In article ,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:

SpaceX's Dragon cargo spacecraft splashed down at 3:05 p.m. EDT Sunday, in
the Pacific Ocean, approximately 300 miles west of Baja California, returning
more than 3,500 pounds of NASA cargo and science samples from the
International Space Station.

That seems like quite a lot of cargo down-mass for a relatively small
capsule, but from what I understand (http://www.spacex.com/dragon), the
down-mass limit for Dragon is actually 3,000 kilograms (6,614 lb) per
Dragon flight, so this mission didn't come close to the limit.

Baby steps, Jeff. Baby steps... :-)

Yes, slowly expanding the flight envelope is prudent.

That and down-mass depends on a lot of other factors. Besides the
obvious, like the density of the items being returned not being
constant, I'm sure there are plenty of more subtle issues like center of
mass constraints.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer