SpaceX Eyes November 30 Cargo Launch to Space Station

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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With the passing of the Shuttle Program, a bit of a pall settled over the future of the United States’ roll in space exploration in general and the International Space Station specifically. Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), an American company based in California, announced the company would be sending a rocket to the ISS on November 30th and return to Earth. The space program is not dead, just hiding a bit in the private sector.

"The next flight of the Dragon we're going to go all the way and berth it to the space station, drop cargo off and bring stuff back," Reisman said.
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all they need to do is somehow get porn into space and investors and consumers alike will be lining up in droves :p
 
It's absolutely shameful and disgusting that we no longer have the capability of sending humans to space (or cargo to the ISS) without having to pay either Russia or some private company for the privilege of using THEIR space shuttle program.
 
Solidstate89 said:
It's absolutely shameful and disgusting that we no longer have the capability of sending humans to space (or cargo to the ISS) without having to pay either Russia or some private company for the privilege of using THEIR space shuttle program.
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Endless war(s) tend to drain the coffers.
 
Well this will be the big test for SpaceX, if they screw the pooch....

That said, here's hoping this actually opens up the commercial side of things with regards to space, while one poster said its shameful and disgusting that we no longer have the capability to send humans to space, I think its shameful and disgusting that after half a century of manned space flight it still has been reduced to governments being the only way to get there.
 
Solidstate89 said:
It's absolutely shameful and disgusting that we no longer have the capability of sending humans to space (or cargo to the ISS) without having to pay either Russia or some private company for the privilege of using THEIR space shuttle program.
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I will be the broken record here and ask why are we concentrating on space still and our reliance on other countries to get their when our debt to them is about to go into default? Why can't you concentrate on paying for the program before raising cane that we can't continue it in general?
 
Kenworth said:
I will be the broken record here and ask why are we concentrating on space still and our reliance on other countries to get their when our debt to them is about to go into default? Why can't you concentrate on paying for the program before raising cane that we can't continue it in general?
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The only reason we will default is horrible politics (republicans). I think the real question is why are we concentrating on any of this when our country still has a high amount of brutal poverty.
 
Kenworth said:
I will be the broken record here and ask why are we concentrating on space still and our reliance on other countries to get their when our debt to them is about to go into default? Why can't you concentrate on paying for the program before raising cane that we can't continue it in general?
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This attitude is like if you bought a $40,000 car, then a $1.99 air freshener for it, and said "Damn, I'm in so much debt, I NEVER should have bought that stupid air freshener."
 
Solidstate89 said:
It's absolutely shameful and disgusting that we no longer have the capability of sending humans to space (or cargo to the ISS) without having to pay either Russia or some private company for the privilege of using THEIR space shuttle program.
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Don't they man the space station? Also its planned to be retired in 2020.
 
Good.

It's time to let the private sector take up some of the slack.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Well this will be the big test for SpaceX, if they screw the pooch....

That said, here's hoping this actually opens up the commercial side of things with regards to space, while one poster said its shameful and disgusting that we no longer have the capability to send humans to space, I think its shameful and disgusting that after half a century of manned space flight it still has been reduced to governments being the only way to get there.
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+ 1

Agreed, the hope here is that it becomes profitable
with a mining colony on the moon in the long term.
 
I'm glad the private sector is getting in to space as for so long it has been left down to governments and i think if anyone looks at what kind of job world governments are doing in other areas they will be glad private company's are working on space travel..

Really i think it makes more monetary sense as well, government's were not getting in to space for the profit so it's been a relatively slow process, sure it may be more noble just doing it for doing it and the science but profit seams to motivate company's way more than science motivates government and even more so as more company's get in to space as there will be competitors, sure it will start with only the rich but did not air travel kind of start that way?
 
Kenworth said:
I will be the broken record here and ask why are we concentrating on space still and our reliance on other countries to get their when our debt to them is about to go into default? Why can't you concentrate on paying for the program before raising cane that we can't continue it in general?
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To which I will respond with another quote:

"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."
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Spewn said:
This attitude is like if you bought a $40,000 car, then a $1.99 air freshener for it, and said "Damn, I'm in so much debt, I NEVER should have bought that stupid air freshener."
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Mmm, in a sense I can see that. But the scale is much different so the effect is much greater to the individual. Billions of dollars equates to many, many jobs so the air freshener analogy gets rough because the air freshener isn't needed at all. Anyway, I don't want to see the space program go. I have been told it was kept all this time through several recessions etc... but how about we fire half of the government and send some of our guys to Mars. I guess I was being more political than fiscal.
 
Valshistixol said:
The only reason we will default is horrible politics (republicans). I think the real question is why are we concentrating on any of this when our country still has a high amount of brutal poverty.
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Yeah. I will be glad when the fiscally responsible Democrats return to power /s. They (the politicians) are all corrupt, and need to be fired, if not worse. The U.S. has one political party. The money party.
 
Great news , the private sector is what we need to make LEO viable and cheap. $1.7 billion per space shuttle flight is far to costly. I loved the space shuttle , grew up with it but its an old machine that needed to be retired.

On to the next adventure.
 
Kenworth said:
I will be the broken record here and ask why are we concentrating on space still and our reliance on other countries to get their when our debt to them is about to go into default? Why can't you concentrate on paying for the program before raising cane that we can't continue it in general?
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How about instead of trying to restrict NASA's funding even further (as it only makes LESS THAN 1% of our national budget) we go after the overbloated military industrial complex? No? No takers?
 
artimusbill said:
Yeah. I will be glad when the fiscally responsible Democrats return to power /s. They (the politicians) are all corrupt, and need to be fired, if not worse. The U.S. has one political party. The money party.
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I never said the democrats were awesome, they are all scum, but if we default it's because of the republicans end of story. Shame we have no real way of getting rid of them short of marching into Washington and shooting them all.
 
Valshistixol said:
... but if we default it's because of the republicans end of story. Shame we have no real way of getting rid of them short of marching into Washington and shooting them all.
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You really haven't been paying attention have you? 2 house bills and CC&B are currently approved and "tabled" in the democrat controlled senate, while senate filibustered its own damn bill and the president has yet to even present a budget (other than the one that was defeated 97-0, in the same senate). Remind me again how the blame falls squarely onto the republicans again... :rolleyes:
 
jarman said:
You really haven't been paying attention have you? 2 house bills and CC&B are currently approved and "tabled" in the democrat controlled senate, while senate filibustered its own damn bill and the president has yet to even present a budget (other than the one that was defeated 97-0, in the same senate). Remind me again how the blame falls squarely onto the republicans again... :rolleyes:
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You know it's not the presidents job to set a budget right?
 
Solidstate89 said:
How about instead of trying to restrict NASA's funding even further (as it only makes LESS THAN 1% of our national budget) we go after the overbloated military industrial complex? No? No takers?
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Are you kidding me? I totally agree! I don't even think you would have to dial down capability. What I am about to say is going to upset a lot of people, but here I go. The Army is bloated and mostly useless. I say mostly because I know some really good soldiers and they are effective at what they do but how they do it is completely inefficient. For the record, I am a Marine and what it took us 5 guys to do, they assigned entire platoons. I have trained with them as well and it makes me want to cry how inefficient they are. Cut the budget, make them do more with less. This is the military after all!
 
jarman said:
You really haven't been paying attention have you? 2 house bills and CC&B are currently approved and "tabled" in the democrat controlled senate, while senate filibustered its own damn bill and the president has yet to even present a budget (other than the one that was defeated 97-0, in the same senate). Remind me again how the blame falls squarely onto the republicans again... :rolleyes:
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^This, among MANY other things. It is all a shell game. They shovel money to whoever their friends are at the moment (ie international banking, military industry, labor unions, drug cartels, foreign "aid" ), but it is all the same in the end. The sad thing is, this has been going on since the country was formed. We have been essentially a tax shelter for the rich/powerful for 235+ years. Two party system my @$$.
 
artimusbill said:
^This, among MANY other things. It is all a shell game. They shovel money to whoever their friends are at the moment (ie international banking, military industry, labor unions, drug cartels, foreign "aid" ), but it is all the same in the end. The sad thing is, this has been going on since the country was formed. We have been essentially a tax shelter for the rich/powerful for 235+ years. Two party system my @$$.
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Don't forget their friends who loan the US gov't money when we are in the debt for the interest...
 
Kenworth said:
Are you kidding me? I totally agree! I don't even think you would have to dial down capability. What I am about to say is going to upset a lot of people, but here I go. The Army is bloated and mostly useless. I say mostly because I know some really good soldiers and they are effective at what they do but how they do it is completely inefficient. For the record, I am a Marine and what it took us 5 guys to do, they assigned entire platoons. I have trained with them as well and it makes me want to cry how inefficient they are. Cut the budget, make them do more with less. This is the military after all!
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It's something I've wondered about. The Army would be very good for fighting a World War. Also handy for invading and occupying a foreign nation.

Neither are things we should EVER be doing (at least, not on our own).

IMHO - disband the Army. Funnel a significant portion of its funding over to the Marines - we definitely DO need the ability to 'put boots on the ground' for actions we still want to perform (regime change missions, kill-the-terrorist-leader raids, etc) - and just stop spending the rest. The Navy and Air Force are perfectly capable of preventing any enemies from reaching our shores, and defending our international trade. If any enemy DOES somehow land a force, they have the State Defense Forces to deal with (which are funded at the state level, for the 22 states that maintain them). And we still have the Marines for 'surgical' ground assault missions or campaigns.

*bam*, there is $3 trillion over 10 years on its own, and our overall defense budget inches a *little* bit closer per capita (but still far larger than) every other first-world nation.
 
Wow did this thread ever go off topic.

SpaceX will succeed, and if they don't, they'll try again and succeed that time. At the moment they have a track record of success.
 
bacon said:
Don't they man the space station? Also its planned to be retired in 2020.
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The plan is to continue to use the space station past 2020. I think the future of it depends more on the success of China's space station that should be operational in 2020.
 
I wonder if we will ever set foot on Mars someday. I don't see what's the incentive for the private sector to develop a technology capable of taking us beyond our planet, these people would be more focused on space tourism
 
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