SpaceX Splashes Down NASA Astronauts, Completing Crew-4 Mission (cnbc.com) 15
SpaceX returned its fourth operational crew mission from the International Space Station on Friday, with the quartet of astronauts splashing down in the company's capsule off the coast of Florida. CNBC reports: The company's Crew Dragon spacecraft "Freedom" undocked from the ISS at around noon ET to begin the trip back to Earth, with splashdown happening around 5 p.m. ET. "Welcome home -- thanks for flying SpaceX," the company's mission control told the crew shortly after landing. "Thank you for an incredible ride to orbit, and an incredible ride home," Crew-4 commander Kjell Lindgren said in response.
Crew-4 includes NASA astronauts Lindgren, Bob Hines, and Jessica Watkins, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. The mission launched in April for a six-month stay on the orbiting research laboratory. Elon Musk's company launched the Crew-5 mission last week, bringing four other astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX has now flown 30 people to orbit since its first crewed launch in May 2020, with six government missions and two private ones.
Crew-4 includes NASA astronauts Lindgren, Bob Hines, and Jessica Watkins, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. The mission launched in April for a six-month stay on the orbiting research laboratory. Elon Musk's company launched the Crew-5 mission last week, bringing four other astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX has now flown 30 people to orbit since its first crewed launch in May 2020, with six government missions and two private ones.
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Re: Thank you Elon (Score:3)
No, Bernie is even worse than that. He doesn't really give a fuck that the SLS has already cost NASA a lot more than they've ever paid to SpaceX and so far has literally nothing to show for it. At this rate, Starship is going to be finished first, and its per launch cost is all but guaranteed to be much lower.
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I think if you sat down and pressed Sanders about SLS he'd probably say it's a necessary waste because our system requires that people have the jobs that pork project produced, so while the waste is deplorable on all levels you also can't just not have jobs.
From my point of view SpaceX is great, and it's great that Elon funded that vision. But it's too bad that all of Elon's plans amount to "fuck Earth". Like this Starlink thing for example. The only reason it makes sense to do it on such a large scale is t
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can do what the government cannot
On a story about a rocket lifting government trained astronauts to a NASA and government built largest and longest standing space station in human history on a capsule contracted by and of which a large portion of funds from the government, utilizing the knowledge of decades of tech NASA had developed, a heatshield based on materials science done at NASA, on a rocket that was developed with the security and funds of long term NASA contracts and funding.
This isn't to say SpaceX isn't an extremely innovative
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without the security of guaranteed NASA contracts,
Hardly. Space X was based on their "mission", to develop the technologies necessary for a successful manned Mars mission. At the time, Elon was so committed to the corporate mission goal (which was not to maximize the probability of a profit) he would not even set up the company to be "taken public". (because public ownership demanding quarterly profits would have made management towards the goal near impossible.) Space X was always prepared to do rocket development without NASA contracts because their
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Dedicating resources to go back to the Moon is a waste of time...
Any tech we want to deploy to Mars or to asteroids needs to be tested on the Moon first. Let us experience our rookie mistakes in a place just three days away, rather than after a flight of eight months or more.
And who knows what uses we may find for the Moon itself while we run these tests? It could be a new valuable mineral or a usage that exploits the Moon's position near Earth
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needs to be tested on the Moon first.
No, it doesn't. But I don't care if that testing is done during Apollo Mission 2: Electric Boogaloo, as long as NASA doesn't get the bright idea to establish a permanent manned moonbase. That is going to be such a huge pissaway of money, NASA will be forced to pick one program to fund, the Moonbase or Mars, and I already know what people like you would choose.
Let us experience our rookie mistakes in a place just three days away, rather than after a flight of eight months or more.
You fool! What do you think was "the plan" if something bad happened during the Apollo mission? Do you think there was a duplicate Saturn rocket
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smelling one's own farts
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I don't think he's that much smarter than a lot of people. It's just a combination of luck and qualities other that being "smart". Those qualities include ambition among other things, but also an alignment of the intelligent "spectrum" kinds of things with a host of other abilities. I'm about the same age as Musk, was bullied as a kid like Musk, got very good test scores and grades as he most likely did, and gawdammit, I wanted to solve the electric car problem too so why aren't I the Musk in this timel
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I think he is more intelligent than almost everyone else, but that there are a lot of other intelligent people, including people who are more intelligent than him that never "make it".
As to be super successful in life you need a combination of several factors:
-Intelligence, as you do not see stupid people succeeding in a big way. But you do not need to be "super intelligent", but you definitely need to be "very intelligent"
-Luck as you said, you need the break, though with the next point "drive" dialed high
We're at the half way to everywhere point (Score:2)
At least metaphorically anyway. We can has jump gates please?