Elon Musk Launched America!

Elon Musk Launched America!

Elon Musk's audacious ambition of making humans an interplanetary species has successfully begun with his space company SpaceX's mission of carrying astronauts of NASA (National Aeronautics Space Administration) to it's orbiting laboratory ISS (International Space Station) on 31st May, 2020.

NASA decided to commercialize planet Earth's low orbit and open it up for private space companies to explore, as it has plans of going beyond - Moon, Mars missions and beyond. SpaceX has been carrying cargo to and from the ISS for 8 years now. One of the main reasons why SpaceX was awarded with this project was it's demonstration of low cost spaceflight.



Falcon 9 rocket:

SpaceX's Falcon 9 is a reusable booster or a rocket. Typically, rockets are meant to carry it's payload - satellite or spacecraft carrying cargo or humans (astronauts, cosmonauts) to the earth's low orbit or International Space Station. Rockets were also used to launch Space Shuttle into orbit. Once a rocket successfully inserts a payload into a predetermined orbit, it's job is over and falls back into earth's ocean as per the precalculated trajectory and location on earth. It didn't have the benefit of reusability, which implied that for every mission an exclusive rocket needed to be built. What it meant was humngous recurring cost. Falcon 9 was a disruptive innovation in the history of spaceflight as not only did it introduce the idea of reusability but scale.

Falcon 9 has a thruster to turn it upside down on reaching the insertion orbit or after successfully deploying the payload in the insertion orbit.  And it's comes down to the earth precisely in a predetermined trajectory and lands on a specific landing pad like a helicopter landing on its pad. Did you ever imagine this happening with a rocket? Elon Musk and SpaceX did make it happen, which changed the course of human space exploration. It's never heard or never done before.

Earlier, SpaceX carried out a Demo1 mission of Crew Dragon spacecraft, which supplied cargo to the International Space Station. Since it was a successful mission and believing in the capabilities of SpaceX, NASA decided to carry out the second demonstration with humans. Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley were chosen for this mission. As part of NASA's commercial crew program, SpaceX earned the contract of carrying out an end to end human demonstration mission including launching, in-orbit, docking and landing operations.

Crew Dragon Spacecraft:

The year 2012, witnessed the inception of Crew Dragon Spacecraft to the International Space Station as a cargo carrying missions. NASA discontinued it's space shuttle program in 2011, primarily because of budget constraints. Space shuttle program was an expensive option. Subsequently, astronauts were sent to space and ISS predominantly from the Russian soil in the Russian made spacecraft "Soyuz", which was a tested, tried and proven spacecraft.

Unlike the space shuttle or the Soyuz, which had analogue buttons, dials and switches featured in the cockpit, Crew Dragon is a 21st century Spaceship, completely automated with computerized controlled touch display.
"Together, the capsule and trunk stand around 8.1m (26.7ft) tall, with a diameter of 4m (13ft). The Crew Dragon is equipped with 16 Draco thrusters that are used to manoeuvre the vehicle in orbit. Each Draco is capable of producing 90 pounds of force in the vacuum of space."

For the first time entry in the history of human space exploration an entry into planet Earth's low orbit was made from a commercially made spacecraft, SpaceX's Crew Dragon. Imagine, how proud and humbled Elon Musk had been on achieving this unprecedented task of putting humans in space by a private company. Moreover, this test flight is seminal because it will pave way for his Mars missions and beyond. Thus, making humans an interplanetary species. Astronausts named their spacecraft "Endeavor", in the tradition of US spacefarers.

SpaceX engineer John Federspiel, explains: "When we wanted to take Dragon and make it human-rated, I think we took a different approach to spaceship design than has previously been done, because we wanted this to feel like a 21st Century spaceship. Probably one of the biggest features of Dragon are the touchscreens on the inside. We designed them not just to be very functional, but with a user experience in mind."

Crew Dragon is not like a winged space shuttle but a capsule, like Soyuz. However, not only is it sophisticated in the lines of the 21st century spaceship but enduring, built to last in the space for 210 days.

The Launch Escape System (LES) comprises of in house designed SuperDraco engines capable of propelling the capsule (spacecraft) away from the rocket in the event of failure, malfunction or explosion of the rocket. Historically, humans died in such instances.  Crew Dragon is a "two-fault tolerant", spacecraft. What it essentially means is that in the event of any two systems not working. Let's say a flight computer and a thruster, it's system can still manoeuvre the crew and bring them home safely.

Elon Musk is a pessimist. He said, it is inevitable that planet earth will be destroyed by a natural or a man made disaster. It is imperative that another habitable planet is found soon. Thereby making humans become an interplanetary species. Now, Elon Musk has launched America, and he is very likely to launch or make humanity an interplanetary species.

Astronauts are now part of the expedition 63 crew of ISS.

A space mission becomes a complete success, when the astronauts come back home safely. Today, 3rd August 2020, it has happened in the American soil. An indigenously built American spacecraft has taken the Americans into space and brought them back to Planet Earth. Elon Musk has not only launched America, but landed America. Eccentric Elon Musk, take humans to Mars now and make them an interplanetary species. 

Following the demonstration of SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship, today 15th November 2020, SpaceX officially launched the "Astronauts Taxi Service".

"The four individuals making their way up to the ISS are the Americans Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and the highly experienced Japanese space agency (Jaxa) astronaut Soichi Noguchi.", says BBC News website. 

They are on their way to ISS for docking. 

More to be followed as the events progress. 

28 September, 2017

Maverick Elon Musk unveiled his company SpaceX's plans for making humans an interplanetary species, colonization of Mars and other planets of the Solar System by an aspirational timeline of 2022. Most importantly, travelling to any destination on Earth under less than 30 minutes at the International Astronomical Congress (IAC) today, 29th September, 2017.

The audacious spaceship is named 'BFR', which would be making the odyssey into the solar system and colonizing planets and moons. Within the Earth, it could travel at 27,000 miles per hour, technically making any destination under the reach of less than 30 minutes.

Text by #BT, which is an interpretation of Elon Musk's presentation at IAC on 29th September, 2017.

#ElonMusk #SpaceX #InternationalAstronomicalCongress #BFR

Video credit: SpaceX

Human space exploration will no longer be limited to astronauts or cosmonauts but civlians*. Eccentric Elon Musk has invariably broken the fourth wall, wherever he ventured into. An all civilian spacecraft "Crew Dragon" will be lifted off by a reusable "Falcon 9" rocket into the Earth's orbit on 15th September 2021. The crew will be orbiting earth at the speed of 17,500 miles per hour or 8 kilometers per second and will see the sunrise and sunset every 90 minutes about 16 times a day. The farthest they will be above Earth is at an apogee of about 590 kilometers. The mission is named "Inspiration 4"

*Only the select few are categorized as civilians. Space companies don't make the criteria public for reasons only known to them.

The First Civilian Expedition To Space:

While I hate taking or posing for a so-called "Selfie" as it exhibits dubious features, not this one as it is no ordinary selfie, but a group of 4 civilians took it 575 kilometers above Planet Earth. 

Human space exploration is no longer limited to astronauts or cosmonauts but civlians*. Eccentric Elon Musk has invariably broken the fourth wall, wherever he ventured into. An all civilian spacecraft "CrewDragon" was lifted off by a reusable "Falcon9" rocket into the Earth's orbit on 15th September 2021. The crew orbited earth at the speed of 17,500 miles per hour or 8 kilometers per second and saw the sunrise and sunset every 90 minutes about 16 times a day. The farthest they went above Earth was at an apogee of about 575 kilometers. The mission was named "Inspiration 4". And, they have successfully landed on Earth after spending three days in space. 

*Only the select few are categorized as civilians. Space companies don't make the criteria public for reasons only known to them

I would say Elon Musk is named person of the year 2021 because, he is not only endeavouring to make humans an interplanetary species, but ensuring the continued existence of humans as long as they can hold on to this one strange rock planet Earth, which incidentally hosts organic life. 

While Forbes has assessed eccentric Elon Musk as the world's richest person, Musk denies reasoning that none of his wealth is used for personal consumption. Moreover, he doesn't even own a home yet, but an aircraft, otherwise he would spend time on travelling. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/04/05/the-worlds-richest-person-2022/?sh=559a774b370f

Authored by Balaji Thangapandian aka #BT - a spacefarer, who is also curious about film-making, connectivity technologies and military history.
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Images credit: NASA/SpaceX, BBC