nomadd22 From United States of America, joined Feb 2008, 1562 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (2 years 9 months 1 week 3 hours ago) and read 3676 times:
I'm hoping a few good Dragon tests will get the funds for an LAS for the Dragon flowing. A few hundred million would be pretty small change compared to what the government has thrown at the defunct Ares.
ZANL188 From United States of America, joined Oct 2006, 3249 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (2 years 8 months 3 weeks 3 days 1 hour ago) and read 3351 times:
Spacex asked for 23 Oct slot on the range for the next Falcon 9 launch....
centrair From Japan, joined Jan 2005, 3597 posts, RR: 21 Reply 5, posted (2 years 7 months 2 weeks 6 days 21 hours ago) and read 2748 times:
If all goes with this test and the following one, I wonder if some other countries might approach Space-X to provide for their programs?
Imagine if Japan, Brazil, Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the UK or even Australia said, "hey we don't have to develop our own program and we don't have to go to the US or Russia. We can just buy these Falcon/Dragons."
Space-X has put a lot into the US, but has stated interest from other places.
There is something in me that says, if this is successful, it might just create an amazing new industry with immense competition worldwide. Not for getting to space, but for winning government contracts to provide access to space from those countries.
Yes...I am not a KIX fan. Let's Japanese Aviation!
MD11Engineer From Germany, joined Oct 2003, 13343 posts, RR: 64 Reply 6, posted (2 years 7 months 2 weeks 6 days 19 hours ago) and read 2726 times:
Don´t forget that the Space X program so far is only doing ballistic flights. They don´t have to deal with the problem of getting the spacecraft to orbital velocities or with the problem of slowing it down again for landing. Especially there is little problem with heat dissipation.
At the moment Space X doesn´t do anything which couldn´t be done cheaper with an unmanned sounding rocket.
Once (maybe with the next generation of vehicle) they can get into orbit, it might become commercially interesting, especially if they can carry a payload of a certain size.
nomadd22 From United States of America, joined Feb 2008, 1562 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (2 years 7 months 2 weeks 6 days 16 hours ago) and read 2716 times:
Quoting MD11Engineer (Reply 6): Don´t forget that the Space X program so far is only doing ballistic flights. They don´t have to deal with the problem of getting the spacecraft to orbital velocities or with the problem of slowing it down again for landing. Especially there is little problem with heat dissipation.
At the moment Space X doesn´t do anything which couldn´t be done cheaper with an unmanned sounding rocket.
Once (maybe with the next generation of vehicle) they can get into orbit, it might become commercially interesting, especially if they can carry a payload of a certain size.
I think you're mixing SpaceX up with Scaled Composites, who flew Spaceship 1 and is developing SS2 for Virgin Galactic. SpaceX launches the Falcon 1s and Falcon 9s, and has never had a suborbital craft. They've launched one commercial payload on a Falcon 1 and recently had a succesful Falcon 9 inaugural flight to orbit.
The first functioning Dragon will be on the 2nd F9 flight in November and will be recovered after 3 or 4 orbits.
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