Hawthorne, CA
Posted on 09/18/2021 7:55:33 AM PDT by American Number 181269513
The quartet of newly minted citizen astronauts comprising the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission were due to splash down in the Atlantic off Florida on Saturday, completing a three-day flight of the first all-civilian crew ever launched into Earth orbit.
To prepare for atmospheric re-entry and return to Earth, the SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle completed two rocket "burns" on Friday to lower its altitude and line up the capsule's trajectory with the targeted landing site.
The Dragon capsule, dubbed Resilience, is scheduled to parachute into the sea around 7 p.m. Eastern time, shortly before sunset, according to SpaceX, the private rocketry company founded by Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) electric automaker CEO Elon Musk.
SpaceX supplied the spacecraft, launched it from Florida and flew it from the company's suburban Los Angeles headquarters.
The Inspiration4 team blasted off on Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral atop one of SpaceX's two-stage reusable Falcon 9 rockets.
Within three hours the crew capsule had reached a cruising orbital altitude of just over 363 miles (585 km) - higher than the International Space Station or Hubble Space Telescope, and the farthest any human has flown from Earth since NASA's Apollo moon program ended in 1972.
It also marked the debut flight of Musk's new space tourism business and a leap ahead of competitors likewise offering rides on rocket ships to well-heeled customers willing to pay a small fortune to experience the exhilaration of spaceflight and earn amateur astronaut wings.
The Inspiration4 team was led by its wealthy benefactor, Jared Isaacman, chief executive of the e-commerce firm Shift4 Payments Inc (FOUR.N), who assumed the role of mission "commander."
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
This was a sex flight. Four people, civilians, in a small capsule for 3 days with a big, romantic view of Earth....I’m just saying...
Yeah. Nothing more romantic than getting it on with someone who has been peeing and pooping into his or her own pants for three days.
The Crewed Dragon actually does have a separate toilet they all use. It would be interesting to know the first time (if not this one) that humans joined the 250 mile club.
I'm having trouble with this sentence. Does "flew it from" need to be "flew it to"?
I believe they meant that the SpaceX mission control was in los Angeles.
No. it simply means that the ground control station was in suburban LA. If the "crew" of the capsule were the first batch of space tourists, they were certainly not competent to control the capsule themselves.
I’m thinking the control center is in LA
Resilience returned from orbit last May and was taken to SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, CA to install the cupola and then was flown back to FL for this launch. Bad wording by the writer.
Bezos and Branson done been punked!
I believe Hawthorne to be precise.
And I haven't even started drinking yet!
=;-)
Space Swingers
Think of the Space X capsule like a giant drone that’s being piloted from LA. Technology is great and everything, but I don’t care for this cavalier attitude towards space flight. The Mercury program was originally supposed to be a largely autopiloted endeavor, and the astronauts fought to be able to fly. Almost every mission subsequently had an issue that required the pilots to manually fly part of the mission.
There is interesting circumstantial evidence available to those who take time to search for it.
Not that there's anything wrong with that....
I believe that’s at or next to the old Northrop facility in Hawthorne I took some classes there
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