I just caught the launch on television and got to watch it live! The Dragon
capsule is now in orbit and is headed for the International Space Station, which
will take a couple of days, but if all goes according to plan, then Space X will
become the first private company to successfully launch a payload to the
International Space Station. The Falcon 9, one of their rockets (and used on
this mission), provides the lowest cost per pound/kilogram and does so with huge
improvements in reliability. It is also a reusable rocket. On Thursday, the
Dragon spacecraft must demonstrate its guidance, control, and communications
systems. If successful, then on Friday it wil lbe allowed to fly within 10m of
the ISS, where the crew will grab it. The company was launched by tech
entrepreneur Elon Musk. What is really amazing is that all the critics said what
Musk is trying to do is impossible, that he doesn't know what he is doing and
was doomed to fail. Each time he'd meet a goal, successfully launching a rocket,
they'd then say, "Okay, he made it that far, but he won't make the next goal."
When SpaceX started up around a decade ago, no one gave it much serious thought,
that it was just the fantasies of a tech entrepreneur but never something that
would become a serious contender for space launching, but it seems like now it
will be a serious contender for giving America the ability to launch its own
astronauts back into space without having to rely on other countries like Russia
(and also not having to rely on other countries to launch our satellites and
supplies to astronauts in space).
NASA in 2008 selected SpaceX's Falcon
9 launch vehicle (rocket) and Dragon spacecraft capsule for resupplying the
International Space Station, although first SpaceX must complete a set of
milestones established by NASA to win the contract. Prior to this, the business
of launching satellites has been dominated by the big defense/aerospace
companies and as such, they haven't had much need to innovate as there was a
lack of competition. SpaceX's rockets, which it seems will be both cheaper and
more reliable, are going to give them a real run for their money though it
seems. The cost of launching satellites has been increasing each year, so if
successful, Space X will really lower the cost, allowing NASA to spend more
money on other things. SpaceX's biggest planned rocket is called the Falcon
Heavy and that will be able to lift neary twice the payload of the Space Shuttle
and more than twice the payload of the Delta IV Heavy. The next few days will
tell if they are successful or not in reaching the ISS, but there was HUGE
applause though as the rocket got into orbit and then they showed live the solar
panels on the spacecraft deploying. The Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft
are designed to carry astronauts to the space station as well. Once they
complete a mission in which astronauts are launched, Musk will have really done
our nation a truly national service, giving us space launch capability and
private-sector to boot! He already has done a national service I think, but when
they start launching astronauts will be really cool.
It is really neat in
the sense that the modern world as we know it is a result of the space program.
The computer, the Internet, the GPS system, modern electronics, and a whole host
of other things too numerous to list here, would literally not exist or would
exist in a much more primitive form, had it not been for the space program. But
now we see the private sector, utilizing the technologies that have come about
from the space program, advancing America's space launch capabilities. Maybe
America will again make it to the Moon and back, through a combination of NASA
and private enterprise.
Here is the statement from the White House from
John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology:
"Congratulations to the teams at SpaceX and NASA for this morning’s
successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
in Florida. Every launch into space is a thrilling event, but this one is
especially exciting because it represents the potential of a new era in American
spaceflight. Partnering with U.S. companies such as SpaceX to provide cargo and
eventually crew service to the International Space Station is a cornerstone of
the President’s plan for maintaining America’s leadership in space. This
expanded role for the private sector will free up more of NASA’s resources to do
what NASA does best -- tackle the most demanding technological challenges in
space, including those of human space flight beyond low Earth orbit. I could not
be more proud of our NASA and SpaceX scientists and engineers, and I look
forward to following this and many more missions like it."
The policy
of relying more on the private-sector is great, but I disagree with the
President for cutting the funding for NASA, as that is the one government
program that actually is partially self-sustaining because it continues to pump
out new research and development that the private sector takes advantage of.
It's probably the one government program that should not see any real
cuts, as it is already a miniscule protion of the budget. And until the
private-sector proves its mettle, we want NASA to continue working on its own
replacement spacecraft (currently the Space Launch System and Orion
Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle). Thie Chinese have made it clear that they want to
be the first back to the Moon, and if the U.S. did it with 1960s technology, I'm
sure the Chinese could eventually pull it off.
As a side note (and something I mentioned in a post some ways back), James
Cameron recently made a record-breaking dive to the bottom of the Marianna
Trench (in a submersible which he designed too, he also has worked at designing
special camera, both for movies and space exploration), making it the fourth
time any craft has successfully dived down that far. He spent three hours down
there, the longest ever (the last time any person went to the Challenger Deep
(deepest part) was the U.S. Navy in 1960, two men for twenty minutes). Cameron
was the first solo dive and the longest manned dive. The dive was the
culmination of seven years of planning and the design and construction of a
special submersible (Cameron is very big on ocean exploration, hence the movies
The Abyss, Titanic and also the aquatic-based world of
Avatar). This dive was really big-time as well in that not only is his
craft revolutionary in design as far as submersibles go, but it is also
private-sector, not government. And the deep sea is harder to explore than outer
space (more humans have walked on the Moon, and for far longer, than have
explored the bottom of the ocean), so that was also a big deal.
Good times for human exploration!
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