SpaceX Developing Orbital Crew Capsule 122
iamlucky13 writes "Private aerospace firm SpaceX has revealed that it has secretly been working on a crew and cargo vehicle since late 2004. Development of the capsule, named Dragon, has so far been funded by SpaceX and its partners, which includes the Canadian company that built the robotic arm for the International Space Station. Dragon would be launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 and dock at the ISS with assistance of the robotic arm. While SpaceX founder Elon Musk is prepared to complete development of the capsule with his own resources, SpaceX is seeking funding from NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, which makes up to $500 million available through 2010 for private spacecraft development."
Think ahead... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Think ahead... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Think ahead... (Score:4, Funny)
So if you did this would IIS finally become a real server?
Re:Think ahead... (Score:2)
Re:Think ahead... (Score:2)
Re:Think ahead... (Score:2)
SkyRamp FFS (Score:4, Interesting)
FFS Listen to what Von Braun said dammit
Read: http://www.skyramp.org/ [skyramp.org]
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:4, Interesting)
About the closest thing they have is on this page [skyramp.org] where they take Von Braun's consultation for a movie as serious evidence that he backed such a scheme. That's not exactly evidence.
BTW, any site that uses Java Applets for each rollover button (something possible without Java) needs to be shot.
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:5, Informative)
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:3, Interesting)
had shown they can man and supply outposts in much harsher conditions.
And where, exactly, had the Army been maintaining outposts in conditions harsher than those of hard vaccum, 300K day/night temperature variation, unfiltered exposure to solar and cosmic radiation, and a nearly complete lack of extractable life-support volatiles in the soil?
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:3)
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
My brother, an Army veteran, claims that Fort Benning, Georgia is far less hospitable than the surface of the Moon, by the way.
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Do as you like; but note that I, unlike Von Braun, am not defending my argument in order to obtain billions of dollars in government funding for my pet projects.
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Actually von Braun thought the Saturn V was a mildly interesting side road - his real interest was in reuseable shuttlecraft. In fact, NASA has (by-and-large) been following von Braun's Shuttle-> Station-> Moon-> Mars plan since the day it changed it's name from NACA.
Under NASA's original plan - Apollo was just a general purpose earth orbiter with a seperate (expendable) heavy lifter for carg
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
People keep repeating this, but it just isn't true. The Space Shuttle concept was an offshoot of the Dynasoar [wikipedia.org] which was an offshoot of the Silbervogel (Silverbird) [wikipedia.org]. The Sibervogel was Eugen Sänger's baby, not Von Braun's. Sanger died in Berlin, but his concepts were carried forward by the USAF (and later NASA) independent of Von Braun's work. Von Braun actually believed that the
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Right. That's why Von Braun wrote an entire *book*, as well as a series of articles for Collier's magazine, as well as movie for Disney... All pushing the S
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
"Fling!"
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
No, it hasn't been tried for one reason only; when you run the numbers - it doesn't work. The cost/LB turns out to be greater current expendables, and a much higher percentage of parasitic mass is required.
Rocket fuel is cheap. The total cost of the Shuttle's liquid and solid fuels is somewhere around 2 million d
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Safer too, supposedly. If the rocket screws up during light-up, the capsule would separate and parachute down. In contrast to blowing up on the pad.
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
The idea is that a little rocket is mounted on a small tower above the crew capsule. In the event of a booster failure (yes, even on the pad), the rocket fires and pulls the capsule safely away from the booster. Then, it can parachute down to safety.
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Witness the lack of escape tower in a modern airliner.
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Of course an advantage of the escape tower approach is that it moves you far from the exploding rocket, probably a lot further than any other sort of mid-air separation. It also gives you a quick on-pad escape mechanism, if you are launching with a conventional rocket.
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, the Shuttle lacks a good supersonic ejection capability. The crew escape mechanism works at subsonic speeds, but at supersonic it's a more risky maneuver. However, the mid-deck seats are *inside* the fuselage. Working a supersonic ejection capability in for mid-deck is probabl
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Pegasus, which costs two orders of magnitude over it's initial promise, and whose cost/LB to orbit is essentially the same as the overly expensive Atlas and Delta series (with a significantly worse safety record)... SpaceShipOne, which is a high performance aircraft, not an orbiter...
Yeah. Those are really convincing arguments for the 'sucess' of air launch for LEO payloads
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
For something never tried before. Just like the space shuttle, which also had unexpected problems and costs. Nothing new ever comes in at the expected price. That comes with doing something new, and is part of the literal cost of trying new ideas. Lessons learned from first tries at things tend to be applied later on to more successful derivatives of the original idea.
Sure, the hard work of getting off the pad and through the lower atmos
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
You held it up as an example of sucess. No matter how hard you wave your hands - it wasn't.
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Yes, it was. It worked, didn't it? It isn't as capable as some other systems (it's not that big) and it costs more than originally planned, but it launches satellites, doesn't it? That's a success in my book. And I'm going to wave my hands all over the place because I consider something that actually does what it's designed to do to be something that is a success. Now if it consistently explodes or crashes, that's a p
Re:SkyRamp FFS (Score:2)
Though using 20 java applets to supply a mouse hover effect to each navigation link is a little bit
Remove the government ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Remove the government ... (Score:2)
Re:Remove the government ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Government can be efficient if people take them to task for not being, but people are apathetic about government waste so the government gets away with it.
In NASA's case it's an oldguard groupthink problem from what i've been told by someone who used to work there.
Disclosure is also a factor (Score:4, Informative)
That's true, but government's performance is also harder to judge than a publically listed company. Large parts of the budget are vague (or completely misleading) and i doubt there is much (if any) independent auditing.
Nevermind the fact that the vast majority of the budget goes to items which are inherently non-profit, so how can you compare efficieny when you can't compare an expense to "what the market will bear"?
Re:Disclosure is also a factor (Score:1)
For a secondary measurement, walk through beaurocratic offices and write down the discrepancy between the cost of what people got and the cost of what they need.
There are a lot of departments where there's a lot of waste. My dad is working in a ten-person office that has two color coppiers that they aren't allowed to touch for fear that so
Ok, let's make a deal... (Score:2)
Re:Remove the government ... (Score:1)
Re:Remove the government ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Remove the government ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Whoda thunk it.
(N. Machiavelli maybe? [c2i.net])
But when cost is the barrier... (Score:2)
Re:But when cost is the barrier... (Score:2)
Private industry could not reall
Re:But when cost is the barrier... (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt a much cheaper system would have been able to perform the Space Shuttle's most important requirement, delivering a sufficient number of jobs to key constituent districts.
Re:But when cost is the barrier... (Score:1)
Re:But when cost is the barrier... (Score:2)
How about waiting until they succeed? (Score:2)
The Falcon1 is still vapor, the 5 and 9 and this capsule are beyond vaporware. I *really* hope these guys succeed, but before commenting on the failure of the government remember that they haven't even gotten to where NASA was in 1960.
Re:How about waiting until they succeed? (Score:2)
No, they're not doing everything NASA did in its past. I'll be one of the first here to defend NASA. But what SpaceX is doing is a serious and difficult task, and shouldn't be denigrated. Even if they have to outright double their launch prices, they'll still get plenty of business.
El Segundo? (Score:4, Insightful)
Their own funding? Some guy from a Tribe Called Quest told me he left his wallet in El Segundo, I think I know what happened to the cash that was in it.
Also, until we see figures on how much they've spent on development themselves, I bet it pales in comparison to what they ask for from NASA. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as any tech they develop enters public domain (I wish).
Re:El Segundo? (Score:3, Informative)
From the article:
Musk declined to say how much he has spent on Dragon so far, but said it was only a small part of the $100 million he has invested in SpaceX to-date building the Falcon 1 and getting started on the larger and more powerful Falcon 9.
Also, from what I understand, SpaceX isn't asking for one of the typical cost-plus contracts, but this is part of a competi
Re:El Segundo? (Score:2)
It's doubtful there is any stipulation that their technology become public domain. After all, don't Boeing and Lockheed get to keep all of theirs? I guess the grant could be consi
Re:El Segundo? (Score:5, Informative)
SpaceX is almost entirely self-funded by Elon Musk, with a few small investments by "friends and family." He has mentioned though that after the first Falcon I flight he'll be pursuing some outside funding to raise another $50 - $100 million for the development of things like the next-generation Merlin 2 engine (which would be the largest rocket engine in the world). If the company's launch products are successful, he plans on an eventual IPO in "three to four years."
Re:El Segundo? (Score:2)
Building a rocket engine isn't as much science as plumbing. Doing it on the cheap especially.
The biggest benefit is a cost point. Even if SpaceX fails long-term, if they can prove that it is possible to get the cost of launch way down, it becomes possible for other people to get funding to make a go at it.
its nice to see... (Score:4, Interesting)
can you say vapourware? (Score:4, Insightful)
LOL, that's brilliant. What does it have?
"As part of a top secret project, we've already built a prototype flight crew capsule, including a thoroughly tested 30-man-day-life-support system, which is sitting on our factory floor right now," Musk told Space News. "It doesn't meet all the NASA requirements, so it will probably not see flight, but it has served as a valuable learning experience."
So nothing. You have a tin can. Brilliant.
Neither Dragon nor its Falcon 9 rocket is ready to roll out to the launch pad. But the Falcon 9 is in development for a 2007 debut..
The Falcon I hasn't even got off the launch pad.
Look, I love SpaceX. Elon Musk is trying to dig a big hole in the middle of the overweight aerospace industry and so far he's doing a good job of it. But this is nothing but vapourware. I hope NASA gives them a big chunk of that funding but frankly, it's a high risk proposition right now.
Re:can you say vapourware? (Score:5, Interesting)
Could you remind me what Boeing and Lockheed-Martin have produced so far with their contracts to build NASA's CEV? If I recall correctly, all they have so far are design documents and powerpoint slides.
It seems to me SpaceX (which has a full-sized prototype with tested life support) is a good bit ahead of them, using just Elon Musk's out-of-pocket funding instead of NASA's.
Re:can you say vapourware? (Score:5, Insightful)
tested life support? He clearly says that the life support system used is not up to spec and will not fly.
SpaceX needs to prototype this stuff before they can design a real system because they have no experience making spacecraft. Boeing and Lockheed-Martin can focus on gathering requirements and doing engineering, on paper, because they know what they are doing. The only reason NASA has to go with SpaceX is because they are likely to get a better deal, but they've gotta wear the risk.
Re:can you say vapourware? (Score:4, Informative)
No, it's a full sized prototype with all internal systems working. Your average tin can on a shelf in Walmart generally doesn't come fitted with seats and working controls, etc.
> tested life support? He clearly says that the life
> support system used is not up to spec and will not fly.
No. Read the article again. It says the life support system has been thoroughly tested. It is just a case of the whole system does not meet the arbitrary pile of paperwork test required for NASA, and the reaction control system and heat shield are not fitted. Both clearly essential for a spaceflight (or one that returns to Earth), but the rest of the vehicle is functional.
Re:can you say vapourware? (Score:1)
I think you're taking your anti-NASA hyperbole a little far here. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to safely launch a person into space and bring them back again?
Nevermind. You answered my question in your post.
Arbitrary pile of paperwork, indeed.
Re:can you say vapourware? (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, arbitrary in the sense that much of the paperwork is needless. Much of the space qual specs were developed before the major space agencies had launched manned vehicles / and / or were developed during the early years of manned spaceflight. There are many places where they could be relaxed with today's knowledge, and other places where they could be tightened up.
> I think you're taking your anti-NASA hyperbole a little far here.
Not anti NASA. Anti NASA
Re:can you say vapourware? (Score:2)
The Service Requirements Document (NC3P-1000) was an entirely appropriate and comparatively svelte 23 pages (thank you for a reasonable sized SRD, C3PO). The Interface Requirements Document was a slightly chunkier 130 pages, which was basically a summary of the Applications docs listed below for ISS Visiting Vehicles.
There were 49 "ISS Applications" specificat
Re:can you say vapourware? (Score:3, Interesting)
Boeing and Lockheed-Martin know a lot less than you think. What manned space vehicles have they built in the last 30 years?
Re:can you say vapourware? (Score:3, Informative)
Not to nitpick, but Boeing and Lockheed are actually both on the list of vendors expressing interest for the COTS program. I have no idea if they ended up submitting a proposal, though.
Re:can you say vapourware? (Score:1)
Yes, good point.
Re:can you say vapourware? (Score:2)
Presumably more press coverage will be out t
Re:can you say vapourware? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and many many capsules have been launched sans heatshield on the first flight. Saves the trouble of a recovery crew and not accidentally landing on somebody or something.
Of course, seeing the Dragon makes them doing the Falcon 9 instead of the Falcon 5
Re:can you say vapourware? (Score:3, Insightful)
Everything else: tested life support, avionics, the Service Module with main engine (Kestrel? SM is probably shortened version of their second stage), maybe a full cockpit and some kind of pressure vessel. From the quote, it sounds like it's flight-weight or very nearly. I half-agree on calling it vapourware: I'll give Dragon more credit when they start drop tests. The 30-man-day lifesupport test is no small cookies. They do have an impressive base of contractors
Even better... (Score:1)
It sounds like they're going to thumb a ride.
Alternate submission; why they announced (Score:3, Informative)
SpaceX has revealed [space.com] that for the past few years they've been secretly developing the Dragon space capsule [spaceref.com], which will be the first privately-built manned orbital spacecraft. The company has already built a full-scale working prototype and thoroughly tested its life support system, with the capsule development using 'only a small part of the $100 million [CEO/founder Elon Musk] has invested in SpaceX to-date building the Falcon 1 [orbital rocket] and getting started on the larger and more powerful Falcon 9.' According to Musk, 'I feel very confident about being able to offer NASA an ISS-servicing capability by 2009 and am prepared to back that up with my own funding.' It's believed that Musk will also compete for crew/cargo delivery contracts to private space station modules built by Bigelow Aerospace [wikipedia.org].
All in all, I'm very excited about this announcement. I'm sure SpaceX wishes that they could have gotten their Falcon I rocket off the ground before announcing the capsule, but the deadline for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems [nasa.gov] (COTS) program was a few days ago. The COTS program is the means by which NASA hopes to award competitive contracts to delivery crew and cargo to the International Space Station, in order to reduce reliance on the Russians and promote the development of private spaceflight. Since the capsule is a critical part of their COTS proposal, SpaceX pretty much had to let the secret out.
Re:Alternate submission; why they announced (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Alternate submission; why they announced (Score:2)
No worries.
Instead, I found that someone had already added a section about the capsule this morning to the SpaceX entry [wikipedia.org]. Crazy nerds!
Indeed! I noticed that too. I wonder if anyone's looked at the statistics of the time between when a news item is released and when it appears in a Wikipedia entry...
Space, The Final Frontier... (Score:2)
Re:Space, The Final Frontier... (Score:3, Insightful)
Where there is commercial gain in going to space, like satellite TV, corporations make use of it. Where there is no commercial gain in going to space, like manned space flight or blue-sky research, corporations don't do it, and it's left to government agencies to do the stuff which benefits humanity overall but doesn't make any money.
If you want to understand these discussions get a clue about the differences between reality and holl
Re:Space, The Final Frontier... (Score:2)
mcb
What's with the naming??? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's with the naming??? (Score:2)
This is obviously just a big stealth marketing campaign for an upcoming computer game. The names aren't as silly as character names in a Gene Roddenberry show, but pretty close.
Okay, so "Andromeda Ascendant" and "Pax Magellanic" were cool names, but those were ships.
Dylan Hunt? Trance Gemini? C'mon.
Re:What's with the naming??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's with the naming??? (Score:2)
Since they tend to internally refer to their new test stand and unannounced rocket as BFTS ("Big F*****g Test Stand") and BFR("Big F*****g Rocket"), I suspect a number of them are also video game nerds.
Re:What's with the naming??? (Score:1, Insightful)
An appropriate acronym... (Score:5, Informative)
The Dragon capsule is the centerpiece of the proposal SpaceX submitted March 3 under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration program.
An appropriate acronym, COTS, already used for "Commercial, Off The Shelf"...
Re:An appropriate acronym... (Score:1)
Or, if you're an anime junkie, COTS can stand for "Crest of the Stars", which is funnily enough still a somewhat relevant name.
Re:An appropriate acronym... (Score:1)
Slightly OT: Kerosene? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Slightly OT: Kerosene? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hydrogen is more efficent in terms of mass, but it's not very dense, so you need huge tanks to store it. Also, it's cold enough to give you nasty materials problems that you don't get with just LOX.
So usually it makes more sense to use kerosene + LOX on the first stage because you are going to need a lot of fuel and you are going to have to push it through the atmosphere and stuff. Then once you are above the atmosphere and have ejected the first stage, the rest of the stages work better with hydrogen as the fuel.
Re:Slightly OT: Kerosene? (Score:2)
Isn't "jet fuel" a formulation of kerosene? Just askin'
Re:Slightly OT: Kerosene? (Score:5, Informative)
RP-1 is a highly refined kerosine fraction.
Jet-A / Jet-A1 is a slightly less refined kerosine fraction.
K-1 Kerosine is yet another kerosine fraction. In some places, they skip out on K-1 and just sell Jet-A1 as kerosine for simplicity's sake.
There are other jet fuels that take a "wider cut" and include some napatha and gasoline fractions.
If you want, you can run turbines on all kinds of crazy stuff, although with modern catalytic oil processing, that's far less useful than it used to be.
Diesel engines can be made to burn Jet-A or RP-1.
Either way... the hardware to pump jet fuel/kerosine/etc. sorts of fluids is pretty well understood and easy to get ahold of. Not so for hydrogen.
Re:Slightly OT: Kerosene? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Slightly OT: Kerosene? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slightly OT: Kerosene? (Score:2)
Re:Slightly OT: Kerosene? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slightly OT: Kerosene? (Score:5, Informative)
For 1st stage rockets that aren't going to burn for very long, the reduced tank volume possible with kerosene / LOX can be enough of a total weight savings to offset the lower ISP and greater mass of kerosene / LOX over hydrogen / LOX.
On upper stages, where you are going to carry the fuel higher, and burn the engines longer, the mass efficiencies and higher ISP of hydrogen / LOX win out.
Hence the Saturn V switched fuels as it went through its stages.
Re:Slightly OT: Kerosene? (Score:2)
Re:Slightly OT: Kerosene? (Score:2)
It's similar to the reasons why cars are still primarily designed to burn gasoline instead of hydrogen.
Wait, not a computer game! (Score:1, Redundant)
Can overseas companies get such funding? (Score:1, Interesting)
Let the funding go to suppliers in China, India, and other places
where the $'s might go further than in the US (if only due to the
difference in salaries & office space rentals).
The nationality side:
As it is overseas students from such countries are recruited to
the US, required to become US citizens - even when that entails
renoucing or at least losing their original nationalities (even
Australia's Andy Thomas had to give up his Aussie citizenship -
in order to beco
Re:Can overseas companies get such funding? (Score:2)
If the world spent as much on space exploration as they did on their military (or their own corrupt politicians) and they cooperated as much as my *grade school aged children* (when avoiding chores), we'd have giant gold plated colonies on every sizeable chuck of rock in the solar system.