So, thoughts?
1) My current understanding is that spacex will maintain ownership of the CRS capsules after they return to EarthSo, thoughts?
Does a Dragon, without modification, have sufficient delta-v for the course-correction burns that will be required? Nobody has flown a free-return trajectory around Mars before, I'm not sure what the delta-v looks like.
There is little added science to be had by a flyby
4 main things get verified. Not sure the expense justifies it but:1) heatshield test.2) communications/control test.3) proves (or disproves) enough fuel for course corrections.4) extended test of all dragon sub-systems in deep space.
Quote from: Airlock on 05/27/2012 04:42 pmSo, thoughts?No need for another thread like this. And no, it isn't a good idea. There is little added science to be had by a flyby
Basically, the questions to answer would be:1. Can Dragon operate in deep space (thermal, radiation and other issues)?2. Can SpaceX maintain communications at long ranges (such as building a high-gain tracking antenna)?3. How long with the Dragon's electronics, thrusters and sensors remain reliable in the deep space environment?
It is completely unnecessary to do a Mars flyby to test them.
It's good to see how SpaceX is now given such credit that they don't NEED to do a Mars fly-around just to prove themselves.I think the original poster is arguing that they'd WANT to do it. Sure, you can test the individual pieces w/o going to Mars, but as long as you've got a technology demonstration mission for all those pieces, the benefit of doing it "for real" outweighs the extra cost. It's not like doing it near Earth is going to be cheap.
Plus, if they pull off such a stunt, the marketing writes itself.
I guess dragon really is the official successor to the space shuttle now. You used to get all kinds of threads about flying the space shuttle to the moon/mars/alpha centauri. Now you get the same with dragon.
Landing on Mars is a far superior bang per buck.