NASA Buys Remaining Space Station Crew Flights From SpaceX (arstechnica.com) 44
NASA said this week that it plans to purchase five additional Crew Dragon missions from SpaceX to carry astronauts to the International Space Station. Ars Technica reports: Although the space agency's news release does not specifically say so, these may be the final flights NASA needs to keep the space station fully occupied into the year 2030. As of now, there is no signed international agreement to keep the station flying until then, but this new procurement sends a strong signal that the space agency expects the orbital outpost to keep flying that long.
The announcement also suggests that SpaceX will fly more than twice as many crews to the space station than the other partner in NASA's commercial crew program, Boeing. Under the new agreement, SpaceX would fly 14 crewed missions to the station on Crew Dragon, and Boeing would fly six during the lifetime of the station.
The announcement also suggests that SpaceX will fly more than twice as many crews to the space station than the other partner in NASA's commercial crew program, Boeing. Under the new agreement, SpaceX would fly 14 crewed missions to the station on Crew Dragon, and Boeing would fly six during the lifetime of the station.
Good news (Score:4, Interesting)
Note, I am no longer a fan of current-Elon. Proof: https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
However SpaceX is undeniably the best path forward to making life interplanetary especially compared to the money-toilet that is Boeing and others. Fact is that without (pre-pandemic, pre-neuron-depletion) Elon, we'd still be struggling to make re-usable rockets. Besides maybe Bezos putting an anemic amount of money and risk capital, we wouldn't have anyone with the capital resources even trying. Nobody these days with the resources but Elon would have gone all in and withstood multiple failures and risk of personal capital to make it happen. NASA pussified and canceled DC-X after one failure.
If we had a guy like Elon investing in finding a reliable cure for Stage IV cancers, we'd have it by now. I mean, we have pathways to that which with a little more risk capital investment would cure it .. but right now it's getting "fusion-never" levels of funding.
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Person whose hobby is dick-riding on a user of a site that no longer matters says you want to might rethink your life
Peak irony achieved
Re: Good news (Score:2)
He has always been a game player and he has screwed with politics quite a lot. But, now he is going down a road which is just distasteful. I know he probably is doing all of this more out of frustr
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I can also believe that buying Twitter was simply an attack on Trump
What? You can still believe that after he said he'd let Trump back on? Remind me never to listen to you, your thinker's broken.
Re: Good news (Score:1)
Well only pussified use one issue to cancel a future improver in ðYoe like made of thoughtless indignation!
Go Elon, and boost ISS to L4 to build L5 colonies sooner than later.
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If we had a guy like Elon investing in finding a reliable cure for Stage IV cancers, we'd have it by now.
Maybe, but probably not. What Elon primarily does is get into things at the time when they become easy, and recognize bright ideas. These ain't nothin' but it doesn't mean he can accomplish things which are particularly hard. People have been researching EVs and rockets for a long time, and he was able to benefit from that prior research and come out looking like a genius. Clearly he's competent, and was in the right place at the right time with the right contacts to make things happen, so he has things goi
Re:Good news (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe, but probably not. What Elon primarily does is get into things at the time when they become easy,
No. That's not at all what Elon does. Tesla barely made it and almost went bankrupt twice. Telsa solved problems like a nationwide charging network, battery composition, and EV range. Things all prior attempts failed at. And Tesla did all of that with NEW tech, not old tech. Telsa even built new types of factories completely modernized over legacy car makers.
Just because it looks easy after the fact does not make it easy. Just because humans evolved to fit this planet exactly does not mean the planet was designed for us. Backwards thinking is backwards.
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Tesla did all of that with NEW tech, not old tech
They made only incremental technical improvements. The only thing they really provably had technologically was their motor design, and while it was a bit smaller than other designs at the time, that was never a huge achievement. They didn't have the first electrified vehicle based on large numbers of small cells, that was the original Insight (with 120 commercial grade "D" sized 1.2 V NiMH batteries). They didn't invent any of the manufacturing technologies they're using, they're all borrowed from someone e
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Innovation isn't about coming up with bright ideas, but about making them happen.
I'm not sure I'll take that as a given, but let's go ahead and do that for the purpose of this conversation. How much of innovation is intelligence, and how much is persistence?
It's also about going against conventional wisdom. "Landing boosters for re-use is impractical."
Studied for decades, and WAS impractical until recently.
"People don't want EVs that look like regular cars, they want a design that is way out there".
Teslas not only don't look like regular cars (around the nose) but EVs weren't built so goofy-looking for fun or marketing, it was for efficiency reasons. The battery technology got good enough that this could be compromised at the same time that the virtual wind tunnel technolo
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Look up Dunning-Kruger in the encyclopedia.
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Look up Dunning-Kruger in the encyclopedia.
Why? I've got you figured out already.
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(...) And they would have done, without the EV credits gifted to the industry by the left that Elon now despises because they won't let him do literally anything he wants without complaint.
I don't recall the left caring about what he thinks when they skimmed taxes off him. So no, you forced him into that "social contract" you keep talking about without asking his opinion, so you don't get to start complaining NOW that it's time to do your part of that contract, you fing hypocrites.
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Penny: It's a non-optional social contract.
Sheldon: Oh, fair enough.
Re:Good news (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't say he would come up with the cure himself did I? I said there are viable pathways to the cure that with some investment would become possible.
For example, one publicly known pathway: There are proteins of the family CRISPR that exhibit a property known as "collateral cleavage," for example Cas12 and Cas13. The way those work is when it encounters a particular "pre-programmed" sequence of RNA, it changes into a thing called an RNase (some versions even a DNase and peptidase). It can be used to treat cancer because cancer is the result of mutations in DNA. The beauty of CRISPR proteins is that all you have to do to "program" it is load it with a piece of RNA that has the target sequence and it will target it. Note DNA guides may also theoretically be possible for example like Argonaute.
So basically the process is .. .. you need the transcriptome.)
1. You sequence some cells taken from the primary and various tumor locations (mets) then you obtain the most common mutations in the tumor by comparing it to normal cells. These give you a list of mutations to target. (Note: If using an RNA target instead of DNA
2. Load the Cas13 with RNA target guides.
3. Deliver the Cas13 with the RNA target guides loads into the cells using LNPs or Adenoviral vectors.
4. Only cells that are cancerous will be destroyed by the Cas13 because it will degrade the RNA in those cells, leaving normal cells unharmed.
Why aren't we doing this now outside the lab? Many reasons. We have to engineer (modify the amino acids) of the Cas13:
1. We need to make it work efficiently inside eukaryotic cells (they come from bacteria, so they work like shit in eukaryotes).
2. We need multiple versions of it, to evade immunity (the Cas13's immunogenic epitopes need to be modified by swapping in different amino acids that are not strongly presented by MHC)
3. We need to shrink the size of the Cas13 so that it can be delivered more efficiently.
4. We need to develop better LNP or delivery vectors.
5. We need to engineer different versions of the Cas13, using the same Cas13 version makes the cancer more susceptible to escape mutations.
6. Other shit that I don't feel like typing.
If you have done any work on protein engineering .. I mean real rational protein engineering not the BS rounds of evolution shit .. it is a lot of work to engineer these proteins .. it isn't trivial. Note .. I am not stating any new ideas here. The problem is the level of work, investment, and commitment involved. It would need someone like Elon to drive it home..
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Want to point out that versions needed for #2 (MHC evasion) and is different than #5 (escape mutations - evading efflux etc.)
Re: Good news (Score:2)
1. You sequence some cells taken from the primary and various tumor locations (mets) then you obtain the most common mutations in the tumor by comparing it to normal cells. These give you a list of mutations to target. (Note: If using an RNA target instead of DNA .. you need the transcriptome.)
You find that beyond the original drivers of the neoplastic transformation there is no common mutation. You have multiple clonal lines each one with different mutations and constantly branch into new lines due to mutation and selection. So no tar
Re: Good news (Score:2)
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You find that beyond the original drivers of the neoplastic transformation there is no common mutation. You have multiple clonal lines each one with different mutations and constantly branch into new lines due to mutation and selection. So no target for your silver bullet. You will also miss a lot of the clones because if you can't comprehensively sample the tumor and all metastases.
Dude, that is false. First .. currently cancer is often treated by targeting only ONE mutation and it shrinks the tumor sizeable in many cases. Second, how much have you actual studied tumor heterogeneity to make such a statement. I have actually been looking into it quite a bit. There are often many mutations that are common even across mets. Enough that you can build a phylogenetic tree and in fact there are even passenger mutations from the original tumor mass still present. Finally, you don't need to de
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What Elon primarily does is get into things at the time when they become easy, and recognize bright ideas
If getting into space at such low cost that it attracts private business were "easy" then why didn't Boeing, with all its connections and resources, get into it first?
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If getting into space at such low cost that it attracts private business were "easy" then why didn't Boeing, with all its connections and resources, get into it first?
That's easy to answer, they were riding the SLS gravy train so they didn't have to innovate. Their lack of ambition has been funded by NASA, and our tax dollars.
Re: Good news (Score:2)
If we had a guy like Elon investing in finding a reliable cure for Stage IV cancers, we'd have it by now. I mean, we have pathways to that which with a little more risk capital investment would cure it .. but right now it's getting "fusion-never" levels of funding.
I don't seem to know what you are talking about. Cancer is not one disease. There is nothing that promises to cure it short of genetically modifying humans to prevent it from occuring in the first place. The amount of funding that is dumped for cancer research is astronomical. Just the NCI budget is close to $7bilion. You can add to that DoD, ACS, countless nonprofits and huge expenses from the industry.inclusing venture capital. If there is barrier to finding "the cure for cancer", it is not the money. Th
Re: Good news (Score:2)
Oh god, not the line cancer is not one disease again. That line is technically correct but it is also misleading. All cancers are the result of changes in DNA code that enable unchecked cell division. In fact all cancers have to follow certain rules, called hallmarks of cancer. Those specific mutations of course vary from cancer to cancer, therefore each persons cancer will act and respond differently. However if you have a programmable personalized system that can detect and act upon those DNA codes you ca
Re: Good news (Score:2)
Oh god, not the line cancer is not one disease again. That line is technically correct but it is also misleading. All cancers are the result of changes in DNA code that enable unchecked cell division. In fact all cancers have to follow certain rules, called hallmarks of cancer.
That line is correct. The Weinberg's "hallmarks of cancer" a generic features that a blob of cells typically needs to exhibit in order to be called a cancer. They are not rules. They are also so generic that they completely mask the bilogical diversity and complexity that leads to each one of them: "sustained proliferation signaling", "activate invasion and metastasis", "resist cell death"... If anything the hallmarks of cancer are misleading, because they create the impression that we are doing with a very
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So the "cure" everyone wants is for the symptoms and not the disease. Sounds like the target is the cause of cancer and not the cancer. When a battle plan is not working it's time to rethink the battle not the plan.
1. Better food
2. Less contaminates in our environments (inside and outside)
3. More exorcise
4. ???
5. Happiness for everyone! (Profit isn't everything)
Maybe cancer is just natures way of culling the gene pool of animals that eat (or live) wrong.
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If we had a guy like Elon investing in finding a reliable cure for Stage IV cancers, we'd have it by now.
Wrong. Understanding all the biological processes involved and how to disrupt only bad ones makes reusable rockets look like child's play. What you are failing to understand is that cells are a Rube Goldberg machines on LSD. We are still just trying to understand how they work in certain conditions let alone how they function as systems. Take this up a level and you have to generalize how they work within a set of genetic variation.
I want a cure for the many different cancers as well but we're just now
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The beginning of the end of NASA. (Score:2)
That signature must have been blood red with shame.
It is effectively the beginning of the end of NASA.
Re:The beginning of the end of NASA. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe this is the culmination of almost 2 decades of intentional work to build up the commercial spaceflight industry:
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services [wikipedia.org]
Development of the Commercial Crew Program [wikipedia.org]
I give SpaceX plenty of deserved credit for building a platform that defied expectations but it's not like they have not been buoyed by funds and expertise from NASA in regards to Falcon 9, Dragon-1 and Crew Dragon, especially in terms of life support and other internal systems. Hell even their PICA-X heatshield tech is built on the back of materials science and development done at NASA-Ames which NASA was happy to provide and support.
NASA sure is dead when they just pulled off launching and deploying the most advanced piece of astronomy equipment in human history practically flawlessly after decades of development, [space.com] have 2 nuclear [nature.com]powered exploration rovers operating on Mars [space.com], had a drone helipcopter operating on another planet [yahoo.com], recently put a probe past Pluto and is still exploring outer planets [wikipedia.org], have a sample return from an asteroid on it's way back to Earth [nasa.gov], will soon be launching a probe to search for signs of life at Europa [nasa.gov], not to mention all the earth science they perform still.
Nevermind that NASA still believes in SpaceX's future enough to grant them the sole moon landing contract for the HLS mission which buoys that entire project with funds and knowledge NASA is probably in a stronger position than it has been in decades as now they have several commercial partners they can utilize for launches they can focus on all those things they excel at and those that there is no commercial market for. It's not to say they don't have problems relatd to beauracracy and general government malaise but overall NASA continues to do the job we expect of it.
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The embarrassment of a decades old space agency with a proven track record that has to buy rocket flights from a commercial entity.
That signature must have been blood red with shame.
It is effectively the beginning of the end of NASA.
What NASA is good at is science. Riding on a new generation of commercial rockets makes perfect sense.
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The embarrassment of a decades old space agency with a proven track record that has to buy rocket flights from a commercial entity.
What are you talking about, you quack? This is a success that was decades in the making. NASA was compelled to help the commercialization of space [nasa.gov] become a reality and they have clearly succeeded.
It's not that SpaceX is suddenly awesome at stuff and NASA sucks but rather that NASA has been cooperating with SpaceX throughout it's development. Everything about this is a huge success.
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NASA has always depended on contractors to produce spacecraft. Now they are simply letting the contractors manage the launches, and the design, and not just the construction. This is actually a massive win for the country, and precisely what NASA was supposed to accomplish. We don't need NASA to be in the launch business any more than the FAA needs to be in the air travel business.
Well, duh. (Score:3)
Boeing's Starliner is tied to Atlas V, which is being discontinued, and there are currently no other man-rated rockets that it could ride on other than F9 anyhow. Redundancy being one of the objectives, it would be stupid for NASA to allow that despite the reliability of F9. Vulcan would both have to start launching (engines, Jeff?) and get man-rated. Boeing can't have any more flights than they were already committed for.
But never mind all that, the leftoid banshees are still going to wail about Elon getting special treatment here.
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I have to believe that she has a small team looking at the question of how much money it would take them to do their own complete crewed lunar landing mission, to be announced next time the ULA says the Artemis landing will be delayed another year or two.
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their own complete crewed lunar landing mission
I seriously doubt this. SpaceX does not want to go to the moon. NASA does and they're happy to help them get there, but SpaceX is all about going to Mars.