"The demonstration flight began on May 22 with the Dragon's launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission reached its climax last Friday when astronauts used the space station's robotic arm to pull the Dragon in to its docking port on the the station's Harmony module. On the following day, when station crew members entered the Dragon for the first time, NASA astronaut Don Pettit gushed over its new-car smell.
Over the days that followed, the station's crew unloaded a half-ton of food, equipment, experiments and other supplies — then loaded it back up with about 1,600 pounds (660 kilograms) of non-essential Earth-bound shipments. Today, astronauts reversed the process they went through last week. The robotic arm pulled the Dragon out from its port and positioned it for release at 5:49 a.m. ET. SpaceX's craft then executed a series of engine burns to take itself out of the station's neighborhood and descend from orbit.
The final engine burn slowed the Dragon's orbital velocity by 100 meters per second (224 mph) — enough to drop it into a fiery descent through the atmosphere. The craft's bottom is coated with a layer of protective material called PICA-X, which SpaceX's engineers say is resilient enough to weather a return to Earth from Mars. At its peak, the heat shield had to endure temperatures in excess of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,650 degrees Celsius)." MSNBC
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Given his previous remark about firing people who want to do things on the moon, I presume that President Romney would kill this. Yes or no? pl
I suspect Romney would want to kill this, even though the current SpaceX vehicle is a LEO vehicle only, not a translunar one. The reason is simple: it's pulled all the business from Thiokol, based in Utah. He'd like that work back, even if it never gets a rocket into space (and the Thiokol program would not have us back into space for a good long time).
That would be tragic. The SpaceX vehicles are not subject to the government procurement process, meaning that they can use the best parts instead of the lowest-bid parts, and that makes a lot of difference as those of us who have dealt with government procurement fiascoes, or for that matter have ever eaten on a military base, know. These rockets will be famous. They're so far ahead of their testing schedule that, after only two flights, they're ready to start shipping cargo and ready to start implementing Phase 2....man-rated flight.
Posted by: The Moar You Know | 31 May 2012 at 01:56 PM
There is an effort among GOP congress critters to kill this off and return to the political pork methods of the past. In the long run I think they will lose but they can delay private development. After this resounding success it would be a shame if they succeed.
Posted by: Lars | 31 May 2012 at 02:12 PM
YES! Lack of vision!
Posted by: William R. Cumming | 31 May 2012 at 03:35 PM
If the gov't continues paying 4/5ths of the cost of the project it'll become a target for any President once the Great Contraction starts.
Posted by: Paul Deavereaux | 31 May 2012 at 06:30 PM
Dear Colonel, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you
I agree that Romney would not like that private enterprise, but he had a chance through his Baine fund to participate, to my knowledge - he did not.
Posted by: sauersap | 31 May 2012 at 06:42 PM
Awesome achievement! Jonathan Goff did talk about opposition to commercial spaceflight within NASA. I would hope they would now have more supporters within NASA. GOP congressional opposition is pure pork barrel politics as Lars said. Thiokol - Utah - Romney? Yeah, I think Mitt would kill this in a heart beat. Rohrabacher was a huge NASA enthusiast. I don't know where he stands on commercial spaceflight. Being that SpaceX is in southern California, I would think he would support it wholeheartedly. Luckily, SpaceX just signed a big contract with Intelsat for satellite delivery. That might be a trend for the future of commercial spaceflight... pure commercial. Take a gander at what SpaceX has in mind for fully reusable space vehicles. It blew my mind when I first saw this.
http://spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php?id=0
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 31 May 2012 at 08:26 PM
Respectfully, if they had failed to meet their contractual obligations, SpaceX should have been fired.
Posted by: Jose | 31 May 2012 at 11:30 PM
Jose
Well, they did, but does this mean that you are hostile to private space enterprise? pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 01 June 2012 at 08:50 AM
To be fair, Senator Nelson (D-FL) is one of the small group of congressfolk who regard SpaceX as a threat to the SLS pork project.
Posted by: Allen Thomson | 01 June 2012 at 09:46 AM
TG,
Dana Rohrabacher has fortunately been one of commercial space's strongest and most consistent advocates on Capitol Hill. SpaceX isn't in his district, but he's been a commercial space supporter since before SpaceX existed. IIRC, he was won of the guys who backed the DC-X project that inspired several startups like Armadillo Aerospace, Masten (my old startup), and Blue Origin.
As for Romney himself? I think he'd be hard-pressed to cancel something like COTS/CRS now that SpaceX knocked it out of the park. That said, with the Utah/ATK connection, I wouldn't be surprised if he kept funding the SLS (Space Launch System, aka the Senate Launch System), just to keep ATK from ever having to actually compete for their work...
~Jon
Posted by: Rocketrepreneur | 01 June 2012 at 12:59 PM
Pat,
I actually doubt that Romney would cancel a successful program like this, even if he were beholden to ATK. It would look too obviously corrupt, even for a politician. :-)
Have to say this mission was exciting. It wasn't really that *technically* new, but I'd put it up there in importance with the first commercial air mail flight under the Kelly Air Mail Act back in the 1920s.
~Jon
Posted by: Rocketrepreneur | 01 June 2012 at 01:04 PM
Pat,
And by the way, thanks for avoiding the temptation to make an "Enter the Dragon" or "Re-Enter the Dragon" reference in the blog post title. :-)
~Jon
Posted by: Rocketrepreneur | 01 June 2012 at 01:05 PM
Actually, Nelson is a bit mixed. While he is definitely the force behind SLS (and the force behind getting Charlie Bolden in as the current NASA Admin), he has actually been somewhat supportive of commercial crew/cargo. Much more so than Senator Shelby, the Dark Lord of Alabama.
Posted by: Rocketrepreneur | 01 June 2012 at 01:07 PM
Maybe. Maybe not.
Once prez, Romney would (pretty much) reboot on all campaign pronouncements about future policy. They would be reassessed in accordance with his underlying & unspoken (though whispered & dreamed-on) goals.
Now, as to what his drivers, urges & goals are, I am not clear. Is anyone? Is he?
Posted by: ked | 01 June 2012 at 03:36 PM
I minored in Astronomy...lol
Posted by: Jose | 01 June 2012 at 06:50 PM