David Spain writes:

Pat Flannery wrote:
Unlike Orion, Dragon's parachutes actually work:
http://www.onorbit.com/node/2431

Pat

Says they are starting with water 'splashdowns' for the crewed version
with the intension of moving to land 'dustdowns' with addition of
deployable landing gear and thrusters at some point in the future.

I fear this will happen shortly after they start to routinely recover
both first and second stages of the Falcon 9...

I really don't see why they should even try that. It surely adds quite a
bit of mass which comes straight out of the payload and the time/cost
savings would only be significant if they fly very often.


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery