SpaceX completes new round of crew Dragon parachute tests
Capitalism in space: SpaceX this week completed a new round of crew Dragon parachute tests, meeting a goal they had announced in October.
This clearly paves the way for the January 11th launch abort test, followed by the first manned flight, as soon as February or March 2020, according to the article at the link.
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Capitalism in space: SpaceX this week completed a new round of crew Dragon parachute tests, meeting a goal they had announced in October.
This clearly paves the way for the January 11th launch abort test, followed by the first manned flight, as soon as February or March 2020, according to the article at the link.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I really hope that the Dragon and Starliner get humans to orbit next year.
Bob, if this happens any chance can we get a separate ranking for number of people sent to space per country/company instead of just the number of launches?
David K: Eventually some count like this might make sense, but probably not at first. Not that many will go up.
Though I might change my mind, as we hopefully will have the Russians, Chinese, Indians, and Americans doing this.
This morning I was thinking about the deeper meaning of the upcoming manned Dragon and Starliner flights in the context of Bob’s repost of his commentary on the Apollo 8 mission. As he observes:
“[Anders’] perspective was that of a spacefarer, an explorer of the universe that sees the planets around him as objects within that universe in which he floats.
When we here are on Earth frame the image with the horizon on the bottom, we immediately reveal our limited planet-bound perspective. We automatically see ourselves on a planet’s surface, watching another planet rise above the distant horizon line.
This difference in perspective is to me the real meaning of this picture. On one hand we see the perspective of the past. On the other we see the perspective the future, for as long humanity can remain alive.”
So, too, these upcoming flights will also mark an important boundary, a profoundly significant dividing line between the time when access to space was for a tiny, carefully limited minority of the people on this planet and a future in which almost anyone might go. And, as Bob might say, it also reflects a demarcation between a nondemocratic, statist approach to space exploration / utilization and a free market, anybody can buy a ticket philosophy. Fifty years on, the “promise” of space that all of us read about as kids may about to become a reality, thanks to Dragon and Starliner, and this might just be the best present that Santa ever put under the tree.
At any rate, no one should underestimate just how great a change this will be. Again quoting Bob, “On one hand we see the perspective of the past. On the other we see the perspective the future, for as long humanity can remain alive.”
Merry Christmas and best wishes to all of those who have been involved in making Dragon and Starliner a reality. You have indeed given us “the future.”
Milt