Space X

Regarding Elon Musk, well he's kind of like a Tony Stark - a guy with a vison and the money to make it happen.  It's that "make it happen" thing that is both a blessing and curse.  It drives progress in innovation but when technical snags are brushed aside to meet a sales or schedule target, trouble happens.  The Tesla cars and spacecraft are a little different when it comes to safety.  Car technology is well understood and most problems are not catastrophic.  When something goes wrong with a spacecraft, it's usually serious and many times fatal.  If an iPad fails on a Tesla, the owner gets upset.  If the same happens to an astronaut, he could die.

For this reason, I think Musk will excercise more caution in his Space X venture.  Or at least it is my sincere hope.  Roads have guard rails and crash barriers, space has none of that.  Plus you'll die if you roll down the window.

Real G

Regarding Elon Musk, well he's kind of like a Tony Stark - a guy with a vison and the money to make it happen. 

    Don't fart in space

mach71

My understanding is that this is a SpaceX design. Built and run by SpaceX. Totally. From inception to splashdown.

 

 

 

I thought the astronauts were NASA employees.  It was launched from a NASA pad, wasn't it?  Was there no use of NASA tracking facilities?  Who pays for this launch?  While NASA put out specs for previous spacecraft, there was enormous room for contractor design in the details.  I'd estimate that over 90% of the detail design was contractor work.  While NASA did build a second stage for Saturn, but all the spacecraft work was contract stuff.  While launch and flight control were done in NASA centers, McDonnell and North American personnel were an appreciable fraction of the people involved.

I see completely commercial space in satellites today (it pays its way), I don't see manned space paying for itself yet.  I'm not sure how soon that will come, I know it will.

It's just that I see a political spin to xoverage of Dragon- less government, more private investment.  I think it is a little overhyped.

Don,

It was NASA astronauts launched from pad 39A at Kennedy. But SpaceX owns the pad now.

Yes SpaceX did use NASA's TDRS system and other tracking sites, But SpaceX has a contract with NASA to deliver astronauts, so NASA would want to keep tabs on them.

I assume for a non NASA flighst they would pay NASA for the use of the tracking system.

But the bottom line is SpaceX designed, built, tests, and opperates the rocket motors, boostes, capsule, everything. NASA had very little input into the booster design. NASA approved the capsule design and oversaw the testing. My understanding is the astronauts trained at SpaceX and NASA.

As far as I understand, NASA supplied the astronauts, tracking and set standards for the safety tests, because of the NASAs astronauts. Everything else is SpaceX. Looking at the pad you'll see the SpaceX logo on the pad and watertower.