Axiom’s commercial manned mission to ISS splashes down safely
Axiom’s fourth commercial manned mission to ISS successfully splashed down off the coast of California early this morning, returning its astronaut commander, employed by Axiom, and three government passengers from India, Poland, and Hungary after spending two weeks at the space station and eighteen days total in space.
For all three nations this was their second manned flight, and the first in more than four decades. All three had previously flown astronauts on Soviet era Soyuz missions, with Poland and Hungary’s astronauts visiting the Salyut 6 station in 1978 and 1980 respectively, and India’s astronaut visiting the Salyut 7 station in 1984.
The mission also marked the inaugural flight of SpaceX’s new Grace reusable manned Dragon capsule, the fifth such spacecraft in its fleet. SpaceX’s fleet is now larger that NASA’s space shuttle fleet ever was.
If you watch the live stream at the link, it is once again important to note that everyone you see on the screen, except for these three government astronauts, are employees of SpaceX or Axiom. There is no government involvement at all in the splash down procedure. It is entirely commercial and private affair.
In other words, who needs NASA for spaceflight? It clearly is not required.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Axiom’s fourth commercial manned mission to ISS successfully splashed down off the coast of California early this morning, returning its astronaut commander, employed by Axiom, and three government passengers from India, Poland, and Hungary after spending two weeks at the space station and eighteen days total in space.
For all three nations this was their second manned flight, and the first in more than four decades. All three had previously flown astronauts on Soviet era Soyuz missions, with Poland and Hungary’s astronauts visiting the Salyut 6 station in 1978 and 1980 respectively, and India’s astronaut visiting the Salyut 7 station in 1984.
The mission also marked the inaugural flight of SpaceX’s new Grace reusable manned Dragon capsule, the fifth such spacecraft in its fleet. SpaceX’s fleet is now larger that NASA’s space shuttle fleet ever was.
If you watch the live stream at the link, it is once again important to note that everyone you see on the screen, except for these three government astronauts, are employees of SpaceX or Axiom. There is no government involvement at all in the splash down procedure. It is entirely commercial and private affair.
In other words, who needs NASA for spaceflight? It clearly is not required.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
So very well put.
How quickly we forget COTS…tisk tisk
At any rate, I would never have known about the splashdown from the mainstream media mewling about illegals–so good on you and the quadruple amputee formerly known as Space News.
Poison by flavor-aid or thalidomide…same dif’
Given the state of the Russian space program, this feels like a symbolic passing of the baton.
”In other words, who needs NASA for spaceflight? It clearly is not required.”
Oh, good grief Bob! It was NASA and other government agencies who paid for it all. The development of both Cargo and Crew Dragon was paid for by NASA. Without NASA Dragon doesn’t exist. This particular flight was entirely paid for by the governments of India and Europe.
The only manned spaceflight anywhere in the world that has ever occurred without government money is Blue Origin’s New Shepard, and you hate them.
Well spoken.
Ideology makes folks blind–liberals can’t tell you what a woman is, and conservatives think China is the name for the island of Formosa..as real as Ru Paul’s hair.
Water is wet
Greens are commies
Libertarians are blind
Jeff Wright: “Water is wet”
Might I suggest long-out-of-favor and definitely product-of-his-time Rudyard Kipling and “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”?
Roman poet Horace said much the same, although in far fewer words.
“Drive Nature off with a pitchfork, she’ll still press back,
And secretly burst in triumph through your sad disdain”
Harry Morgan’s character Colonel Potter called it sweeping the ocean back with a broom