With a Rare Nighttime Splashdown, SpaceX Returns Four ISS Astronauts to Earth (phys.org) 38
Four astronauts in a SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully splashed down into the Gulf of Mexico this morning at 2:57 a.m. ET — returning from the International Space Station in the first U.S. crew splashdown in darkness since the Apollo 8 moonshot in 1968.
Phys.org reports: It was an express trip home, lasting just 6 1/2 hours... "We welcome you back to planet Earth and thanks for flying SpaceX," SpaceX's Mission Control radioed moments after splashdown. "For those of you enrolled in our frequent flyer program, you've earned 68 million miles on this voyage...."
The 167-day mission was the longest for a crew capsule launching from the U.S. The previous record of 84 days was set by NASA's final Skylab station astronauts in 1974. Saturday night's undocking left seven people at the space station, four of whom arrived a week ago via SpaceX...
Once finished with their medical checks on the ship, the astronauts planned to hop on a helicopter for the short flight to shore, then catch a plane straight to Houston for a reunion with their families. "It's not very often you get to wake up on the space station and go to sleep in Houston," chief flight director Holly Ridings told reporters.
The astronauts' capsule, Resilience, will head back to Cape Canaveral for refurbishment for SpaceX's first private crew mission in September... A tech billionaire has purchased the entire three-day flight, which will orbit 75 miles (120 kilometers) above the space station. He'll fly with a pair of contest winners and a physician assistant from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, his designated charity for the mission.
SpaceX's next astronaut launch for NASA will follow in October.
Phys.org reports: It was an express trip home, lasting just 6 1/2 hours... "We welcome you back to planet Earth and thanks for flying SpaceX," SpaceX's Mission Control radioed moments after splashdown. "For those of you enrolled in our frequent flyer program, you've earned 68 million miles on this voyage...."
The 167-day mission was the longest for a crew capsule launching from the U.S. The previous record of 84 days was set by NASA's final Skylab station astronauts in 1974. Saturday night's undocking left seven people at the space station, four of whom arrived a week ago via SpaceX...
Once finished with their medical checks on the ship, the astronauts planned to hop on a helicopter for the short flight to shore, then catch a plane straight to Houston for a reunion with their families. "It's not very often you get to wake up on the space station and go to sleep in Houston," chief flight director Holly Ridings told reporters.
The astronauts' capsule, Resilience, will head back to Cape Canaveral for refurbishment for SpaceX's first private crew mission in September... A tech billionaire has purchased the entire three-day flight, which will orbit 75 miles (120 kilometers) above the space station. He'll fly with a pair of contest winners and a physician assistant from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, his designated charity for the mission.
SpaceX's next astronaut launch for NASA will follow in October.
Re:"The Beating of a Liberal" (Score:4, Insightful)
So you are advocating violence towards people who Fox News tells you you shouldn't like?
And for what? Because a random person was snotty to you in High School? A Prius driver wouldn't let you pass them? That guy who got a four year degree was able to get that job you wanted to take, then shortly got promoted out of it?
Maybe it is because your life isn't like Leave it to Beaver, with a submissive wife who cooks you meals all day and cleans your home, while you get to spend quality time with your kids, after they had been worn out with adventures all day where they never actually hurt themselves and other.
The reason why liberals are not nice to you, because of statements like that that make them scared of you, because it shows how much of a bad person you are. So they will either avoid you, or confront you. Because you are resorting to violence vs. actual logical arguments, you are not changing anyone, you are just making yourself and others within you party look like violent terrorist, where you just end up forcing Liberal Groups to take away your rights, because you are not using the rights you have properly.
You are not helping a cause for your right to bare arms, by going in and shooting people. It just further justifies laws to take guns out of your hands.
You are not helping free speech by treating people.
Besides, you might be surprised how many Marines are loyal to their country and wouldn't hurt a legally elected representatives, just because they can.
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Just toss a liberal celebrity into the ring with a couple of Marines, and spend about an hour filming him getting the living shit beat out of him.
So you are advocating violence towards people who Fox News tells you you shouldn't like? ...
Besides, you might be surprised how many Marines are loyal to their country and wouldn't hurt a legally elected representatives, just because they can.
He/she/it might also be surprised to learn that some (many?) Marines are also "liberals" -- some former Marines are now also celebrities, some of them are also liberal ... So much stupid in that post.
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He's a fucking troll. He posted the same exact post, copy/pasted, in another thread.
Probably the same loser who posts penisbird and svastikas.
Re: "The Beating of a Liberal" (Score:2)
IOW, far more likely to want to beat the shit out of cowardly idiots like that AC, who almost certainly never served.
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Citation please.
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When they looked at the sample as a whole, they found that 49.8 percent of veterans identified as Democrats while 39.1 percent said they were Republican. The remaining 11.1 percent were Independents. In comparison, men who were not veterans were slightly less likely to be Democrats. The breakdown: 47.8 percent Democrat, 38.2 percent Republican, 14 percent Independent. [journalistsresource.org]
The following is from 2009, but still holds up:
The Military Times released the results of a survey showing that [fivethirtyeight.com]
WindBourne lies and links that say the opposite (Score:2)
Standard WindBourne lies. With links that show the opposite of his claims.
The heading for your link. "Younger veterans are more likely to be Republicans than Democrats"
In more recent decades, veterans have begun to lean increasingly toward the Grand Old Party, researchers found.
You said Enlisted, but then changed to talk about veterans. And the 70's 80's and 90's
Why is that WindBourne?
Fast forward several decades and party ties look quite different. About a third of veterans who turned 18 between 1972 and 2016 identified as Democratic. Just more than half said they were Republican, and 16.7 percent were Independent.
Why all the lies WindBourne? Your second link is the same. Nowhere does it say there are more democrats than Republicans.
It is true that the upper echelons of the military tilt right. My own [Dempsey’s] research confirmed that about two-thirds of majors and higher-ranking officers identify as conservative, as previous studies found. But that tilt becomes far less pronounced when you expand the pool of respondents. That is because only 32 percent of the Army’s enlisted soldiers consider themselves conservative, while 23 percent identify as liberal and the remaining 45 percent are self-described moderates.
Why all the lies WindBourne?
Meanwhile, what has Blue Origin... (Score:3, Insightful)
...done to date? Gone on some airplane rides after all these years. And yet they have the gall to complain they didn't get the contract, despite their track record of not doing shit?
Re:Meanwhile, what has Blue Origin... (Score:5, Insightful)
What can they do? They don't have contracts to do them.
Financially Musk put a lot on the line for SpaceX, most CEO's probably wouldn't have put in that much risk.
Bazos got lucky with Amazon, Having an online store, wasn't a big achievement, it was just a different form for a mail order catalog. But he got in at the right time to get peoples interest, and to his credit was able to expand the company before the .COM bubble popped so it could weather the downfall.
Musk for SpaceX and Tesla, there really wasn't any good time to get in, he had to be the first mover, take on a lot of debt, and flack in order to get his businesses to where they are now.
Bazos is just mad that Musk beat him in those fields, where he just kinda go in to say Me To!
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"What can they do? They don't have contracts to do them."
If you're talking about Blue Origin they have contracts, and options for future contracts if they ever get their rocket up and flying. Last I heard NASA had them on a list of launch providers that can try to get launch contracts and I think they have at least one publicly confirmed commercial satellite operator still waiting for a launch on New Glenn. I don't know how long they'll last if SpaceX can get Starship up and running though. I suppose BO
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What can they do? They don't have contracts to do them.
Yeah, you're right.
Bezos living paycheck to paycheck and all...
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Horseshit. Or at best, irrelevant.
The only reason SpaceX isn't bankrupt is that it got the Commercial Cargo from NASA. (This according to Musk himself.) With that contract in hand he was able to raise enough money to actually turn SpaceX into a going concern.
Of course, being a Muskmelon, you skip over how Musk got lucky with Paypal, got lucky with SpaceX, a
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I came here to post the same thing.
Then I cannot help but think you're in the wrong thread. This has nothing to do with HLS or Blue Origin.
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I can't believe Bezos believes he's entitled to the contract when clearly SpaceX has done all the ground work needed.
Feeling entitled is what these people are all about. Especially Bezos.
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The sad thing is that Bezos has been putting in about $1billion/year into Blue Origin, they started earlier, and they're still probably 5+ years behind SpaceX.
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Blue Origin is, overall, at the same place the Starship is now. The Starship can launch and come back down, without leaving the atmosphere. Blue Origin can do the same. Now, there can be some mild arguments about landing without exploding and then some neener neener moments describing how Blue Origin is so far ahead of Starship. . .
. . . but then you have to remember than we've got the Dragon Capsules making trips to and from the ISS on a regular basis already with the launch vehicles returning to earth
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bllue origin who.
i think it would be way cool to enrolled in the spacex frequent flyer program
Space TSA. (Score:2)
Once finished with their medical checks on the ship, the astronauts planned to hop on a helicopter for the short flight to shore, then catch a plane straight to Houston for a reunion with their families.
No fair I have to go through TSA and he doesn't.
Re:Space TSA. (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a friend who is Hobbyist Pilot, he once took me out on a flight in a Cessna. No TSA, or metal detectors, he had the key to get onto the airplane.
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No fair I have to go through TSA and he doesn't.
Pony up some $$ and fly private -- or buy your own plane and get a pilot's license ...
Astronaut Exit Video Stream Cut (Score:2)
Why did they show the first astronaut exit but then cut away to watching Mission Control for the rest of the astronauts exiting?
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I am guessing he may be having some additional problems. While he was being pulled out he didn't see as chipper as the captain did.
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Looked to me like one or more of the astronauts were going to be coming out on stretchers and they probably didn't want to show that. It's fairly normal for people coming back from a long stretch in space to have some troubles with balance, queasiness, fainting, etc. I think most agencies have been "selective" about showing that kind of stuff historically.
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I don't understand the private flight (Score:2)
I'm not sure I understand. My impression of the Crew Dragon is that it's a cylindrical room with four chairs that just about fill it up. There doesn't appear to be a lot of room for passengers to "move around the cabin." Are they going up there to b
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Re:I don't understand the private flight (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm not sure I understand. My impression of the Crew Dragon is that it's a cylindrical room with four chairs that just about fill it up. There doesn't appear to be a lot of room for passengers to "move around the cabin." Are they going up there to be strapped into their chairs for three days, shitting into diapers, as they orbit the Earth? I mean, hey, I'd like to go to space, but I'm surprised to find there is an opportunity that I might pass up if offered.
1) It has a toilet and a curtain. Not glamorous but, no, not what you're describing.
2) As for volume, this excursion is roughly the length of the trip from the earth to the moon or back. The Apollo Command Module had 6.2 cubic meters for a crew of three. Dragon has 9.3 cubic meters for a crew of 4, not counting the bubble dome they are installing. There is room for them to move around.
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I'm not sure I understand. My impression of the Crew Dragon is that it's a cylindrical room with four chairs that just about fill it up
It can hold up to 7 pax, and it has a john. Five of the seats can be swapped out for more cargo space.