SpaceX stands to be the first private company in history to launch humans past the atmosphere as early as April 2019. The company’s Crew Dragon capsule has been selected to begin conducting uncrewed testing for NASA’s reborn space shuttle program no earlier than November 2018, and SpaceX is gearing up by retrofitting the spacecraft’s recovery ship.
The GO Searcher will be solely responsible for fishing the Crew Dragon and the astronauts that will one day be aboard out of the ocean once the capsule re-enters the atmosphere. To prepare for this crucial step, Elon Musk’s aerospace company has begun modifying it with three big updates to streamline the recovery process.
The ship has already been performing mock recovery trials for the past year, preparing for an eventual dress rehearsal. These additions should help the Crew Dragon pass the tests that are required for it to be adopted by NASA’s space program.
1. Crewed Dragon Upgrades: Helicopter Pad
A helipad is currently under construction in the central area of the vessel. This will allow for the quick and easy transport of astronauts from the capsule to Cape Canaveral. It will also serve to get engineers, doctors, and other personnel necessary for recovery efforts aboard the ship.
GO Searcher will be many kilometers off of the coast of Florida during its eventual recovery missions, so making it accessible by air is a critical step in speeding up the process.
2. Crewed Dragon Upgrades: Potential Radar Dome
A big white dome has been added to the vessel, which will likely function as means to facilities communications with Crew Dragon or radar detection.
.@SpaceX's East Coast #Dragon space capsule recovery vessel, GO Searcher, has finally reemerged after being off-grid past 10-days. Appears to be sporting new hardware. #SpaceXArmada #CrewedDragon: St John's Ship Yard, Palatka FL
This piece of equipment was attached toward the front end of the ship during the course of few weeks it was in maintenance.
3. Crewed Dragon Upgrades: Hydraulic Lift
Finally, the GO Searcher will be receiving a hydraulic arm designed to lift the Crew Dragon out of the water and into the ship to be transported back to shore. This was placed at the rear of the vessel, where the capsule will come to rest in a flat area.
All three of these upgrades have the potential to improve the prep time for recovery missions as well as assist during the operations itself. We’ll have to wait and see how they perform on the day of the Crew Dragon’s first uncrewed test run.
Elon Musk has a tough schedule. In an explosive interview published Thursday night, the Tesla CEO defended sometimes erratic behavior by revealing details about his 120 work weeks, factory all nighters on his birthday, and a sleep schedule that’s all but impossible to maintain without Ambien.
“It is often a choice of no sleep or Ambien,” Musk told the New York Times. Two people familiar with the board told the publication that some members are concerned about his use of the drug, with some noting that instead of going to sleep Musk stays up and posts on Twitter.
Tesla has faced intense pressure over the past year, after the $35,000 Model 3 entered production in July 2017. The relatively lower price, coupled with a backlog of nearly 500,000 orders, necessitated a production expansion from around 2,000 cars per week total to an end of June rate of 7,000. Tesla is also planning to boost production of its solar roof, and launch three new models of vehicle over the next two years.
Ambien, a brand name for zolpidem, works similar to benzodiazepines like Valium and Xanax in that it slows down brain activity. This is meant to induce sleep, but it can also lead to some unexpected behaviors while awake.
Musk has made some bizarre Twitter posts during Tesla’s high-pressure expansion, but Musk’s interview did not specify any tweets that were written under the influence of the drug. In March, he announced an “intergalactic media empire” called “Thud,” in April he claimed he had “prehensile eyebrows,” and in May he posted an image of a “woke frisbee.” Other posts have been less innocuous: Musk was forced to apologize after describing a Thai cave rescue hero as “pedo guy.”
It’s also not the first time Musk has mentioned Ambien use.
One post that Musk is serious about, though, is his plan to take Tesla private with a buyout offer of $420 per share. The offer was 20 percent higher than the share price on the day of the announcement, but the number is common in marijuana culture, which some interpreted as meaning that Musk was not serious about the offer. Tesla has shared more details about the plan since the post, and in the Thursday interview he rebuffed suggestions that there was any weed involved in the post.
“It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419,” Musk said. “But I was not on weed, to be clear. Weed is not helpful for productivity. There’s a reason for the word ‘stoned.’ You just sit there like a stone on weed.”
end quote from:
No comments:
Post a Comment