superstringer

February 25th, 2011 at 10:07 AM ^

I'm sorry, maybe you missed that last flight of the F9 -- the one where a Dragon went into orbit, performed all maneuvers, splashed down within 10 miles of its target.  If an astronaut had been sitting in that capsule, he or she would not only have survived but had a real comfortable flight.  Man-rating that vehicle only requires an escape capability (no cheap feat, but no effect on the flight characteristics).  So they are ALREADY THERE....  so what do you mean about digging a grave?  NASA is throwing more money at them, they are going to get their contract to man-rate the Dragon, they are going to ISS this calendar year.  If that's a "grave," then, what in your book constitutes success?

BTW, re their schedule slips -- every single rocket development in world history slipped.  What SpaceX, however, is have 2 for 2 on their first flights, which is matched solely by the Space Shuttle.  Even the Ariane V had 4 of 5 failures on its initial launches, including a full-out explosion.  And their budget to do it, under $500M, is flat-out a tiny percentage of what any government spent to do the same thing (Chinese are at +$20B on their vehicle, SpaceX will get there at <$2B).

Moleskyn

February 24th, 2011 at 5:00 PM ^

That was cool. Thanks for posting the link! Glad for them that they got out of there without any problems. Hope for them and their families that they make it back safely, as well.