SpaceX Dragon Interior 2

On 23 February 2009, SpaceX announced that its chosen phenolic-impregnated carbon ablator heat shield material, PICA-X, had passed heat stress tests in preparation for Dragon’s maiden launch. The primary proximity-operations sensor for the Dragon spacecraft, the DragonEye, was tested in early 2009 during the STS-127 mission, when it was mounted near the docking port of the Space Shuttle Endeavour and used while the Shuttle approached the International Space Station. The DragonEye’s lidar and thermography (thermal imaging) abilities were both tested successfully. The COTS UHF Communication Unit (CUCU) and Crew Command Panel (CCP) were delivered to the ISS during the late 2009 STS-129 mission. The CUCU allows the ISS to communicate with Dragon and the CCP allows ISS crew members to issue basic commands to Dragon. In summer 2009, SpaceX hired former NASA astronaut Ken Bowersox as vice president of their new Astronaut Safety and Mission Assurance Department, in preparation for crews using the spacecraft.


Titan is certainly an exotic, fascinating, frigid oddball, that bears an eerie resemblance to the primordial Earth before life emerged and evolved on our planet (prebiotic). In fact, Titan is the only moon in our entire Solar System with a substantial atmosphere. It is also the only known world--other than Earth--where stable bodies of surface liquid exist. Why hide these accomplishments? It has been difficult to argue for a conspiracy because no theory has offered a sufficiently convincing motive. An idea called "the frontier theory of history" provides two. Dr. Soderblom calculated the gravity signatures both in and around 1,200 craters that had been excavated by impacting objects on the lunar far side. He then went on to compare the gravity within each crater with the gravity of the surrounding terrain. Dr. Soderblom did this in order to determine whether an impact increased or decreased the local porosity.