The real Space Race going on now is who starts Commercial Crew launches first, SpaceX or Boeing. NASA didn't make it a fly-off, awarding a contract to both for the new generation Commercial Crew Capsules. Some news sites try to make the coming end of the Soyuz taxi service some apocalyptic end to space travel, moronic. The delays in Dragon V2 and CST-100 Starliner mean no manned launch until 2019 with the Roscosmos Soyuz contract ending in 2019. What the old weepy-woman Chicken Little Anti-NASA news sites don't realize is the last few Soyuz NASA seats can be long endurance stays for US astronauts.
SpaceX Falcon-9 and Dragon Cargo are performing nearly flawlessly, and Dragon Cargo is able to soft-land several tons of product back on Earth. Dragon V2 with a Falcon 9 launch system is possible right now, but all the qualification tests need to be passed. The long delay of the US not having its own manned launch system to LEO is coming to a close, just a year or so yet.
Submitted July 26, 2018 at 03:22PM by moon-worshiper https://ift.tt/2NMzpDL
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