Some thoughts etc

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...

Yes cos after all its got to take longer to develop the winged approach
than
to use the tin can approach. I often marvel on how humans survive re
entry
in the tin cans. The Soyuz looks like a blackened mess after landing most
of
the time I gather, due to the ablative stuff sticking to the outside.

As for any of the private ones flying soon, Not convinced. Boiing should
be
in front I'd imagine as they are part of the in crowd.

Boeing is "in front" in terms of typical government oversight
(paperwork, ground testing, and etc.). But, what capsule has Boeing
flown to orbit and back recently? How long has it been since Boeing has
had this sort of "real world" experience? Boeing has done some
building, a bit of testing, and virtually no flying of CST-100.

SpaceX is clearly in front when it comes to actually flying recoverable
capsules. In the case of SpaceX, Dragon 2 is built on the very recent,
ongoing, experience of Dragon 1. This is the sort of corporate culture
which can be called "Build a little, test a little, fly a little".
SpaceX has been doing all three with Dragon 1.

I look at it this way. If there were some sort of super-critical emergency
where you absolutely had to get someone to orbit (or back) tomorrow, one
could call up SpaceX, say "Unload the next Dragon, toss a lawn chair in
there and give me a couple of compressed air tanks and let me fly". Risky,
sure, but you've got a capsule you know is airtight (at least to some
degree) and that has made it to orbit and landed several times.

Boeing, not so much.



Jeff

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
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