SpaceX's private Inspiration4 mission splashes down safely in Atlantic Ocean
Source: CNBC
SpaceX safely returned its Crew Dragon spacecraft from orbit on Saturday, with the capsule carrying the four members of the Inspiration4 mission back to Earth after three days in space. Crew Dragon capsule Resilience splashed down off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida in the Atlantic Ocean. Elon Musk tweeted his congratulations to the crew shortly after splashdown.
The historic private mission — which includes commander Jared Isaacman, pilot Sian Proctor, medical officer Hayley Arceneaux and mission specialist Chris Sembroski — orbited the Earth at an altitude as high as 590 kilometers, which is above the International Space Station and the furthest humans have traveled above the surface in years. A free-flying spaceflight, the capsule did not dock with the ISS but instead circled the Earth independently at a rate of 15 orbits per day.
Inspiration4 shared photos from the crew’s time in orbit, giving a look at the expansive views from the spacecraft’s “cupola” window.This is the third time SpaceX has returned astronauts from space, and the second time for this capsule – which previously flew the Crew-1 mission for NASA on a trip that returned in May. Both prior SpaceX astronaut missions splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, making this the first that returned in the Atlantic Ocean.
The mission also comes with multiple other milestones for Musk’s company, including: The first private SpaceX spaceflight, the first entirely nonprofessional crew to become astronauts, the first Black female spacecraft pilot, the youngest American astronaut to date, and the first person to fly in space with a prosthesis.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/18/watch-spacex-livestream-inspiration4-splashdown-crew-dragon-returns.html
Link to tweet
TEXT
@SpaceX
Splashdown! Welcome back to planet Earth, @Inspiration4x!
7:08 PM · Sep 18, 2021
Now they are rigging it up to lift it out of the water and onto the recovery ship.
ETA - now on the ship.
= new reply since forum marked as read
So you prefer that the U.S. go back to only using Russian Soyuz vehicles to take our astronauts up to the ISS instead of the American SpaceX, which is who has started doing them for us now?
RAH RAH RUSSIA!!!111!!!!!! 
M'kay. 
The "millionaires and billionaires" sloganeering is just juvenile.
I don't like the 1% at ALL. But this is cutting edge technology that can potentially one day save all of us.
No issues with SpaceX or Musk for this.
(at one time, the most "famous" of them all 
)
https://www.ranker.com/list/hughes-aircraft-aircraft-types/reference
https://www.rfcafe.com/references/electronics-mag/hughes-aircraft-company-electronics-mag-oct-18-1965.htm
HUGHES AIRCRAFT - https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hughes_Aircraft_Company
Why are people so blind to the fact that NASA CONTRACTED OUT ALL OF ITS SPACE PROGRAM throughout its entire existence? 
The main difference between "then" and "now" is that back then (before 2011), when NASA did their contracts and used "taxpayer dollars" to pay for it, the government "owned" the end product (the "tech" - hardware, software modules, etc) so that NASA could "slap its name on the side of the vehicle" per the contract stipulation. The actual "non-private industry government employees were essentially SMEs (subject matter experts), researchers, and techies, with many of them becoming Project Managers who helped to define the project goals, do some design, and be able to "define the work product" so that the actual work could be contracted to private entities to build and maintain.
Government employees worked alongside their contractors as part of teams to get the job done.
"Now", it's the same taxpayer dollars used for NASA contracts where the government "defines" the goals and helps with the design elements, but are allowing private industry to "own" their product (probably with some exceptions where the government defines which hardware/software modules are or should be "government-owned" systems), so a contractor (private entity) like SpaceX, can slap THEIR name on the side of the vehicle.
I hate to say but the difference is essentially a "cosmetic" change, outside of the fact that the federal government is not supposed to be a "for-profit" entity where private industry (at least in this field) generally is.
For example, some of the big contractors were -
BOEING - https://www.boeing.com/space/
GRUMMAN (now Northrop-Grumman) - https://www.northropgrumman.com/space/space-legacy/
MCDONNELL-DOUGLAS (eventually gobbled up by Boeing) - https://old.texasarchive.org/a_journey_to_the_moon/mcdonnell_douglas/
GENERAL ELECTRIC - https://www.ge.com/news/reports/the-right-stuff-ge-tech-has-been-at-the-launch
LOCKHEED MARTIN - https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/history/space-race.html
NORTH AMERICAN/ROCKWELL - https://old.texasarchive.org/a_journey_to_the_moon/north_american_rockwell/
ROCKETDYNE - https://www.rocket.com/who-we-are/history
See this too - https://history.nasa.gov/MHR-5/app_c.htm
For example, the contractors involved with the Saturn rockets (which are still used today) -
This may be instructive - https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4102/contents.htm
And note this from the above link -
The NASA Acquisition Process: Contracting for Research and Development
A SUMMARY OF NASA CONTRACTING PHILOSOPHY
[65] From its establishment to the present, NASA has contracted with the private sector for most of the products and services it uses.
https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4102/ch4.htm
There is this disingenuous fantasy going around that NASA was peopled with nothing but a bunch of GS-7 and GS-9 Civil Service "grunts" running around designing and constructing space craft and there was no "private industry" involved.
And I say this as a now-retired, 30+ year federal employee who worked with "contractors" at my own worksite, at various points throughout my federal career.
The government came up with the concepts and goals, set expectations for the work product, and monitored the output.
But the entire production process of NASA wasn't done by "Civil Service employees" as what seems to be the fantasy narrative being insisted upon here.
And even if we brought the shuttle program back (and I prefer that tech rather than doing retro-style "splash downs" in the ocean - although I understand there were many technical and energy consumption issues with the shuttles), it would be the same thing - contracting out.
Before SpaceX (which is an American company) started doing the recent crew missions to the ISS, we were paying fucking Russia to take our astronauts (and supplies) up there and bring them back. As the rancor between the U.S. and Russia has ramped up, I sure as hell wouldn't want something as sensitive as getting crew up and back to the ISS, put into jeopardy. In the recent past, post-USSR, a lot of the back and forth rhetoric between the U.S. and Russia was generally just rhetoric. But now it has taken on a more ominous tone that threatens even "international scientific agreements", which tried to stay away from "politics".
Converting the U.S. to a "Marxist-style" system is just silly because pure human nature and behavior will never allow it to thrive in any "pure" form. We can't even get people to wear a fucking mask.
And if you go one step further to "Communism" where the "people own the means of production", you still have the danger of despot leaders throwing monkey wrenches into the process.
and you saw my post about that contracting - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2802123
The contracts help to broaden the scope of talent to get a job done. And those mentioned were just the "Prime" contractors. All of them had subcontractors who could work smaller parts of a contract, including designing, sourcing, or manufacturing special or proprietary parts, as well as being able to provide temp SME services.
A most recent example is a contractor who worked with NASA and JPL folks on this adorable little guy -
AeroVironment - https://www.avinc.com/about/mars-helicopter
I had to bust out the earbuds to hear the audio of Ingenuity's flight from the clip above because I have ambient noise from an air purifier nearby and couldn't make it out, even with the sound all the way up.
That little helicopter is just damn cool and doing that on another planet! I saw mention that the Ingenuity project and mission has been extended indefinitely as of September 5, 2021.
WOW!
That is all.
