:5, Funny)
Yawn. Another successful test, another docking with no unscheduled rapid disassemblies. Can you say snooze fest?
I’d much rather fly Boeing’s crew capsule. Much more full of surprises - never a dull moment; keeps you on your toes!
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Yawn. Another successful test, another docking with no unscheduled rapid disassemblies. Can you say snooze fest?
I’d much rather fly Boeing’s crew capsule. Much more full of surprises - never a dull moment; keeps you on your toes!
Agreed - SpaceX is getting so good that their launches are too boring to make the nightly news. However, their recent test flight was an exception. Not a RUD, but that flight did include have a rapid scheduled disassembly complete with fireball.
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Nice euphemism -- especially as it's what Boeing is doing with their code at the moment. :-)
I'd much rather fly Boeing's crew capsule. Much more full of surprises - never a dull moment; keeps you on your toes!
I'll tell them to stop debugging.
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Yawn indeed. A crewed flight "could" happen in May. Maybe have a story when it's actually confirmed or even better when the result is known, but do we really need a story speculating about when it might happen?
It's as bad as Google in the early days where every press release merits a story, until we realized that most of those products have a life span measured in months.
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Rockets will always be cool. SpaceX stacked a couple more rings for Starship today. I watched the YouTube videos of the slightly taller stack. Because I'm a nerd. What are you doing here? Do you even know the difference between the new kind of welding and the old kind of welding used for the Starship steel?
I don't think you think rockets are cool.
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Actually, I think Elon Musk is kinda a jerk. But the rockets are seriously cool.
You could even say he's a... cool jerk
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We know you don't think rockets are cool. Not sure why you keep repeating that on Slashdot, however. Surely Jockdot or some similar anti-nerd site would be more welcoming to you?
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Or late April. Or June. The late April option makes me think they're looking at the weather more than anything else....
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Yawn. Another successful test, another docking with no unscheduled rapid disassemblies. Can you say snooze fest?
Yep, that's the goal. Make spaceflight as exciting as taking a drive to Pittsburg. Or a airliner flight (non Max of course).
SpaceX (Score:5, Insightful)
The objective of SpaceX here is to get astronauts to the ISS. The objective of Boeing here is to extract maximum taxpayer dollars. Each is achieving their objective well.
Guess who's the only bidder allowed to make a moon lander now. Guess why.
We must move past the need for government-funded space programs if we're ever going to get off this rock.
Re:SpaceX (Score:5, Informative)
Guess who's the only bidder allowed to make a moon lander now. Guess why.
What do you mean? In November NASA added five companies to the list of vendors allowed to bid on contracts for NASA payload delivery to the lunar surface.
The companies added are SpaceX, Blue Origin, Ceres Robotics, Sierra Nevada Corporation and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems.
Other approved companies are Astrobotic Technology, Deep Space Systems, Draper Laboratory, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, Lockheed Martin Space, Masten Space Systems, Moon Express and OrbitBeyond.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/11... [techcrunch.com]
The objective of SpaceX here is to get astronauts to the ISS. The objective of Boeing here is to extract maximum taxpayer dollars. Each is achieving their objective well.
That's funny and insightful.
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The manned moon program has been designed with contracts that eliminate everyone except Boing. Cargo to the moon, however, is wide open.
Personally, I expect SpaceX may reach the moon on their own first, but they'll probably keep very quiet about that as long as possible to avoid straining their relationship with NASA.
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The manned moon program has been designed with contracts that eliminate everyone except Boing.
No contractorss have been selected yet.
Right now the competition is wide open. This article discusses the main contenders: https://arstechnica.com/scienc... [arstechnica.com]
Blue Origin is one of the main possibilities-- they released extensive details of their lander system back in October: https://arstechnica.com/scienc... [arstechnica.com]
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Blue Origin is one of the main possibilities-- they released extensive details of their lander system back in October:
https://arstechnica.com/scienc... [arstechnica.com]
Have they reached orbit yet?
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Re:SpaceX (Score:4, Informative)
Guess who's the only bidder allowed to make a moon lander now. Guess why.
What do you mean? In November NASA added five companies to the list of vendors allowed to bid on contracts for NASA payload delivery to the lunar surface.
In January, the House space subcommittee approved a funding authorization bill that said NASA should do a "Moon to Mars" plan and to move the moon landing back to the previously targeted 2028 date. (Trump moved up the date to 2024 in the hopes that he'd have a second term and be the president that returned to the moon. Pence announced it maybe a year ago.) The House also specified that the lunar lander project had to be done in-house as a cost plus project and be "carried on an Exploration Upper Stage-enhanced Space Launch System (SLS)" NASA administrator Bridenstine publicly voiced concern.
That bill is why some are saying that Boeing is being given the lunar lander project. However, the subcommittee's bill isn't actually law yet. It still has to go to the full House. And then has to be reconciled with what the Senate is doing.
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The objective of SpaceX here is to get astronauts to the ISS. The objective of Boeing here is to extract maximum taxpayer dollars. Each is achieving their objective well.
Actually, I believe Musk's goal with SpaceX is to get people to Mars. The whole commercial spaceflight thing is just to finance the R&D to develop the tech required to do that. Might be why their goals tend towards getting it right rather than getting it fast/cheap.
I think this is also why SpaceX hasn't (and probably will never) go public - the purpose of the company is NOT just to make money for shareholders.
Waiting for the news stories on how the ISS-bound astronauts are fighting over who gets to ride
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Musk wants to get to Mars. For that he needs to fleece the taxpayers and thats what the Dragon is for. It has no input into the larger starship program. Its just a way of getting some of that Sweeeeet Nasa funding for ISS.
Once he has fleeced enough from the taxpayers he might want to fleece the general investing public for more funding. Which is where an IPO comes in.
But of course he doesnt want to give up control of his evil empire SX so he will only IPO the Iridium 2 - Starlink as a stand alone company to
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Fleecing tax payers by offering lower cost rides to space? You want them to do it for free, I guess?
NASA is saving a lot of money with every Dragon flight. Sure, they paid SpaceX for a big chunk of their development cost, but that was much cheaper than what they paid competitors like Boeing. Those are the ones fleecing tax payers.
SpaceX (Score:2)
I understand the need to clean out the sewage system, but why is NASA only giving a few peanuts to SpaceX to build new rockets while giving Boeing billions of dollars to flush down toilets?
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Re:SpaceX (Score:4, Informative)
NASA has no say in how its money is spent. Congress signs the checks. And the chair of the senate appropriations committee, Richard Shelby, just so happens to represent the district that is building SLS.
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Tesla got 278 million for COTS which they used for small amount of funding on F1 and F9 (which both costs a great deal more), to which it was boosted to 396M. [wikipedia.org]If you think that is a lot of money, well, ULA gets 1B / year just for doing nothing; Boeing has had 17B for SLS ALONE (does not include Orion).
Emissions credits? Yeah, they helped. How much? Not that much. In addition, those do not come from the government. Those come from companies that are so piss poorly
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I am doubtful that the government would kill SLS just because SpaceX made it to the moon first. That's not what the SLS program is about.
It is true that a SpaceX lunar landing would make the job of SLS's defenders harder, but they'd still drag it out for as long as possible.
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