For those of you that keep up with the news, you might be wondering what’s so special about this launch. The first thing, of course, is that this is our nation’s commercial space program in action. Its new, its shiny, and it looks like its starting to go somewhere.
The second thing, of course, is the new “landing legs” aboard the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. Even though they won’t get used on this trip, they will get some basic testing (ie are they going to fall off/spin the rocket horribly out of control?) on the way up, but we’ll still be seeing a water landing for the rocket. What’s important is that it’s just another step toward a fully reusable vehicle, and a big step toward reducing the cost of transporting “goods” to space. To be able to remove the retrieval costs and return the rocket parts “back to base” will be a significant jump ahead in our ability to take things to space.
On board, the Dragon itself were some other interesting steps. KickSat is one of those. If you follow Kickstarter at all you may have seen this company. Their idea is to put hundreds of “sprite” micro satellites into space. These little tiny cracker sized satellites will stay in space for a short time, and then burn up on reentry. They are the first step toward “personally controlled” satellites and continue to encourage individual involvement and innovation as we look more toward space in the future.
On top of this, Dragon is delivering, of all things: lettuce. That’s right, it will be delivering a special growing system to grow lettuce about the International Space Station. These little “pillow” growing pods will grow lettuce plants in space, and then be brought back down to earth for study, regarding nutrients, and changes because of the growth environment. Another step toward permanent colonization somewhere off the planet.
The best part about all this? Dragon is robotically driven. Having no pilot reduces the risks and ultimately presents an opportunity for future automation. Someday, unmanned flights may be able to make a delivery trip without the intervention of a person. Load them up automatically, return them home automatically.
So, if you had the opportunity to watch it live, then even though you might not have realized it, you were watching an important step in history. I’m personally glad I got to witness it.
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