I’ll never forget my live launch at Kennedy when my friend’s dad went up.

I&#x27;m both happy for you and sad. Its exciting, but 50 years ago people expected this to become a normal thing. The excitement and the rarity shows how badly we neglected space since then.

I&#x27;m young enough for this to be my first time watching a crewed launch from America... Hopefully this goes well.

According to the webcast, weather is expected to clear, so sounds promising so far.

It&#x27;s raining on the launch pad right now. We&#x27;ll be lucky if the launch happens, but likely postponed to tomorrow&#x27;s launch window.

That is what I think but you have to be over a certain age I suspect.Take off eh?

After a recent Twin Peaks rewatch, I keep thinking B.O.B. and Dougie.

Every time they say &quot;Bob and Doug&quot; I keep thinking Bob and Jeb

&gt; Basically all crewed orbital spacecraft have used hypergols in some ways.Right, but Soyuz spacecraft is flying since 1960-s, has a half a year orbital storage time, and yet it has no toxic RCS for the capsule. At least that simplifies handling after landing.And it was long since proven RCS doesn&#x27;t need to use toxic components. The fact that Crew Dragon still uses them points more to the tradition than to the necessity.

Hypergolic fuels have TONS of advantages, including extremely reliable ignition. Basically all crewed orbital spacecraft have used hypergols in some ways. SpaceX&#x27;s Starship will not use hypergols, although it probably won&#x27;t be available for years.

Buran had non-toxic components for RCS. Kliper was planned with non-toxic RCS. Soyuz spacecraft at least has non-toxic components for capsule RCS, so when the capsule lands, it doesn&#x27;t need to be approached in a chemical protection suit.It&#x27;s not a question of choices - there are choices. I suspect it&#x27;s a question which is considered less important so far, so SpaceX didn&#x27;t pay that much attention to it, considering they had to do a lot of other things already. But I hope we&#x27;ll get there sooner rather than later.

Note that SpaceX has stated it&#x27;s working on gaseous methane, gaseous oxygen RCS thruster for it&#x27;s next rocket, Starship&#x2F;Superheavy.

RCS engines are practically always hypergolic since you need to be able to pulse on and off very easily&#x2F;quickly, and propellents need to be storable (non-cryo). If you look at the choices remaining, they&#x27;re all various levels of extremely toxic.

I wouldn’t say she is that much more grounded: she has also said they are planning on passenger New York&lt;-&gt;Shanghai rocket trips for a price between an economy and business class plane ticket by 2028:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vox.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;4&#x2F;11&#x2F;17227036&#x2F;flight-spacex-gwynne-shotwell-space-ted-conference-interview" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vox.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;4&#x2F;11&#x2F;17227036&#x2F;flight-spacex-gwynne-...</a>Not a prototype or demonstration, a real commercial flight service.

What&#x27;s great though is that all the technology, systems, tooling, procedures, experience, etc.. that has been developed for Dragon 2 will roll right into Starship. It&#x27;s a huge head start.

One might say that Crew Dragon&#x27;s days are counted already.Even SpaceX&#x27; Gwynne Shotwell (she is SpaceX&#x27; long-time COO, in case you do not know her yet) is hoping that SpaceX will fly people on Starship in maybe 3-4 years and she is way more grounded than Mr. Musk.
They plan to achieve this unreasonable sounding feat by producing large numbers of Starships and launching them very often to accumulate massive experience with the craft in very short time in parallel basically.

A couple years ago they did a pad abort test. Not from a rocket, but from the ground. It got out to sea just fine.

Anything involving fuel is dangerous. Demo-2  is first time that humans are on the rocket while its being fueled. The escape system is on while fueling and defueling since those are high risk times for the rocket.

The abort system is like ejection seats: the greater the part of the flight envelope it works in, the better, because you have smaller portions of the flight that problems are unsurvivable. The abort system tests were for the most difficult regimes of flight: maximum dynamic pressure, and zero altitude, zero airspeed. Having tested that, they can be sure it&#x27;ll work in less difficult sections.

Earlier this week when they were de-fueling they mentioned that the &quot;escape system&quot; was still active during that process. Is that because the fuel is potentially dangerous? Tangentially related, can the &quot;escape system&quot; be activated even when the rocket itself hasn&#x27;t left the ground? I watched the escape system test but IIRC it involved launching and then aborting so the pod that carries the crew was already high off the ground before the escape system was triggered. It surprised me that it could triggered from a standstill.

&gt; Do you think NASA considers it an issue?Maybe not, but they&#x27;d better do. The experience can be changed - SpaceX, for example, convinced them that loading fuel is better done with crew onboard.The point is, it&#x27;s better not to have toxic components close to humans, and it also can be done technically. There could be reasons otherwise, but so far I don&#x27;t see them particularly convincing, robustness and all notwithstanding.

Do you think NASA considers it an issue? They seem pretty ok with it and have plenty of experience with it.The robustness of the system is hard to give up. And fueling and recovery has always been a large production requiring attention to detail.Has NASA or DARPA put out any requests for a next-gen RCS fuel replacement?

The big and annoying issue with the Crew Dragon design seems to be the chosen RCS fuel (AFAIK, monomethylhydrazine and N2O4), which makes both fueling and clearing after landing a delicate process.Hopefully Crew Dragon proves itself as a capable platform for Earth-orbit transportation, but this fuel issue is a hard one to counter.

The suits are just pressure suits, more for basic protection and temporary loss of pressure, not extended EVAs or anything. They do look pretty comfortable, though, and I think the audio and signal are better.The touchscreen interface is &quot;different&quot; - the astronauts talked a bit about helping SpaceX design it and the pros and cons of it in a recent interview. I wrote it up here but you can also check the original long NASA TV thing.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;05&#x2F;04&#x2F;this-is-certainly-different-astronauts-on-controlling-the-dragon-spacecraft-via-touchscreen&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;05&#x2F;04&#x2F;this-is-certainly-differen...</a>

I watched the &quot;Everyday Astronaut&quot; Youtube stream where he said that those are IVA suits (as opposed to EVA) and can only hold pressure for a couple of minutes, enough time for the capsule to return safely to earth in case of an emergency.

Good luck to everyone! What an exciting time.Curious about the spacesuits and performance of the “minimal” touchscreen interfaces compared to the older stuff.

Here is the livestream with Mission Control Audio&#x2F;Video feed:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=hxCzpa07dvg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=hxCzpa07dvg</a>

I was literally shaking from T - 2 minutes.

I definitely feel like a kid watching this.

I watch this video all the time<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;7cyoZ71lzEk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;7cyoZ71lzEk</a>I wish I could have been there at the time, and today was the next best thing. Truly amazing.

I&#x27;m so excited about this.I used to watch old space mission videos and I think how could it would&#x27;ve been to watch them live back in the day.Now SpaceX has brought this excitement back.

I think I heard they were going slow and it was actually like 19 hours.

Do they have to stay seated &amp; buckled the whole 19 hours? Dare I ask how they eat or go to the bathroom on the 19 hour trip?

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nasa.gov&#x2F;specials&#x2F;dm2&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nasa.gov&#x2F;specials&#x2F;dm2&#x2F;</a>&gt; Lifting off from Launch Pad 39A atop a specially instrumented Falcon 9 rocket, Crew Dragon will accelerate its two passengers to approximately 17,000 mph and put it on an intercept course with the International Space Station. Once in orbit, the crew and SpaceX mission control will verify the spacecraft is performing as intended by testing the environmental control system, the displays and control system and the maneuvering thrusters, among other things. In about 24 hours, Crew Dragon will be in position to rendezvous and dock with the space station.

Anyone know how long it will actually take to get to the ISS?

I&#x27;m so hyped for this.I still remember when I was very little and my dad took me to a launch once.Hope manned rocket launches will get more regular again and seeing them will inspire a whole new generation.

And the best part is that this is only the beginning! God I hope I live long enough to see human beings set foot on Mars.

Because it&#x27;s the first time in a decade the US has done it, and done it in a way that is significantly less expensive, paving the way for much easier access. It&#x27;s a minor historical event in terms of human achievement since, as you said, we&#x27;ve done it before. But it&#x27;s a major economical event in the history of space exploration, and historic for the potential that represents.

The big deal is what is now much more likely to happen in 10 years because of what just happened. People are inspired by a successful mission and that makes the possibility of future missions more real.

This is a big deal because a group making up a medium-sized private company with a private company budget was able to accomplish what a nation-state sized government with an unlimited budget was able to accomplish ~40 years ago. And if they can do it, then it won&#x27;t be long before other companies do it too, which means that space travel will no longer be limited by political ambitions or realities.This is the Apple II moment of space travel: when megacorporation giants were squeezed out of the market in a few short years by some dudes working out of their garages.

I was thinking it seems a bit unfair to go on about how amazing it is while ignoring the Russian rockets that have been doing the same mission for years eg. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;erfXf08tuFg?t=3906" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;erfXf08tuFg?t=3906</a>However watching that it&#x27;s cool to see cutting edge tech rather than the 1960s style stuff. Also hopefully this is just a step for SpaceX on the way to Mars and beyond.

Imagine your same argument but comparing old computer modems to new ones. I dont get it why is a gigabit connection a big deal? I have my 14.4kps modem and I can download images just as good? ... Now we can do a lot more, for a lot cheaper, and the cheaper it becomes the more we can do in space. We could do mining, better satellites, colonies, better research.. Space is the limit ;)

I dont get it, wasnt this already accomplished? Whats the big deal ? The space station already exists, astronauts have gone there before.

It&#x27;s absolutely incredible to see this. So much work to get us here. So much work just to organize this launch event. Seeing astronauts getting dropped off in one of the most technologically advanced automobiles on Earth and walk into the capsule sitting on top of a rocket which is the Pinnacle of humanity&#x27;s biggest advancements in technology and space is astounding and goosebumps-enducing. What a time to be alive!

It&#x27;s a couple ex-military pilots being driven through one of the more secure sites in the United States. Is this Warhammer 40K aesthetic not out of place?

Think the bombing scene in Contact. Very unlikely, but what&#x27;s the harm in protecting a high profile target like this?

OK, now that makes a lot more sense, thanks.

It replaces NASA&#x27;s M113 armored personnel carrier, a tracked vehicle which dates back to the Vietnam War. The fire crew sits in there for protection from an exploding rocket. The vehicle is great for evacuating astronauts.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nasa.gov&#x2F;feature&#x2F;mrap-rolls-through-pad-evacuation-runs-0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nasa.gov&#x2F;feature&#x2F;mrap-rolls-through-pad-evacuati...</a>If you want the closest view of a launch without being in the rocket, get some firefighting experience (preferably on an aircraft carrier or something of similar hazard) and then ask your senator to recommend you as a qualified guest firefighter.

Same excitement and anticipation, fingers cross this time.

Agree with it being an achievement. And watching the first stage land was amazing. But chemical engines can get us only to the asteroid belt.

Does anyone know how on schedule crew dragon was?Apparently:Musk plans to send a SpaceX rocket to Mars, with cargo only, by 2022, according to the SpaceX website. A second mission, which would take more cargo and crew, is targeted for 2024So, realistically, 2030?

It is quite an achievement. This paves the way forward for eventual space colonization.

Ha, not sure if people get how great that choice is if they don&#x27;t know the beer. For those who don&#x27;t, Gulden Draak is a Belgian beer which translated would be &quot;Golden Dragon&quot;

Ooooh haven&#x27;t had that in a while. Great choice!

Must keep on drinking it till the crew is safely back. No time to relax :)

I popped a Gulden Draak 9000 for this to be stylish :)

Some chips and a wheat beer. I haven&#x27;t drank one in a year. No better time that this to drink one again.

Who else has prepared snacks and beer?
I can feel blood in my ears how excited I am.
Good luck SpaceX &amp; NASA!

In the media event from the capsule just moments ago, they named it Endeavour.

I think Hurley and Behnken wanted to announce a name for their Crew Dragon spacecraft on launch day. Has anyone heard about this?

Wondering the same here. That plus Youtube compression artifacts made this a teeny bit less enjoyable to watch.

Any idea why both Nasa and SpaceX feed both run on 720p max?

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.spacex.com&#x2F;launches&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.spacex.com&#x2F;launches&#x2F;</a>Great graphics and timelines of the mission can be found here.

Think the comments more about usability&#x2F;feedback vs visual. Especially wearing thick gloves.

Yes, overall Crew Dragon seems to have a very clean design in general.

Aren&#x27;t they planning on doing it tomorrow morning?

Display can be used for manual docking, however there is no plan to ever do that outside of an emergency.

And it’s painted black against black backdrop when the decision to pull it happens in milliseconds level. :facepalm:This is what a Martin Baker ejection handle looks like: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;c8.alamy.com&#x2F;comp&#x2F;BJTDWG&#x2F;martin-baker-ejection-seat-out-of-and-f4-phantom-jet-fighter-aircraft-BJTDWG.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;c8.alamy.com&#x2F;comp&#x2F;BJTDWG&#x2F;martin-baker-ejection-seat-...</a>With all due respect to all the engineers that work at SpaceX, the UI of the cockpit has regressed to the point of pure marketing. Same with the suit design, looks like an awful low budget sci-fi film. Functionalism and the beauty in the way things are without adornment is dying. And, it is painful to watch as a engineer who designs HMI systems. IMO design and aesthetic that emerge out of the way things are is so much more authentic than CEO&#x27;s inspiration from a sci-fi movie genre that was probably conceived by some guy in 80&#x27;s in half a dozen hours before before putting up a hollywood set. These movie makers did not study UX&#x2F;UI and it was all about entertaining the audience.Just look at how functional and beautiful the aesthetics of space flight was like during the golden era of Apollo 11. There was no design. There was just pure emergence of aesthetics from whatever they were doing to make things functional (ok, with some small exceptions like the logo and US flag on the suits): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=tpLrp0SW8yg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=tpLrp0SW8yg</a>Checkout the new Mars rover - absolutely zero marketing, pure function - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mars.nasa.gov&#x2F;news&#x2F;8649&#x2F;nasas-perseverance-mars-rover-gets-balanced&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mars.nasa.gov&#x2F;news&#x2F;8649&#x2F;nasas-perseverance-mars-rove...</a>If SpaceX designed a mars rover, it would have gaudy shrouds and plastic covers, probably some LED lights to make it look cool, sleek 30, 45, 60 degree angles everywhere (ohhh space aesthetics), and all kinds of marketing bullshit whereas NASA engineers are focused on what is important. And it is gorgeous without even trying.

The physical buttons are not used for manual docking.  There are on screen controls for translation and rotation.

&gt; The physical buttons are used for manual docking.I don&#x27;t think so, they&#x27;re using the screens for docking too according to their own site. [0] You can do the same basic task the pilot would be doing during a manual approach from what I think is Waypoint 1 (meaning Dragon is in front of the ISS pointed mostly towards it). You can see the actual text on the buttons here [1] and they&#x27;re all critical system tasks like power cycling the controllers, aborts&#x2F;emergency response commands, or manual triggers for things during landing.[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iss-sim.spacex.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iss-sim.spacex.com&#x2F;</a>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nasaspaceflight.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2018&#x2F;08&#x2F;2018-08-17-182711.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nasaspaceflight.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2018&#x2F;08&#x2F;2...</a>

There are two rows of physical buttons below the touch screens along with a large manual abort lever.    The physical buttons are used for manual docking.

Wait wait, you’re telling me there’s Javascript floating around in space (not including web traffic being sent through satellites)?

Wow, had I known that this whole thing would have been a lot more nerve wracking.

I understand it runs Chromium code and that the UI is written in Javascript.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;space.stackexchange.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;9243&#x2F;what-computer-and-software-is-used-by-the-falcon-9" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;space.stackexchange.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;9243&#x2F;what-computer...</a>

It&#x27;s the Tesla approach, form &gt; function.

You can try out the docking maneuvers in this official minigame: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iss-sim.spacex.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iss-sim.spacex.com&#x2F;</a>Personally I found the lack of analog input control harrying toward the end. A toggle between &quot;large&quot; and &quot;normal&quot; thrust mode is all you get. Normal felt like it wasn&#x27;t fine-grained enough.

I&#x27;m actually surprised they use a touchscreen interface, and they will use that for the manual docking too! <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;YKiqIqO.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;YKiqIqO.jpg</a>

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flightclub.io&#x2F;live" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flightclub.io&#x2F;live</a>

Choose S2 under the graph icon on <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flightclub.io&#x2F;live" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flightclub.io&#x2F;live</a>

&quot;Crew Dragon&quot; has been added to the Star Walk 2 app on iOS. Just had a pass over the UK (not visible). This gives an AR view of the sky. It&#x27;s on the same trajectory as ISS, some number of minutes behind it.

Does anyone know if there&#x27;s an interactive map where we can track where Dragon is in context of the earth?

The fuckers did it!  Congrats SpaceX and NASA.

This is what makes America great. An immigrant making all this happen and I think all this can happen only in America.

Watching from Germany. The goosebumps are real. Cannot wait to see what the future of SpaceX will bring.

Lol it just magically appeared on the drone ship.

They&#x27;ll release the whole footage once they get it back from sea.  I would also like to see more video from inside the capsule too.

They really should put the comms dish on buoy a 100ft off deck to prevent this.Moreover, how long until we get a &quot;brought to you live by starlink&quot; banner?

That&#x27;s quite normal. It happens on pretty much every launch to some extent. Something to do with vibrations causes by the landing burn and directional dishes

And right as the booster was landing on the ship the satellite feed cut out.

It&#x27;ll do a couple orbits then fall back down to Earth.

Depends on the mission, for something like this it deorbits fairly quickly due to the drag of the low orbit. To geostationary transfer orbit it takes longer but the periapsis (lowest point) is low enough to slowly deorbit it.Then we have launches straight to geostationary orbits and similar, for those the second-stages will essentially never come down and they end up positioned in a graveyard orbit.

Even the ISS needs burns now and then to stay up, so yes at that altitude it will fall down eventually.

Saw a diagram showing that the 2nd stage should deorbit and splashdown somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Not sure when, precisely, though.

It&#x27;s does a deorbit burn to actively fall back to Earth.

They scrapped that idea last year afaik and are now focusing all efforts on starship which will be fully reusable.

SpaceX was talking about trying to recover the 2nd stage back in 2018, Elon suggested they would use a giant &quot;party balloon&quot; and land it on a &quot;giant bounce house.&quot; I haven&#x27;t heard any talk of progress made since then.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackaday.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;23&#x2F;spacexs-next-giant-leap-second-stage-recovery&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackaday.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;23&#x2F;spacexs-next-giant-leap-seco...</a>

Does anyone know what happens to the 2nd stage engine? Does it stay in orbit or does it eventually fall back to earth&#x2F;go into space?

I was surprised at how quiet it was. Lacked the roar of the space shuttle.

I watched the first shuttle launch as a child. I watched the tragedy of Challenger in my school&#x27;s gymnasium, and I watched STS-135, the last orbiter mission, from a bridge in Florida.This is a monumental day for our country.

This is what it should have been a decade or two ago. The infusion of expertise from gov-sponsored &#x2F; R&amp;D to commercial should have been accelerated long ago. Happy to see Lars and others matching up with entrepreneurs and a new generation to get things done.

Wouldn&#x27;t it be &quot;Thank you for flying with Spacex today&quot;?

So many cheeky touches! It&#x27;s such a different vibe than the NASA launches of old. It&#x27;s old news but I still was caught off guard by announcers flatly referring to &quot;Of Course I Still Love You&quot;EDIT this is not a criticism, I really like it. Maybe &quot;cheeky&quot; is the wrong term, I&#x27;m bad with Anglicisms

A new normal has just been defined. Amazing to see.&quot;Thank you for flying with Falcon 9 today&quot;, as though it&#x27;s an airplane.

SpaceX has brought the costs down a lot.   Around $500mil for a shuttle launch.

Yes, the government paid to develop crew dragon. And they buy launch services which is another source of revenue.The government paid for Apollo. And once they decided they no longer wanted it, it became impossible to use Apollo parts, technology, or any of the engineers or technicians to put people into orbit. The capability &quot;vanished.&quot;If the government never bought another ticket to space, Crew Dragon could be made available to people who want to go into space and are willing to pay for a ticket. So even if NASA got defunded completely tomorrow, the ability to go into space would still be there. Because the market for space, when served in an economic way, is self sustaining.This has never been true before, and now it is. That is my definition of sustainable.

They didn&#x27;t have to buy a full rocket! It&#x27;s a huge cost reduction when you can reuse the expensive part and pay for fuel+maintenance.

How does something being paid for by the government relate to it being sustainable? Our roads are paid for by the government too - and those are sustainable. So are lots of other things, like basic science research, healthcare in most countries, etc, all of which is sustainable in being paid by government.

The sheer cost of launches is much lower on a Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon versus the Shuttle. Amortized per-launch cost for the Shuttle was about $1.5B [0]. The cost of the Demo-2 mission today with 2 astronauts costs $110M [1].[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Space_Shuttle_program#Budget" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Space_Shuttle_program#Budget</a>[1]: This article states the per-astronaut cost paid by NASA on a Crew Dragon mission is $55M, compared to $86M on Soyuz: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnbc.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;05&#x2F;26&#x2F;spacex-demo-2-nasa-astronaut-launch-everything-you-need-to-know.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnbc.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;05&#x2F;26&#x2F;spacex-demo-2-nasa-astronaut...</a>

Not to detract one iota from this amazing achievement, but what definition of sustainable are you thinking of? This was still paid for by the government.

You just need to look further. You get access to rare materials that can be immensely valuable.Read <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Case-Space-Revolution-Spaceflight-Possibility&#x2F;dp&#x2F;1633885348" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Case-Space-Revolution-Spaceflight-Pos...</a>Also with that short term outlook you wouldn’t have many things. The Internet was not initially commercial. It was designed to provide communications in the event of a nuclear attack. Yet here we are now and we have reaped immense benefits from that investment.It’s blindingly obvious that spaceflight makes sense to invest in. The issue is that the level of investment is large and the time horizon before a return is long. Sometimes government takes that role.

They said during the launch live broadcast that SpaceX intends to fly paying tourists by next year. Apparently many tourists have also visited the space station.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.space.com&#x2F;spacex-crew-dragon-will-fly-space-tourists.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.space.com&#x2F;spacex-crew-dragon-will-fly-space-tour...</a>

Often you need to build the new thing before the business model emerges, because you can’t visualize or evaluate the latter until the former exists.

Most people are floating the idea that eventually we would either have commercial companies adding a &quot;space hotel&quot; to the ISS for testing purposes and when the ISS is retired that the hotel would continue to exist.Once you have companies either vying for real estate in orbit the demand for people to visit the hotel could eventually spur demand for other places to go.

Falcon&#x2F;Dragon might not have a high-volume commercial future for human flight, but Starship Crew certainly will. With rapid full reusability the cost drops to the point where single-digit millionaires can afford a trip, and much larger space hotels are affordable to build.

I’m not super well informed on this, but is there any reason for sending humans to space at this moment in time (or for the next 20 years for that matter). The only reason my layperson understanding can think of is mining minerals in space, but I fail to see why robots wouldn’t be able to adequately do the job. In fact wouldn’t sending humans make future space ventures even more costly and put people into unessisary risk?

I think one of the main priorities is military supremacy. It might not appear as that from a bit away, but that should not be overlooked. NASA&#x27;s boss really highlighted some of that indirectly today as well with the increased funding to build out Space Force and some of that money goes to SpaceX obviously. So commercial, yes, but not like a car. More like a tank or fighter jet.

- International travel (anywhere in the world in less than two hours) could be one of those things.
- Asteroid mining

Space as a destination in itself seems fine to me.On the other side of it, what&#x27;s the point in making a space hotel if you have to pay the Russians an exorbitant amount of money to get 3 people into orbit? Now we can put 7 people up for less money more frequently.

I hold off on the &quot;commercial&quot; designation until the customer funding the mission actually intends profit.There are thousands, probably tens of thousands, of commercial ventures that only have governments as their customers. This seems no different.

I can think of one commercial case for people in space: servicing existing systems in orbit. There have been a handful of STS missions that involved EVAs to service everything from the Hubble&#x27;s famous mirror to correcting launch issues with commercial communication satellites like STS-49: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;STS-49" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;STS-49</a>I doubt there&#x27;s enough of a need for this sort of thing to keep a venture afloat, but manned missions have been flown for commercial purposes in order to service existing spacecraft.

Crew Dragon is commercial in the sense that NASA wants to pay for it, and shopped around for a better vehicle than Soyuz.But frankly, there is basically nothing that humans could do in space in a money-making way. Machines are just so much easier. They can fly for years via cheap orbits, don&#x27;t mind the cold and the vacuum, etc.The whole idea of colonizing Mars is not about commercial viability, it&#x27;s about reaching a new land outside of control of Earth&#x27;s governments. Very much the same as founding Massachusetts or Pennsylvania was not a commercial enterprise, but was an attempt to gain more freedom, even in utterly alien and inhospitable places.

On the ISS you can produce higher quality optical fiber than on earth [1]. A demonstration fabrication unit is already on the ISS, and NASA has recently published prices for using the ISS for commercial tasks such as this. I suspect many other manufacturing methods can also benefit from zero gravity, and as launch costs drop more of these will be explored.1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;upward.issnationallab.org&#x2F;the-race-to-manufacture-zblan&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;upward.issnationallab.org&#x2F;the-race-to-manufacture-zb...</a>

I thought mining was the big commercial reason to launch people into space.

&gt; I just don&#x27;t see any commercial reason to launch people into spaceAsteroid mining comes to mind. And sure, we can do that with robots, but it&#x27;s incredibly convenient to have actual sapient personnel in close proximity to coordinate things, perform repairs, etc. And Ceres is a reasonable choice for such a colony (more so than Mars, IMO, though I know plenty of people might disagree), given the low escape velocity and abundance of water (as ice, but you can always melt ice) making it great for both sustaining human habitation and for refueling return trips.In general, the more people we can get into space permanently, the greater the chances of humanity&#x27;s survival long-term, since we would no longer be tied to one planet (and importantly: if we can maintain permanent settlements in space, then we could likely survive all but the most extreme calamities on Earth). I feel like that alone more than justifies any and all efforts to get Earth-to-orbit infrastructure as cheap and robust and predictable as possible; the scientific and commercial objectives are critical but secondary.

Sporting events on the moon have the potential to be profitable, because of the scale of media.We&#x27;ve got plenty of everything on Earth, but maybe it&#x27;s more fun to play basketball in moon caverns? I can see billionaires paying to go dirtbiking on the surface, but that&#x27;s not really so sustainable a market. Moonfruits could grow to enormous sizes and make tourists happy. But that&#x27;s not an export product.Tourism and sports. Makes sense in a post scarcity economy.

&gt;&gt; into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture.If we are talking pure commercial travel, it is a vehicle without a destination. The ISS is definitely not a commercial project. There are lots of reasons for the ISS to exist, and they have changed over time, but it has never been a money-making venture. While the dragons certainly do come in under budget, they are a more efficient path to orbit, the purpose of the mission is not commercial. Crew Dragon&#x27;s existence is funded by the need to move people to and from the ISS. Without the ISS, Crew Dragon would exist. I hold off on the &quot;commercial&quot; designation until the customer funding the mission actually intends profit.What we need is a commercial, money-making, reason to launch people into orbit. Astronauts fly for science. They fly for national pride. They fly to demonstrate engineering excellence. They don&#x27;t fly to make money. I&#x27;m a big spacelaunch fan but I just don&#x27;t see any commercial reason to launch people into space. (Space hotels for billionaires might be a niche but that doesn&#x27;t seem sustainable imho.)

Rockets were being made long before 50 years ago. There were plenty of rockets in WWI. And there were smaller rockets going back to before the US war of independence (ie &quot;the rocket&#x27;s red glare&quot;). If we are talking big metal things that fly into space being produced on an assembly line, then those operating in Germany during late WWII making the V2s (75years ago) were probably the first rocket factories. But I&#x27;m not going to clap for them.

factory of rocketsRocket factories existed over 50 years ago. But they were making ICBMs.[1]The big change is that it&#x27;s now possible to make money launching.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;Pqw9YOOOuKk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;Pqw9YOOOuKk</a>

I fear the profit motive is going too far.And I hope it goes further. We&#x27;ve seen what happens when decisions are made on the basis of political expedience rather than cost-effectiveness: you get SLS. Or more accurately, you don&#x27;t get SLS.

Wow, I hate the philosophy behind this comment so much. The it must be exhausting to look at the world threw such a pessimistic lenses. Its like human commerce is some cancer and if business and capitalist spreads the then the cancer will grow and take over the universe ultimiatly leading to the end of the universe because the inherent un-sustainability. If we only could achieve things with the pure power of love, our achievements would be so glorious without the dirtying influence of the profit motive.&gt; Never before in the history of mankind had so much activity been predicated upon commercial viabilityNo idea of how you get to that or how you would actually show that this is correct.&gt; and never before had so much gone undone simply because it is unprofitable.Again, based on what? How you measure that? Can you show hard numbers that this is true in any way? And even if it was, is it it not better that there so many things in the first place, as opposed to the waste majority of history?&gt; Spacefaring nations’ governments have not abdicated spaceflight, and indeed they’re likely to militarise their approach ever more.By any measure human space flight in particular and space-flight in general is less military driven now then ever before.&gt; When have commercial ventures ever been “sustainable”?By any measure most humans care about they are very sustainable. Nothing is sustainable for infinity. In the comment above it was clearly meant that it is sustainable compared to congress driven political budget cycles. Or more likely at least for a decade or two there will very likely be a commercial way to get to space.&gt; A sustainable commercial venture tends to be one that externalises most of its costs (look at the sustainability of bulwarks of 20th century commercial ventures, such as the automotive industry and its bedfellow oil &amp; gas).Its utterly and completely wrong to claim that MOST of the cost is externalized, that is just simply bad math even in industries with a lot of external cost.And then you pick automotive and gas as examples, you do understand that selling of vegan hamburgers is also a commercial venture. Are you saying humanity is not sustainable because we can only have 7 billion people because of commercial ventures. Would going back to 100M human living as hunter gathers in a totally non commercial way be &#x27;sustainable&#x27; enough for you?Any the automotive industry is very sustainable and will not go away for a very, very, very long time, there is no indication that we are gone run out of gas anytime soon either, not for decades and more likely never. Far more likely that we are gone come up with something better and basically not use gas much anymore, but it will still be commercially available at that point.

&gt; It is hard to convey how “sustainable” this feels to me. For the first time, humans have gone into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture.I understand your sentiment, but I’m also profoundly unsettled by the idea that commerce and capitalism are reaching beyond the clutches of our planet. Today is definitely a threshold, but what that threshold means, in a broader sense, is not clear to me.As liberals we celebrate the entrepreneurial slam-dunk and as technologists we admire the elegant engineering.But maybe I’m jaded, but I fear the profit motive is going too far. We live in a truly extraordinary moment socioeconomically. Never before in the history of mankind had so much activity been predicated upon commercial viability — and never before had so much gone undone simply because it is unprofitable.Spacefaring nations’ governments have not abdicated spaceflight, and indeed they’re likely to militarise their approach ever more. But now we have private enterprise ferrying people up there too.“Sustainable”... what a funny word. When have commercial ventures ever been “sustainable”? A sustainable commercial venture tends to be one that externalises most of its costs (look at the sustainability of bulwarks of 20th century commercial ventures, such as the automotive industry and its bedfellow oil &amp; gas).I will say I’m glad that manned spaceflight is no longer the prerogative of a couple of extraordinarily well-heeled superpowers. But...

Lots of people use GPS&amp;map. Even EU&#x2F;Ru&#x2F;China developed their own GPS. Military industry wants to have weapons in the space. And for saving the earth we still need satellites monitor our poor earth. Not to mention other goals like deploying internet&#x2F;phone service to everyone, etc. Lunching Satellites definitely is commercial.GPS&#x2F;map plus ads&amp;directory is already printing money...

I don&#x27;t understand how SpaceX is &quot;commercial.&quot; As I understand it, they exist because the US Government wants to have a space program. Yes, they can launch satellites, but how many for-profit non-state entities can use these things? 
It seems like SpaceX is possible because there are governments out there with money to burn.

I thought it was awesome. I&#x27;m going to create the electric car market no-one thought possible and many companies paid to lobby to create laws to stop.... and put it into space.

Bit of a strange criticism. They&#x27;ve got to drive out in something, why not an electric vehicle? And the spacesuits are bulky and difficult to move in, so the falcon doors on that Tesla model make sense for easy egress.

I cringed when I saw the Tesla car though. Kinda cheapened the whole thing for me

You seem to equate being commercially viable with being sustainable but I think you are forgetting that the vast majority of the current economy is unsustainable. The only difference is the government was honest about it.

Totally. Seeing the rocket successfully land is still stirring. I remember the first time I saw SpaceX land those two rockets together, I felt like I was living through history. With all the insanity plaguing the world right now, it’s amazing to have a parallel track of optimistic discovery and exploration.It gives me hope.

It is hard to convey how &quot;sustainable&quot; this feels to me. For the first time, humans have gone into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture.All of the NASA missions prior to this have an ambience of &quot;uneconomical but useful&quot;. Even the shuttle, which was supposed to be this cost effective space truck, turned out to be not even close.And the last thing I&#x27;m feeling is the amazement at how much technology has evolved to get us to this point. I imagined as a child that the Apollo program would lead to a factory of rockets that launched people to orbit, to the Moon, and even to Mars on demand. And seeing what SpaceX has done to get to this point, it is clear to me that was never even close to possible. The Russian program is great in that way. It shows what that path might have looked like. And yes we could have refined the making of F1 engines, the construction of boosters, and just pushed that, but that leads to a steady state that is below what you need to run a program like this with a net positive economic outcome.So very impressed guys, congratulations!

What a moment in time! As usual, they make it look so effortless.
Surprising how the suits, simpler looking interiors and interfaces seem to be taking over the old physical buttons and wires and what not.
Hats off.

How cool is it that we have a live view of the space capsule?

A 3-minute summary for those who missed it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=U1mlCPMYtPk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=U1mlCPMYtPk</a>

We&#x27;re a big country. Plenty of space to do multiple things at once

There is an eerie echo of history here.  The late 60&#x27;s were the height of civil unrest in modern America.  Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated as Apollo astronauts were preparing to land on the moon.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;goh2x_G0ct4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;goh2x_G0ct4</a>

Given the size of the US, it&#x27;s comparable to riots going on in France persistently while there are none in Germany. Some cities are affected, some are not. 99% of the US isn&#x27;t seeing any riot problems right now.

Thinking of Europe, I have a feeling that it&#x27;s just surreal that this launch is happening in America at the same time with the events in Minneapolis

Unemployment and poverty are always going to be there and never be 100% removed. Not in the near future.Wouldn’t starting a space mission create thousands of direct and indirect jobs?These advancements are not taking money away from them. The research we did towards all of the space travel in the past 6 decades have given us dividends on several fronts.

Being European also,  I honestly am not in favour of it. The amount of public money that flows into these ventures without well defined purpose in a time where we&#x27;re hitting 20% unemployment due to a pandemic seems grotesque to me. There&#x27;s a lot more things to fix on this planet.

You know that taxes are a major part of research funding in the EU right?Also Europe does has a nack for immense projects like LHC or ITER.

Tech in Europe is far behind, because huge sums of money are spent on pensions and welfare, supported by huge taxes on income and consumption.Plus, the continent speaks 20+ different languages.There is no room or encouragement for individual entrepreneurs like Elon Musk. They are regulated and taxed to death.Europe faces labor shortages in farms and factories, and their solution has been to import labour, illegally, from the 3rd world - to the detriment of their local population and societies. They are anti-tech, at a fundamental level.

I&#x27;m glad that the space age has been rekindled. I wish Europe would do something similar.

I secretly wanted an inset of the two astronauts faces in the lower right corner.

Same here- my 5yo daughter stayed up late to watch the launch.  She was asking questions throughtout, which made me a proud dad.

That&#x27;s so wonderful. I liked how Astronaut Garrett Reisman put it today: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;GuXBdTF2jUY?t=4460" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;GuXBdTF2jUY?t=4460</a>&gt; &quot;I hope for ten minutes just now you looked up and saw something exciting, something to give you hope of a future full of wonder. That&#x27;s the magic of human spaceflight.&quot;We cannot voyage far into space without our best human qualities: cooperation, reason, and hope. Each small step for all humankind.

I am not American but as a human I feel so good about this mission. We all have a habit of looking up to sky with an awe and appreciate the beauty. My 10 years old son was so excited. Who knows he might get into this field. I wanted to study astrophysics while I was a teen. He was also watching live stream with me.Congrats and lots of love from Pakistan. Desperately waiting for Docking moments.

The distance between Launch Complex 39-A (LC-39A) to Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) is 17-18km by road. During the Orbcomm-2 mission, the first successful landing of a SpaceX booster took place there approximately 10 minutes after launch, so one would have needed to go 100km&#x2F;h in average by car to make it from launch pad to the landing zone in time.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bing.com&#x2F;maps?osid=b49de63c-29a1-4a5d-9742-0fdf6dbc2699&amp;cp=28.551892~-80.615809&amp;lvl=12&amp;style=h&amp;v=2&amp;sV=2&amp;form=S00027" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bing.com&#x2F;maps?osid=b49de63c-29a1-4a5d-9742-0fdf6...</a>

That sort of puts things in perspective. I didn&#x27;t realize all of that amazing stuff happened in the course of a few minutes...Incredible. For all the silly things Elon Musk does on Twitter, he rightfully takes the credit for building these important machines and building the right team with Gwynne Shotwell.

Surely they don&#x27;t want to being that fast ;)

Well, the escape velocity for Earth is 11.2 km&#x2F;s...

Especially once you get an idea of the scale of the rocket. It&#x27;s taller than the statue of liberty. Imagine a 24 stories tall building flying into space and landing back upright.

I think it&#x27;s ridiculous that a rocket can fly up to 90km and return to Earth in a controlled landing in under 10 minutes. 
So cool.

during pre launch in-cabin video, one crew member appeared to be &quot;signing&quot; (spelling out stuff) with his left hand (?)Does anyone have a back story on that?

If you&#x27;re into space science and technology and want to see where we&#x27;re going next, check out <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;orbitalindex.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;orbitalindex.com</a>, a weekly space science &amp; technology newsletter that I co-write.

I wonder if the layoffs announced this week will affect those programs.

I think it&#x27;s more that the DoD props up Boeing in any way they can, from sweetheart contracts like this, to trade policies designed to destroy competition (the Bombardier thing), to outright industrial espionage of other firms (the leaks of Airbus&#x27;s foreign negotiations).Edit: Changed Embraer to Bombardier thanks to emiliobumachar&#x27;s friendly reminder.

NASA recently selected three teams to start development of new human lunar landers. Boeing&#x27;s proposal was not one of the three selected.

But Boeing is forever crooning: &quot;Yeah, but we put a man on the Moon.&quot; So NASA will lick their boots anytime and pay them whatever they want.Off course, if Boeing messes up again, the carpet will be pulled from under their feet.

Also because it costs less when you can reuse the booster rocket.

Must adjust for the grift. Boeing are professionals at this process.

If I heard correctly, SpaceX got less because they were already running regular resupply missions to ISS and not because they had &quot;worse, less reliable design&quot;.

SpaceX had a pretty different record wrt reliability back in 2014. And to be fair I think it&#x27;s more likely that Boeing was competing against Sierra Nevada, not SpaceX

&gt; they have the &quot;better&quot; more reliable design.It’s easy to claim that vapor is better. Making it into non-vapor, not so easy.I do see that you at least put “better” in quotes... good call.

This is very wrong.The Commercial Crew contract started with NASA providing guidelines of what they wanted.Multible companies could give a suggestion of their design and how much it would cost.The two best of those were suggested. The amount of money was not assigned based on their evaluation what was better, that is absolutely not the case.Rather they selected 2 proposals that had the best combination based of factors, including cost, design, program reliability and so on.So Boeing was luck that their (at that point) high status got them selected over the cheaper bid of Sierra Nevada (who tried to fight the choice).So its not like they first selected the two companies and then assigned them money based on how good their designs were.

Quick note:Boeing got the big bucks at $5B or so for their crewed services because they have the &quot;better&quot; more reliable design.SpaceX only got $3B or so.Boeing running roughly 60%+ more per seat as well.So a real accomplishment so far for SpaceX to pull this off.

Didn&#x27;t some of those missions had live cargo in mice form anyway, making an atmosphere necessary? Only the trunk is unpressurized, AFAIK.

The very first Dragon that went up to ISS had life support enabled. When it landed Musk himself said that had there been astronauts on board they would&#x27;ve had a nice ride.Even though that was 8 years ago (!) I can still remember it clearly.

I think they&#x27;ve been flying the cargo dragon missions with a full-atmosphere pressure inside the capsule, just to prove that even if a person had been in there for a cargo launch they very well may have survived (at least, if they had a chair I guess)

Congrats SpaceX! A job well done.I assumed this launch would be uneventful since SpaceX has been flying numerous missions to the ISS, and this one merely has people on it but is basically business-as-usual for them.

That&#x27;s what I expect and look forward to that.  Still, fun seeing the conspiracy penchants jump all over that missing few seconds, just playing a drinking game with myself based upon what explanations they can come up with for why it is not real.  Just don&#x27;t make a big list as they are running thru them fast and nobody liver is worth that.  SO list responsibly.

They probably record locally as well so if the live connection gets disrupted for some reason you can download the complete recording (perhaps even with better bitrate) after the fact.

Why fake this?What am i giving to spacex and nasa by believing this?
Its barely a drop in the budget.I know you&#x27;re not saying that, just baffles me.

I read that the loss of the connection is very likely hardware related but I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if SpaceX simply doesn&#x27;t want to livestream something that may crash with a high probability. Nothing to do with the anti-science flat earth movement.

That doesn&#x27;t make much sense when there is uninterrupted footage of boosters landing on land, and the actual boosters themselves are also often filmed when they arrive on land later with the barge. But then, conspiracy theories are not required to make sense at all.

I&#x27;ve seen a few missions where the link didn&#x27;t fail and viewers got to see it come down onto the droneship. It sure seems to be a crapshoot whether the link stays up for the landing, though.

I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s a hoax, but it&#x27;s pretty annoying to have the video cut out at the crucial moment. How hard would it be to buffer the transmission by a few seconds? I don&#x27;t need to see it exactly live, but I&#x27;d like to see it &quot;almost live&quot;  which would be exceedingly simple to do.

I&#x27;ve already seen conspiracy theorists online who claimed that loss of signal during every first stage landing is a proof that it&#x27;s all a hoax.Like, they switch footage to another droneship with a rocket that was always there.I wonder if these people believe in flat Earth, too?

<pre><code> ERROR: -JPLgs3ktyo: YouTube said: This video contains content from National Geographic, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.
 Sorry about that.</code></pre>

Best video found so far of it that covers launch and landing of falcon 9. Alas loss of signal during the moment, though I&#x27;m sure another camera angle&#x2F;footage will come about.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=-JPLgs3ktyo" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=-JPLgs3ktyo</a>

I’d pretend to be a sincere flat earther if there was a chance for a free flight to space

That assumes they&#x27;d be honest about it. They would arguably have more to gain by accepting the free tickets, then claiming it was all a hoax, further fueling FE.

Before aiming to Mars, I would consider crowfunding two free tickets for a trip on the Falcon to a couple high profile flat earthers.

In a way I think landing the boosters is harder, and certainly was more of a first-time thing when SpaceX did it. I was bummed that the cameras cut out for the booster landing on this mission.

Yeah same with me...first booster landed was significant. I was hoping to see it this time as I was watching it with my family and they never saw it before...and it&#x27;s too bad both live feeds (on the rocket, and boat) cut out...and the next shot the rocket magically is there.

The double-booster landing and Tesla launch was more impressive, even if the third core went boom. Once you can safely launch over and over, replacing your payload with a human terrarium is neat but very much an already-been-done thing. Not like they were flying it—I imagine the only thing they had control over was a manual “uh oh” lever. Landing boosters, on the other hand, is some crazy Ray Bradbury-looking shit, and seeing two touch down in sync on land was nuts.

I made my wife and kids sit and watch it with me.Oddly enough, I think the first time they landed the rocket booster felt more significant to me.SpaceX launches have made space flight ordinary in a way that is pretty remarkable.

I think this is a change of the line between respect and approachability. By personalising the astronauts we make it easier for someone to aspire to be like these other, fellow human beings.From what I&#x27;ve read and watched of the modern-era astronauts they are very keen to be inspirational to their successors and seem to have a more personable demeanour. I think this is a positive change and not so much a disrespect.What really grinds my gears is science fiction that puts a group of people onboard some long space-faring mission where nobody is at all respectable, professional or suitable. I can believe warp drive, green aliens and Dyson spheres but not psychopaths and 18-year old children being put out to space to work. I have near-yelled at my screen more than once saying &quot;You don&#x27;t deserve to be there, you are a discredit!&quot; :-)

I have you know Bob and Doug are important people up here in Canada, they showed us how to get a case of beer for free.

Which part of it was historic? The part that we&#x27;d already done before, or all of the other parts that we&#x27;d already done before?I guess if you consider funding coming from a source other than the government historic, then the launch was borderline mind boggling.Agreed about &quot;Bob and Doug&quot;. But then again the bravery, training, and talent of the astronauts weren&#x27;t the focus of this launch. This was all about Elon and SpaceX.

I pulled over on the side of the street to watch this with my kiddo on my phone. It was a historic moment that I didn&#x27;t want to miss.I really wish that we didn&#x27;t have to make EVERY experience ultra casual these days though...it was disorienting to keep hearing the astronauts referred to as &quot;Bob and Doug&quot;. These are veteran Air Force and Marine pilots. They deserve their honorifics being honored if anyone does.

I was in a cab and made my wife watch the livestream on my phone. I&#x27;m not even into spaceflight; I just can&#x27;t help but watch and marvel at the fact that we can put a person into space on a rocket... and then land the rocket. It&#x27;s insane. And if they didn&#x27;t do it over and over again with eyewitnesses I would refuse to believe it.

I&#x27;m surprised how I almost ended up tearing up and was close to crying while watching this.Saying this as someone who is not a huge NASA or space enthusiast.I did study physics, and I&#x27;m more into science than the average person though.

SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit