Speculation into what future versions of Dragon will involve

[Jim]

I would be surprised if the superdracos were not equally shielded from the rest of the craft to prevent something like that.

Not needed, no rotating machinery

[Elmar Moelzer]

Not needed, no rotating machinery

Makes sense. Still only makes my original point stronger (exploding engine wont damage spacecraft).

[notsorandom]

With talk of the Dragon 2 being radically different from Dragon 1, a staged combustion Raptor engine, and a reusable rocket this is where I think SpaceX is going. Dragon 2 may have wings, Elon has talked about airliner like operations. Landing on a runway provides the closet recovery method to that. I think that the Raptor would likely be on that spacecraft. It would make sense to bring it back on the spacecraft rather then have it separate and come back independently. The tanks are relativity cheap in comparison so they could just be jettisoned after the assent. In fact if they switch from methane to hydrogen as the fuel they can make it all the way to orbit from the ground using parallel staging. The boosters would not even have to have a great isp, just a good deal of thrust for the first minute or so of launch.

[joek]

With talk of the Dragon 2 being radically different from Dragon 1 ...

If by Dragon 2 you mean Dragon crew--which by all indications (including statements by Musk on several occassions) is what is being proposed for CTS--it will not be radically different than Dragon 1 (cargo).

Read the CCiCap selection statement and the SpaceX proposal.  A key theme is leveraging commonalities with, and incremental upgrades to, the existing cargo systems: Dragon, Falcon, and infrastructure.

[Lars_J]

With talk of the Dragon 2 being radically different from Dragon 1, a staged combustion Raptor engine, and a reusable rocket this is where I think SpaceX is going. Dragon 2 may have wings, Elon has talked about airliner like operations.

Not. A. Chance.

[Norm38]

Not needed, no rotating machinery

Makes sense. Still only makes my original point stronger (exploding engine wont damage spacecraft).

Consider the entire system, I'm looking for single points of failure.  A failed SD thruster should be benign and covered by redundancy.  But if what's exploding is a ruptured hydrazine tank?  Nicked by a micrometeorite perhaps?  Does your statement still hold?

There are a whole bunch of ways a spacecraft can fail, and they can't all be covered by abort modes.  A true TSTO architecture shouldn't be ruled out just because the crew cabin can't separte, if overall reliability can be increased.  If overall reliability is judged to go down, then more work is needed.

It's like, if someone invented a true SSTO that really worked, would people demand it be made a TSTO just to add abort modes?

[hrissan]

With talk of the Dragon 2 being radically different from Dragon 1, a staged combustion Raptor engine, and a reusable rocket this is where I think SpaceX is going. Dragon 2 may have wings, Elon has talked about airliner like operations.

Not. A. Chance.

But Elon said "reusable", and we all know the "reusable" is an airplane with the engines burning hydrogen, fuel tank which is jetissonned and pair of side boosters.

[notsorandom]

With talk of the Dragon 2 being radically different from Dragon 1, a staged combustion Raptor engine, and a reusable rocket this is where I think SpaceX is going. Dragon 2 may have wings, Elon has talked about airliner like operations.

Not. A. Chance.

But Elon said "reusable", and we all know the "reusable" is an airplane with the engines burning hydrogen, fuel tank which is jetissonned and pair of side boosters.

Glad someone got the joke

[gin455res]

How can a dragon integrate a Raptor, surely that is much too heavy and powerful?

[StephenB]

So what odds would people give that Musk is switching to a biconic design for Dragon 2?

[neilh]

Maybe capsule flaps?

http://cse.usu.edu/foraffiliates/2007/posters_07/BMA%20Industry%20Day%202007%20v7.pdf

[TaylorR137]

So what odds would people give that Musk is switching to a biconic design for Dragon 2?

My bet is on something like this for MCT, possibly for Dragon 2:

http://i.imgur.com/o4hLw.jpg

Concept art by Stanley Von Medvey.

[Port]

So what odds would people give that Musk is switching to a biconic design for Dragon 2?

My bet is on something like this for MCT, possibly for Dragon 2:

http://i.imgur.com/o4hLw.jpg

Concept art by Stanley Von Medvey.

Amazing concept! Guess the Solar Arrays are somewhat small though.. It seems to good looking to be a actual space-vehicle (as sad as this sounds ^^)
nevertheless, i would love if the "spacecraft" atop of the new mct-rocket would somehow look a little bit like that

[go4mars]

Maybe capsule flaps?

http://cse.usu.edu/foraffiliates/2007/posters_07/BMA%20Industry%20Day%202007%20v7.pdf

Yes! 

That's pretty much exactly the concept I meant when I mentioned flip-down control surfaces that double as legs (and other things).

[joek]

My bet is on something like this for MCT, possibly for Dragon 2:

Dragon v2 will (per Musk's statements on several occasions) be available in ~3yrs.  It won't look anything like what is depicted.

[robert_d]

It just dawned on me that the changes to dragon might be more radical than I first thought. They will not involve the integration of a raptor engine or second stage as some have proposed. But I believe Musk wants more volume to gain greater flexibility.  So I now propose that he will invert the current pressure vessel and build a t-space inspired corona style heatshield that launches as the nose of the dragon. The taper will get to an approx. 4 meter base, which will connect to a new, wider trunk that will house the solar arrays internally at launch.  The super dracos, legs and augmented environmental system would gain plenty of space,and the complete docking mechanism will extend to the back of the trunk. The new wider base will be enough to protect it during rentry.   May be total fantasy, but I should get points for thinking outside the box.

[joek]

So what odds would people give that Musk is switching to a biconic design for Dragon 2?

Zero.

[Dalhousie]

So what odds would people give that Musk is switching to a biconic design for Dragon 2?

Zero.

Why do you think that?

[zodiacchris]

So what odds would people give that Musk is switching to a biconic design for Dragon 2?

Zero.

Well, here is what elon actually said about the Dragon 2:

"and then there's the next generation of Dragon, the Dragon version 2, which actually does not look like that, but we'll be unveiling that fairly soon. I think that is pretty cool. Dragon version 1, we didn't really know what we were doing, most likely know more at this point. That's why Dragon version 1 looks fairly similar to things in the past, we thought, well, better not stray too far from things in the past, and hopefully it worked. Yeah, so the next version of Dragon will do that, but it looks a bit different, but it'll have legs that pop out and it has eight thrusters that are arranged in four pairs around the exterior. On the actual vehicle, the pairs are not at quite 90 degrees, partially because we wanted to shift the engines that are on the wind-ward side of the back shell, a little more towards the lee-ward side, so they're not quite 90 degrees apart, they're a little closer together on one side, and they're much bigger than what you see there."

So, to sum it up:
-Big SDs in pairs
-Long legs
And yes, that looks very different from the cargo version.

So, no biconic, or larger, or wing etc.

Exiting enough for me...

[joek]

So what odds would people give that Musk is switching to a biconic design for Dragon 2?

Zero.

Why do you think that?

Because "Dragon v2" is expected to be available in ~3yr based on multiple statements by Musk.  Because ~3yr is when Dragon crew needs to be available nased on the CCiCap award, and if SpaceX is to remain in the running for CTS (emphasis added)...

I find SpaceX's ability to leverage its existing Dragon/Falcon cargo system with incremental targeted design upgrades reduces the overall scope of the development effort going forward.  Furthermore, their ground systems and mission control capability will be demonstrated several times on cargo missions prior to making the step to crewed missions, which is an advantage.  SpaceX also maps a series of well defined technical milesontes to specific CCiCap goals and program risks to include a clear connection between risk reduction and milesonts.  Its CTS should provide a robust operational capability with failure tolerance and dissimilar redundancy.  I recognize that there is some schedule uncertainty on the proposed Dragon/Falcon upgrades, but have good confidence that SpaceX can successfully perform the proposed effort.  Leveraging CTS off of the current cargo system offers SpaceX a strong technical advantage.  However, there is a technical weakness identified by the PEP in this area.  The PEP was concerned about the lack of sufficient detail provided to show how SpaceX will mature the integrated CTS from the current cargo configuration to a human configuration.  I share that concern, but temper the concern with the advantages of having flown the basic cargo system.  Flight experience with the cargo version will show areas of the design that need additional work.  Flying a version of the design will provide additional insight above single tests of systems.  Flying the cargo version will lower the risk to the final CTS version, if the process for changes can be identified.

SpaceX has successfully demonstrated a complete integrated space transportation system. The Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 launch vehicle along with our ground and mission operations infrastructure form the basis of our proposed crew transportation system. The Dragon has flown to orbit on a Falcon 9 launch vehicle and safely returned to Earth on two successive missions.

In short, Dragon v2 == Dragon Crew == Dragon CTS == Dragon cargo with minimum changes.  That is the basis of SpaceX's CCiCap proposal; that is a key reason for NASA selecting SpaceX for a CCiCap award; and thus that is what SpaceX needs to deliver to meet their CCiCap commitment, minimize risk, and stay in the running for a CTS contract.

SpaceX is not going to increase risk and jeopordize their CCiCap/CTS commitments and position by haring off into some completely new Dragon configuration--nor would I expect NASA to fund or tolerate it.