Dragon Watch.

I don’t care if a million shots just like this are already infesting the internet. I post these anyway because this is awesome.

   
   
   
   
   
   
   


This entry was posted on Friday, May 25th, 2012 at 8:52 am and is filed under relevant tech, spaaaaace!!!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Alehkhs
Guest
11 years ago

It was quite a cool show!

Looking forward to seeing more from SpaceX in the future.

Madeline Ashby
Guest
11 years ago

Just me, or did you sneak in a screenshot of the Nostromo’s approach vector?

Anonymous
Guest
Anonymous
11 years ago

Madeline Ashby:
Just me, or did you sneak in a screenshot of the Nostromo’s approach vector?

I had a feeling one of them looked a bit scifi.

Lani
Guest
Lani
11 years ago

@Peter:
I am so sorry for the passing of your brother, Jon, and your feline friend, Banana. Hope life is good for you and yours.

@Madeline:
I was watching Alien recently…that does look like Nostromo’s approach vector. Looking forward to Ridley’s Prometheus.

Lani
Guest
Lani
11 years ago

Wow. Now we can edit our posts, easily quote others and request deletion of them too. 🙂

The space images are cool!

KatG
Guest
11 years ago

It is totally awesome, but it also tugs at my heart strings. I don’t want corporations to take over space exploration. I know it has to be that way, but I feel like it’s giving too much up. And yet, look at those pictures!

Whoever
Guest
Whoever
11 years ago

Those are awesome shots. Sorry I missed the video on tv. Will try to catch some YouTubery at some point soon.

Yeah, I recall that the old ALIENS PC game had a level where you had to maneuver through those rectangles. Looking forward to Prometheus as well. Looks visually cool from the ads.

Bastien
Guest
Bastien
11 years ago

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love living in the future.

Thomas Hardman
Guest
Thomas Hardman
11 years ago

I have so been looking forward to this day since I read my first Heinlein story back in 1966 or so. 😀

About damn time. Though ArianeSpace has been doing it since the mid-1980s, this marks not merely commercial space access, but competitive commercial space access. That ought to make even Republicans happy.

Lani
Guest
Lani
11 years ago

Apple iPhone has an intelligent assistant named “Siri”…

http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html

Jeremy
Guest
Jeremy
11 years ago

I couldn’t help but notice how they occasionally showed footage from a camera that was filming a computer screen aboard the ISS. Nice to see some things haven’t changed since apollo 11.

Hljóðlegur
Guest
Hljóðlegur
11 years ago

Okay, I understand that if you actually show the penetration up close, it crosses over into porn?

Leona
Guest
Leona
11 years ago

ISN’T THIS WHOLE THING FRICKING AWESOME?!!!!!
I was gushing about this at lunchtime to some colleagues when it appeared in my smartphone’s newsfeed. I think they grew a little worried for me.

AND, I was gonna write a sci-fi short about how private richfolk started docking their vessels to the ISS and how the first one wasn’t given rights but some other vessel which WAS allowed the private vessel to hook up to THEM, and then they extended that favour in turn to someone else and so on until there was a whole bunch of them up there in the sky and the governments couldn’t really do anything about it. It was gonna be called ‘Acilis Plane’, and then I realised I can’t write for toffee anyway.

I’m so excited!!! And like, his name is ELON musk. I’m sorry but with a name like Elon you’re practically destined for something sci-fi-esque.

Hank Roberts
Guest
11 years ago

“Dragon” reminds me of this earlier work:
http://www.kennethsnelson.net/sculpture/outdoor/images/dragon_new.jpg

ajay
Guest
ajay
11 years ago

Q: You are a SpaceX employee with a slightly twisted sense of humour. You have been given the job of supervising the loading of the Dragon supply capsule. What object do you place immediately behind the hatch, ensuring that it will be the first thing seen by the crew of the ISS after docking?

1. Dummy head wearing rubber Osama bin Laden mask
2. Life-size replica facehugger on spring
3. Paper strip marked “SANITISED FOR YOUR PROTECTION”
4. Other (please specify)

Bastien
Guest
Bastien
11 years ago

Facehugger preferably, or if unavailable, headcrab.

Some kind of horrific parasitoid, is all I’m saying.

anony mouse
Guest
anony mouse
11 years ago

As long as it’s not Donald Trumpe’s tupe.

Thomas Hardman
Guest
Thomas Hardman
11 years ago

@Leona: Um, there’s writing, and there’s story-telling, and there’s coming up with a good plot. You’d be amazed how many people can tell stories and write but can’t come up with something that has a basic appeal to the human nature. Sometimes a good short precis is all the story you need. Though actually I think that Ben Bova might have written that story back in the late 1970s. 😉

But look at it this way: SpaceX Dragon shows that it’s possible for a commercial NGO to potentially make money off of the government.

Someday, rich private space craft will discover that they don’t need to link up to the ISS, they can just link up to each other and they are the first Private Space Station or PSS.

Now if anyone wants to resurrect that story someone wrote back when NASA was not planning to always de-orbit burn the external fuel tanks (not the boosters, the EFTs) and people started making habitats out of them, please feel free. It’s in an _analog_ in a box on my shelf but I am too lazy to go dig it out and tell y’all the title and author.

Does anyone want to lay odds on which year will see the first deployment of the Pre Construction Construction Shack on the private funding ticket?

I’m going to go with 2016. A nice equatorial-ecliptic orbit instead of the wonkly one with the ISS on it. NEO but not exactly grazing the atmosphere. A nice place to make larger objects out of smaller objects and move them out towards geosynch (and beyond, eventually to the L5).

Any bets on when parts assembled on the private funding ticket will be delivered to L5 to be the Real Construction Shack? Pick a year?

Andrea_A
Guest
Andrea_A
11 years ago

If anybody wants to know — Dragon is back on Earth:
http://www.space.com/15939-spacex-dragon-capsule-landing-pacific.html

ajay
Guest
ajay
11 years ago

TWO!!! Definitely #2!

I think I have worked out why Neal Stephenson gets given consulting jobs by private space launch companies and you and I don’t. (Plus, imagine announcing that to the investors. “Good news everybody! Our company is getting inspiration from the author of Blindsight!”)

Matt
Guest
Matt
11 years ago

@ KatG I would like to echo a sentiment I heard from Neil DeGrasse Tyson:
Private corporations will never take over space exploration, it is far too risky. The private sector will only take over tasks that other people have already done so that they can asses the risks and have some assurance that they will make money. They will probably be very good at making it efficient and cost effective though. What you should really be afraid of is the whole frontier stagnating because nobody has the balls to risk money and go to Mars.