Business, Space

Enter The Dragon

48 Comments

This is one my pedantic pet peeves. The vehicle is has never entered before, so it’s not true that this is a “re” entry. If SpaceX uses it for another mission (unlikely — I’ll bet it goes to the Smithsonian), then it would be a reentry.

Anyway, either way, it should be down within the hour, and if it is, that will be pretty much a perfect flight (with the exception of the LIDAR issue with Kibo during final approach).

[9:09 PDT update]

Dragon has landed, according to SpaceX. Well, splashed down, anyway. Not sure that “landed” is the right term here.

[Update after reading email]

I only glanced at the subject. In the body of the email, it says “Dragon has (splash) landed.”

48 thoughts on “Enter The Dragon”

  1. Incorrect pedantry. A person who has lived their entire life in the US, leaves, and then returns is rightly said to have re-entered the US However, feel free to ding me for the split infinitive.

  2. Dragon is in the water. Boats are on the way for recovery. Apparently it’s pretty much on target.

  3. Congratulations, SpaceX!

    I remember “re-entry” from my childhood, so that’s what I continue to use.

  5. According to an astronaut colleague of mine, the first thing they teach a new astronaut is that it’s “entry,” not “re-entry.”

        1. Someday, someone will do a skip reentry again (the Zonds did it), and then by golly, everyone will agree that it is a reentry.

        2. I HAVE IT!

          The first atmospheric entry was when they pulled the Dragon out of the vacuum chamber leak and pressure test.

          Whew.

  7. The prefix “re” means “back” in addition to “again.” So a vehicle returning to Earth would be performing a “re-entry” while a vehicle originating from Earth would be performing an “entry” at Mars.

    A subtle distinction, but such is pedantic grammar.

  8. I’m with Mr.s Medcalf and Kent; to “re-enter” means to “come back to” as much as to “enter a second or greater time”.

  9. +1 vote to “Re-entered” (or “Reentered”). From the Latin prefix, “back”. As in, “return”, “repel”, or “revert”.

  10. The English language has lots for silly terminology. Reentry is just one example. Unless you want to sound even *MORE* cranky, you might want to leave the definition of terms to common usage.

    Also, speaking of being cranky, (me in this case) might it be a bit over the top to suggest that we “put the capsule in the Smithsonian”? I know that Dragon is a big deal to SpaceX and to the alt X space types, but it isn’t groundbreaking in a technological sense. Certainly in the business sense, and perhaps the manufacturing sense. Getting NASA to purchase reasonably close to “off the shelf” is the big achievement here.

    Prior Capsules:
    * Mercury
    * Gemini
    * Apollo
    * Vostok, Voskhod, Soyuz
    * Chinese Shenzhou soyuz derivative
    * as well as other unmanned capsules

    Ships that have docked with IIS:
    * Shuttle
    * Soyuz
    * Progress
    * ATV
    * H-II

    I’m very glad Elon is creating a stable and useful business and technological base from which he can do groundbreaking spaceflights. However this should be in a museum with business artifacts (like: first apple PC, first consumer cell phone, first TV, etc).

    1. It is the first capsule with its capabilities to be developed with mostly private funding and to be reusable, and it is the first capsule capable of returning significant amounts of payload from space. And being of business significance is a criterion for the Smithsonian. The DC-3 wasn’t the first commercial air transport, but it’s in the Air and Space Museum for some reason.

    3. Isn’t SpaceShipOne in there? It didn’t achieve much else than what the X-15 did either by your standards.

      1. Yes, SpaceShipOne is in the Smithsonian Air & Space museum. It’s hanging in the entryway near the Spirit of St. Louis, the Wright Flyer (at least it was there before) and Glamorous Glennis (X-1). The Apollo 11 CM is nearby, too. That’s a place of special honor.

  11. But on topic … kudos to the SpaceX team! Really impressive how well these missions have gone. Huge confidence boosters.

    I bet Bigelow is also happy with these developments. It looks like he finally has a strong candidate for getting folks to and from his space stations. We should expect to see constructions on those begin soon (if they haven’t already).

  12. I’m more irritated about “refried beans”, a translation from Spanish “refritos” were “re-” is added as a colloquial intensifier to mean “very fried” or “really fried”, not “twice fried” or “fried again”.

    1. We could make matters worse if we accept the word “reentry,” and then come up with an emphatic form of the word in the same way some do with “regardless.” We could wind up with “irrentry.”

      2. It might be interesting to trace back and figure out when we starting using the term “reentry”. It seems quite natural when discussing the high altitude X-15 flights or ballistic missiles, less so when discussing objects that have been orbiting for a while.

        1. This disctionary website shows the term dates to the 15th Century.

          http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reentry

          And the term does mean returning to where one has been before. So I see nothing wrong with using it for a spacecraft launched Earth from returning returning to it. Now if that spacecraft had been built on Mars or the Moon it would be a different matter 🙂

        2. Well, we already had a term for lowering a boat or ship into a fluid, so I suggest that instead of “re-entry” we use the long accepted and much more accurate nautical term “launch.” That will greatly simplify things. 🙂

          1. You are the devil George. You get double points for that one. Also, I think we’ve (including me but since others did such a good job I didn’t pile on) beat up our host enough on this one. Reentry has two meanings and Rand focused on the one.

            Language is not a static thing. Which is why words change meaning over the centuries. Rand is just a Renascence man!

          2. I think it is safe to say that Rand was only born once, so he is just a Naissance man, or, in other words, a birther.

  13. OK, now its time to celebrate!

    Elon needed a home run on this flight and he got one. Congratulations to everyone at SpaceX for a textbook perfect mission!

    1. The X-37 is fine but to be honest I expected more. The TPS does not seem to be an advancement and that is the major issue in a system like this.

  16. Congrats to Musk and SpaceX! It took a lot of guts for him to enter the space launch business, and we (anyone interested in space) are fortunate that he did.

    1. Amen to that. This flight will be remembered as a landmark in space history. It was more difficult than some commenters here appreciate, and could have gone south at any moment (there was real-time problem solving behind the scenes). To have accomplished the entire mission, on the budget and schedule they had, is nothing short of breathtaking. It’s indicative of the fact that Elon is a master of picking a winning team, and keeping them motivated and focused to the end. It’s SpaceX’s triumph, but Elon Musk’s as well.

  17. If I’m inside my house and walk out the front door, I am re-entering my house. If I go next door and walk in on my neighbor, I am entering his house.

    So I agree with the others who make the distinction between Earth and other planets (with atmospheres).

    And now let’s move on to: On orbit!

    George Carlin, when told to get on the plane: “F*** you, I’m gettin’ IN!

    1. Yes, I also wonder when “on orbit” got started. It was always “in orbit” when I was a young’un.

      1. It must have been started by New Yorkers. Everybody else in the country except them stands “in line”.

        1. For that matter, when did kids start going “to Prom” instead of “to the Prom”?
          Do they go “to store” and “to dentist” as well?

  18. If I’m inside my house and walk out the front door, and then COME BACK IN…

    Where’s the edit button? 🙂

  19. Congratulations SpaceX and Elon. I must confess to being more than a little envious of these working there. “fashioning cold refin-ed steel into the dreams of spcaeflight” as the song goes from “Minus Ten and Counting”.

  21. And here I thought it mean’t that the craft started in earth’s atmosphere and then left Earth’s atmosphere to enter outer space, then re entered earth’s atmosphere.

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