- Hi, it's me, Tim Dodd,
The Everyday Astronaut. We're at a really exciting time, where the number of crewed vehicles going to the International Space Station will go from just one to three. The Soyuz's eight year monopoly for getting humans up to the
International Space Station is finally coming to an end. So today we're gonna take a deep dive on the two new spaceships that
are going to be responsible for taking humans to and from the International Space
Station from the United States. So we're gonna compare the Boeing Starliner,
riding an Atlas V rocket, to SpaceX's Crew Dragon
on their Falcon 9 Rocket. And to see how we've progressed in the world of human spaceflight,
we're also gonna compare all of these systems alongside
Russia's Soyuz capsule and the United States'
retired Space Shuttle, in a side by side comparison. We'll take a look at the
designs, the rockets they ride, the dimensions, the cost,
the safety considerations, and any other unique feature
that each vehicle offers. Considering I've been
up close and personal with SpaceX's Crew Dragon
Capsule and Boeing's Starliner, I think I've got some pretty
good insight on these vehicles. Let's get started! - [Technician] Three, two, one. And liftoff! (upbeat rhythmic music) - [Neil] That's one small step for man. - [Technician] Let's clear
the traffic for the test one. (beeping) - The International Space Station is still one the greatest
feats of human engineering. I mean after all, it's
a football field-sized floating laboratory traveling
10 times faster than a bullet, circling the Earth every 90 minutes. It's taken 33 launches to put
all of its pieces into orbit and has been home to over 230 people from almost 20 countries. The ISS typically has
six astronauts onboard. Crew are sent up in groups of three and usually reside at the
station for six months. There is typically a three month overlap for existing crew and newly arriving crew. But since the Space Shuttle
program ended in 2011, there's only been a
single ride to the ISS, that's Russia's Soyuz vehicle. But we're coming up on
a really exciting time, as the United States prepares
to send U.S. astronauts to the International Space
Station from U.S. soil on two brand new spaceships! And what I think is most exciting, is NASA has hired private companies to do the development and the operations in a new program called the
Commercial Crew Program. The two companies that won the contracts are SpaceX and Boeing. I'm not really going to get into how the Commercial Crew
Program got started or has progressed in today's video, I mostly want to talk about the hardware, starting off with Boeing
and their Starliner. Boeing started designing the Starliner, originally known as the CST-100, in 2010, after winning a contract from
NASA for the CCDev program. The Starliner is the traditional truncated-cone capsule design, much like previous spacecraft
from the United States. It can carry up to seven
astronauts at a time, although NASA won't use more
than four seats at a time. The Starliner will be
the first orbital capsule to land on solid ground
in the United States. Now this is similar to how
the Soyuz capsule lands, and also how Blue Origin's Suborbital New Shepard capsule lands. There are five landing sites proposed in the Western United States, but the two prime sites will be the U.S's. Army's White Sands
Missile Range in New Mexico and the Army's Dugway
Proving Grounds in Utah. Starliner will land using parachutes and a set of large airbags. A pair of drogue chutes are deployed at about nine kilometers in altitude, followed by a trio of main
chutes at 3.6 kilometers, and at 1.5 kilometers in altitude, the heat shield is ditched and
the six airbags are inflated. These airbags serve a dual purpose. In nominal cases, the airbags
will soften the landing when landing on land,
and in off-nominal cases, like an abort or an emergency reentry, the airbags offer buoyancy and
balance for water landings. Touching down on land will
allow the Starliner an easy path to refurbishment and reusability. Boeing is hoping to be
able to turn one around in just six months and
reuse them up to 10 times! That's definitely a good thing. Since the crew will land on solid ground, recovery of crew is quite
different than a splashdown. On the edge of the landing zone there will be a Mobile Data
Tracking Vehicle, or MDTV, as well as a Mobile Landing
Control Center, or MLCC, and a host of other recovery
vehicles waiting to pounce. Once touchdown is confirmed,
a small army of vehicles will race their way across the desert. Now I picture this pretty much being like a real life Mad Max scenario, so Boeing, please send us videos of this. Upon arrival, a crew will check and stabilize the hydrazine fuels and then ground the vehicle
for static electricity. After that, an HVAC truck will roll up and start to cool the spacecraft, including the crew and the fuels. Next up a Mobile Landing
Platform will pull up with stairs and begin to evacuate the crew. Boeing has to pull crew
out within one hour and cargo out within two. The person who actually extracts the crew is a member of Boeing's
Fire and Rescue team, which I think is pretty cool. The crew is taken out and then sent over to a
truck for medical check ups and then whisked away
on a NASA helicopter. Eventually the capsule itself will be loaded up with a small crane truck and taken back to begin refurbishment. The cockpit of Starliner takes a fairly conservative
and familiar approach. Although it's a lot less cluttery than the Space Shuttle's cockpit, it still features familiar
and traditional controls, buttons and non-touch screens. The Starliner will dock
to the ISS and not berth. Docking is where the vehicle actually does all the final maneuvering, until it connects itself
up with the docking port. Dragon 1 and Cygnus cargo vehicles both currently berth to the station, meaning they park and then
are grappled to the station via the Canada Arm or Canadarm. Astronauts get in and out of
the side hatch when on Earth, but when docked, they'll
crawl through the top part that connects to the
International Space Station via the International
Docking Adapter on the ISS. Initially getting into
and out of the Starliner is admittedly a bit cumbersome. Astronauts need to
shimmy into their seats, lying on their backs. The spacecraft is two main sections, the crew module and a service module. The crew module is, well
exactly what you'd think, it's where the crew goes. It's also the part that survives reentry. The service module houses propellant tanks for orbital maneuvering, the
orbital maneuvering thrusters, the launch abort motors, which are on the bottom
in a pusher configuration, solar panels on the bottom,
and radiators on the sides, as well as a host of other things. The abort motors are four
Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-88 Bantams modified to run on hypergolic fuels, to function as a launch abort motor. The first uncrewed test flight, OFT-1 will fly with the
qualification test motors, but they'll be inactive since
there will be no crew onboard. In the event of an issue with the booster, or a rapid unscheduled disassembly, these abort motors would be used up until a few minutes into
flight, after which time the vehicle would just use
the maneuvering thrusters. The Starliner offers a
full envelope abort window, meaning the astronauts can abort at any time and remain safe. Boeing designed the Starliner to be able to ride on
a variety of rockets, including the Atlas V, the
Delta IV, and the Falcon 9. They wound up selecting United Launch Alliance's Atlas V for now, and eventually ULA's
upcoming Vulcan rocket will likely fly Starliner. The exact Atlas V they selected is an N22. Now here's a quick
reminder of those numbers. The first part of the name
represents the fairing size, the options being four meters,
five meters, or N for none. The middle number is the amount
of strap-on rocket boosters and can range from zero to five. The last number is the
number of RL-10 engines on the centaur upper stage. The centaur can have one or two RL-10s. So putting this all together, the Atlas V that will launch the Starliner will have no fairing, since
it has a Starliner on top, it will have two solid rocket boosters and dual RL-10 engines on the
upper stage, hence the N22. When the Starliner launches,
it'll be the first time ULA's actually used a dual
RL-10 centaur upper stage on the Atlas V, however
the dual engine centaur has been flying since 1962 and flew on the Atlas
III as recently as 2005! So it's definitely not anything new. So why are Boeing and ULA
using a dual-engine centaur when the Starliner is relatively light? The RL-10 engine is crazy efficient, but one thing it's not is powerful. In order to allow for enough time for a standard single engine to push the upper stage and it's payload into orbital velocities without
reentering the atmosphere, the first stage of the Atlas V usually lofts itself into
an extra high altitude, allowing for more time for the upper stage to do its circularization burn. This works great for standard payloads, but in the case of an abort, this trajectory is actually way too steep, generating crazy high,
unsurvivable G forces when it hits the atmosphere. So in order to maintain a
nice, safe, shallow profile for the fragile and
precious humans onboard, the upper stage needed more oomph, and the solution to that
was the dual-engine centaur! If you need more info on this
unique engineering solution, Scott Manley has an awesome video on it. Boeing and ULA will also be running a secondary flight computer
that'll be running in parallel to the primary flight computer
on the centaur upper stage. It'll catch any errors in the flight plan faster than a human reaction time, shutting down the engines
and triggering an abort. Another design consideration is due to the blunt nose of the Starliner. You'll see these little lattice structures around the outside. The Starliner was designed to be as stable as possible for reentry, which means having a
short and stout design. The lattice structure helps diffuse the
airflow over the vehicle, helping to make sure
there are no shock waves or inadvertent pressure areas over the lower portion
of the vehicle on ascent, especially since the
rocket actually tapers down to the skinny centaur upper stage. They also added an aerodynamic skirt to ensure smooth airflow. Despite the Apollo Spacecraft
being a similar shape, the Saturn V it rode on top
of, kind of wedding caked out, tapering wider and wider, and therefore didn't have
those design considerations. Starliner Astronauts will take off from ULA's launch pad SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral Air
Force Station in Florida. The pad has already been
fitted with the crew access arm in preparations for the
first crew launches. This will be the first time humans have launched from
this particular launch pad, which is awesome and also the first time humans have launched from Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station since Apollo 7 in 1968. We'll get into the dimensions,
the designs, prices, and more when we do a side by side
comparison of all the vehicles. (upbeat melodic music) Now onto the other new spaceship, SpaceX's Crew Dragon or Dragon 2. Dragon 2 is the follow up to SpaceX's very successful Dragon capsule that has flown cargo to and
from the ISS since 2012. The Dragon capsule was
originally called DragonRider when it was initially proposed to NASA for the CCDev program. SpaceX was not selected
for the first round, perhaps because the Dragon
capsule had noses all around it, but SpaceX was selected during the second round of contracts. The original DragonRider capsule was essentially just a crew rated version of their Dragon Capsule, which at the time was getting ready for its first test flights to orbit and was already on contract
to resupply the ISS which it would later do in 2012. In 2014, SpaceX revealed the updated version of the Dragon capsule which would carry astronauts
at their HQ in Hawthorne. The Dragon 2 was a massive redesign of the original Dragon Capsule, including seating for
up to seven astronauts, although again, NASA won't be
using more than four at a time for the Commercial Crew Program. Dragon 2 was originally planning to also touch down back on
land using the abort motors, assuming they weren't used for an abort, to come to a nice soft touchdown anywhere. However, due to a few reasons, SpaceX ditched propulsive landings and will do a parachute recovery and splashdown in the ocean, much like the current Dragon Capsule. If you need to know more about why SpaceX canceled propulsively
landing their Dragon Capsule, I've already got you covered. The Crew Dragon's primary landing zone is the Atlantic ocean, which is different from
the current Dragon Capsule which has been splashing
down in the Pacific Ocean since its first launch
and recovery in 2010. SpaceX also filed to
have the Gulf of Mexico be a contingency landing site too, which I believe would be a first. SpaceX has a pair of ships, named Go Searcher and Go Navigator, that'll be in charge of crew recoveries. Go Searcher features a hoist capable of lifting the
Dragon capsule onto the deck and then offloading the crew. There's also communication relays and a helicopter landing pad to get the crew home after splashdown. Go Searcher has been part of
SpaceX's fleet for a while, aiding in the recovery efforts of Falcon 9 drone ship landings, as well as Dragon 1 recoveries. Despite the ocean landings, SpaceX does has refurbishment
and reuse plans for Dragon 2, although not quite like
you might be thinking. Refurbished Dragon 2's
won't carry humans again, but they'll eventually be used to carry cargo for CRS-2 missions. SpaceX already has experience refurbishing splash
downed Dragon Capsules, and has reflown five
Dragon capsules to date, although according to Elon Musk in 2017, he mentions it's almost as expensive to refurbish the splash downed Dragons as it is to build new ones. But I'm sure since then they've implemented streamlined processes which have helped made
the efforts worthwhile. The design of the Crew Dragon capsule is extremely minimalistic. It's easy to see that
the design was influenced by Elon who likes things simple. The interior looks like the
Tesla Model 3 of spaceships compared to Knight Rider's car, Kitt. Some unique features of the interior are touchscreens and movable chairs. When Dragon 2 was first revealed, Elon sat in a seat and pulled
the screen down to him, that's now reversed, as
the screens are stationary and the seats move up to them. Again, just like the Starliner, the Dragon 2 is designed
to be fully autonomous with manual overrides really
only there as contingencies. But the Dragon 2 does something that the old Dragon 1
couldn't do, and that's dock. Getting into the Crew Dragon capsule is done via the side hatch. Once you poke your head in, it's very spacious and minimalistic. It's easy to plop into
the seat and get comfy. I actually really think
this layout makes sense. Like the Starliner, the Dragon 2 is actually
two sections as well. There's the Crew Module and the Trunk. The crew module is again, the
part that holds the humans, but it also has the
Super Draco abort motors integrated onto it. Since this portion of the
spacecraft is recovered, the Super Draco motors
are also recovered, yay! Just like the Starliner, the Super Dracos run on
hypergolic propellants and offer a full envelope
abort window as well. The trunk is an unpressurized
section of the spacecraft, just like it is on Dragon 1. This allows for the ability
to take up larger components that wouldn't fit
through the docking port, or items that are installed
on the outside of the station. Items that are inside
the trunk are retrieved via the Canadarm2 or
another arm named Dextre. The trunk of the Dragon
2 offers a unique layout with stationary solar panels covering one side of the vehicle and radiators on the other side. The old Dragon 1 had
extending solar panels. This makes sense because you want the solar
panels to be facing the sun, and you want the radiators
away from the sun. So, pretty cool design. The trunk also has some fins to help stabilize the vehicle
in the event of an abort. And again, I already did
a video all about this, so if you want to learn more
about the fins on the Dragon, and why they matter during an
abort, check out this video. The trunk is detached prior to reentry and burns up due to a
lack of a heat shield. This allows for disposal of
some on station items as well. A very fiery garbage service. The Dragon 2 is designed to
exclusively fly on the Falcon 9, although there were plans for it to fly on Falcon
Heavy at one point, but SpaceX no longer plans
to human-certify Falcon Heavy and instead is focusing on Starship. In order for the Falcon
9 to be crew rated, NASA required a design freeze
of their Block 5 variant since SpaceX tends to upgrade
their vehicles so frequently, they sometimes introduce
unintended consequences. Part of this design freeze
also required the use of a new Composite Overwrapped
Pressure Vessel or COPV. A COPV failure was the root
cause of the AMOS-6 pad anomaly and a COPV strut was the
cause of the CRS-7 failure. SpaceX started flying
a newly designed COPV at the end of 2018. It's kind of unusual that
NASA required a design freeze. I mean considering NASA has
considered flying humans on the 2nd launch of
SLS, or even more crazy, there's even been talks of them putting humans on
the first flight of SLS. But SpaceX is known to
make changes, all the time, in the constant pursuit of improvement, so I think a safer, more
conservative approach, is a good idea when
human lives are involved. The Falcon 9's flight
profile with the crew also had to be altered
compared to the cargo versions to ensure the safest
profile in case of an abort. Due to the shallower, flatter profile, it also means the first
stage booster of the Falcon 9 will not do a return
to launch site landing and will have to land
downrange on the drone ship. The upper stage of the Falcon 9 uses the Merlin 1D Vacuum engine which is extremely powerful,
but not very efficient. It will have no problem
maintaining a shallow profile. Crew will climb on top
of a Block 5 Falcon 9 poised at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Now I have to say, not
that it's a contest, but SpaceX definitely does have
the coolest launch pad ever. I mean after all, this
is the same launch pad that humans took off
from to go to the moon. Crew will go up the
Fixed Service Structure that's a relic from the Space Shuttle era, although SpaceX has done a lot of work to remove the rotating service
structure, repaint the tower, add cladding, and attach
their mobile access arm. One thing that SpaceX will be doing that's completely new in the
world of human spaceflight and actually took some convincing to make NASA consider a valid option, is a load and go fueling procedure. Since SpaceX uses super
chilled propellants, they need to load them up into the vehicle as late as possible so they
don't warm up and boil off before the vehicle takes off. SpaceX actually continues
to fuel the rocket up until just three
minutes before lift off. Now clearly three minutes isn't nearly enough
time to get up the tower and strap the crew into
the Dragon Capsule, and then leave the tower, so the crew will actually
enter before propellant load and will remain onboard while
the vehicle is fueled up. I can clearly understand
how this is different, but I actually feel like
it's kind of a safer move. I mean this means the
astronaut and the ground crew never need to approach a fully
loaded vehicle on the pad. Once fuel starts flowing, the crew is actually in the
safest place imaginable, a tightly sealed pressure vessel armed with a powerful abort system. So despite the process of fueling up being pretty risky, the crew
is in a very safe place. Can you imagine, this will
be the first time in history a human ear will hear the
sound of cryogenic fuel flowing into the vehicle. They'll hear all those creaks
and strains of the vehicle as it comes to life. That's gonna be crazy! Another fun fact is the crew
will arrive to the launch site in Tesla Model Xs, of course! Man, SpaceX will be putting on
a new show, that's for sure. Now lastly, before we get
to the direct comparisons, did you know both launch pads
have an amusement park ride? Well not quite, but each pad
does have an emergency zipline capable of evacuating astronauts
and ground crew in a hurry in the unlikely event
of say a leak or a fire. While I'm sure there's limited use cases when these would be remotely useful, it does look like it'd be pretty fun, well, assuming you're not
being chased by a fireball. Okay, wow, enough of the rundown. It's time to compare these
vehicles side by side and see how these new vehicles compare to the Soyuz and the Space Shuttle. (upbeat melodic music) So first off, let's just line
these vehicles up side by side and compare their sizes. Yeah, the Space Shuttle Orbiter clearly dwarfs these vehicles
in size, that thing is huge! And because of its immense
size, we're gonna focus in on just the crew module
portion of the Shuttle, so we can see these other vehicles. But don't forget about the rest of it, we'll still be talking
about the system as a whole, since the aft end is its service module and the cargo bay is similar in nature to the trunk of the Dragon
capsule, just way, way bigger. But notice how much bigger
the Starliner and Dragon are compared to the Soyuz! So let's run through their dimensions starting with their height. The Starliner stands five meters tall with the service module attached, the Crew Dragon is 8.1
meters tall with the trunk and the Soyuz is 7.5 meters tall with the orbital module and
service module attached. The Space Shuttle, we'll
show its length as height, because that's the way it stood
when was it was on the pad. It stood 37 meter tall from tail to nose. Next their width. The Starliner is 4.5 metes wide, the Dragon Capsule 3.7 meters
wide, the Soyuz 2.2 meters, and the Space Shuttle's crew
compartment and payload bay were 4.6 meters wide, we'll ignore the wings
for this comparison. I feel like we're gonna
have a lot of asterisks when we compare these
vehicles to the Space Shuttle, because that thing was a
completely different beast. Next up, dry mass. Starliner is 13 tonnes,
Dragon is 9.5 tonnes, the Soyuz capsule is
shockingly light at 7.1 tonnes, and the Space Shuttle,
yeah you can imagine, this is quite a bit
heavier at 68.5 tonnes. As mentioned earlier, Crew capacity for both
Starliner and Dragon is seven, but again, NASA will only use four. The Soyuz Capsule can fit three, barely, and the Shuttle could fit up to eight, although seven was much more common. Now for volume, both
pressurized and unpressurized. Starliner has 11 cubic meters of pressurized volume
and no unpressurized. Dragon 2 has 10 cubic
meters of pressurized volume and 14 cubic meters of
unpressurized volume. Soyuz has 8.5 cubic meters of pressurized and no unpressurized volume. The Space Shuttle is of course king here with 74.3 cubic meters
of pressurized volume and 300 cubic meters of
unpressurized volume. In other words, you could
almost fit all three spaceships inside the payload bay of the Shuttle. So now, how long can these
vehicles stay in space? The Starliner can go 60 hours on its own and 210 days while docked, Crew Dragon can do one week on its own and also 210 days when docked, the Soyuz can go 30 days on its own and 180 days when docked, and the Space Shuttle couldn't
go much beyond 17 days due to being powered by fuel cells. Next up, how about their abort systems? The Starliner and Crew Dragon both have a pusher-type
system that's full envelope, meaning they can abort safely
at any time during ascent, the Soyuz has a puller or tractor system with an abort tower
and fairing motors too, which also offers a full
envelope escape, and of course, the Space Shuttle had no
mechanical abort systems. And a quick little note
here on abort systems, pushers push up from the bottom or the middle of the spacecraft and tractors or puller abort systems pull from the top using a
tower or something like that. Now where do these all land? Starliner, Shuttle and
Soyuz all touchdown on land, while Crew Dragon splashes down. Now how about
reusability/refurbishment-ability? The Starliner is capable
of up to 10 reuses, Crew Dragon is capable of reuse, but for now only as a cargo variant, Soyuz is expendable and the
Space Shuttle was also reusable. So now the launch vehicles that gets these to space. Starliner will ride the Atlas V N22, Crew Dragon the Falcon 9, Soyuz the Soyuz FG rocket
and soon the Soyuz 2, and the Shuttle was part of the
space transportation system. While we have these rockets pulled up, I think it's important we take
a note on their reliability. We're gonna ignore partial failures and only talk about mission success, in which case the Atlas
V really comes up on top, at 100% success in 79 flights. The Falcon 9 has had 69 missions
and has had two failures, one of them actually happening
before the launch occurred, giving it a 97.1% success rate. The Soyuz is complicated because it's been flying since the 60s in some form or another, so
in total it's 996 out of 1028 for a 96.9% success rate, but
its newest variant, the FG, has only had one failure out of 66, making it 98.5% successful. And the Shuttle had two
failures out of 135 launches, also making it 98.5% successful. It should also be noted that
thanks to the abort system, the one failure of the Soyuz
FG lead to no loss in life. And another quick note, this time about the use
of solid rocket boosters. The solid rocket booster lead to the loss of
the Challenger vehicle, but that's not to say solids on their own are inherently more dangerous per se. The mixture of a solid rocket booster and the lack of a mechanical abort system, is really what was dangerous. We've learned a lot
since the Space Shuttle, and the Atlas V's use of
SRBs is considered very safe, and due to the fact that the Starliner does
have an abort system, if there was a failure, the crew would be able to
get away from the rocket. So we really shouldn't compare
the Atlas's use of SRBs to the Space Shuttle's use of SRBs. And now we're do all four
of these launch from? Launch sites are SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral Air
Force Base for Starliner, right next door is the Falcon 9, which will launch from LC-39A
at Kennedy Space Center, the Soyuz launches from Baikonur LC-1/5, and the Shuttle launched from
both LC-39A and LC-39B at KSC. And lastly we're gonna
talk about price per seat, and this one has a pretty
big asterisk as well. Both Starliner and Crew Dragon have a price tag of $58 million per seat, the Soyuz Capsule is now
up to $82 million per seat, and the Shuttle, well, this is a hard one. On paper, the Shuttle would cost around $214 million per seat, but don't forget the
Shuttle did a lot more than just take crew up, it often would carry an additional payload of a dozen tonnes or more! So maybe it's fair to take that $214 million
dollars per seat per launch and then take 80% off because 80% of the volume of the vehicle was dedicated to cargo. But maybe that's not fair either, so let's just say it's somewhere between $43 million and $214 million. The last thing I want to mention, but only for the
Starliner and Crew Dragon, is their cost of development. So the Starliner received $4.8 billion and SpaceX received 3.1 billion in total. But this includes two demo launches and six operational
flights from each company. Now I really don't want to
get into a spitting match over why each company got
paid such different amounts, but it likely had to do with
each companies proposal. Perhaps after SpaceX flies
a few dozen astronauts, they can charge a little more for increased confidence from NASA. Kind of like how they're
able to increase the price of the cargo resupply missions once they prove to be reliable, and after they've gained a better sense of the costs of running the program. So when it's all said and
done, here's my opinion. First off, I couldn't be more excited to see an awesome pair of
exciting new rides to space. It's about time! As solid and reliable
as the Soyuz has been, it's about time humans
have some other, newer, and more comfortable options. As far as each system goes, I've got my opinions
and I'll keep 'em short, because I already know the comment section will have plenty of opinions to go around. The Starliner is an awesome spaceship. It's very well thought
out, and you can tell, human safety is very much on top of mind for both Boeing and ULA. I'm glad to see their going
to be landing on land, because I think it's cool, and I'm glad to see they
can reuse the space craft. And I'm also happy the Atlas will finally be carrying humans again for the first time since Faith 7 launched with Mercury-Atlas in 1963! And as advanced as the Starliner is, I do wish Boeing had gone a
few steps more progressive. It feels like the spaceship
is just a little conservative, and you can tell they didn't
want to take any design risks or really push any boundaries. And unfortunately, when I gotta sit in it, it just feels a little stale and cold. However, aesthetics and ergonomics are a very, very minor
part of the equation when you're putting humans in space. So, now we come to SpaceX's
Crew Dragon Capsule. There's really no arguing that SpaceX made the better looking and down right sexy spaceship. It truly is stunning. And quite frankly, the radical
departure from the norm, really seems to have been
pulled off brilliantly. Just look at how easy it
is to get into this thing compared to the Starliner. And I have no doubt
the Crew Dragon capsule didn't cut any corners in safety, considering they had to answer to NASA on every single millimeter of the thing, so when it comes to pure cool factor, I'm gonna have to give
the leg up to SpaceX. After hearing from a few people who have used the touchscreens, we're talking about hardcore pilots here, they have voiced missing a more
traditional control scheme. Saying it does feel a
bit like flying an iPad. But lastly, seeing a Falcon 9 land after delivering crew to the ISS, will be a nice cherry on top. And although of course it won't be landing back at Kennedy Space Center, I never get tired of seeing this. So no matter how you cut
it, you can't go wrong. NASA hired two incredible companies to come up with some truly
exciting new rides to space. NASA should be proud of this new program. It's saved them money, and now
offers a variety of options, so now they actually have
some overlap and redundancy in humanities access to space. And although this video was intended to highlight
the Commercial Crew Program, to be perfectly honest, I wound up really appreciating
the Space Shuttle more, after diving into this. That thing was something really special. I mean yes of course it had its flaws, and it didn't quite live up to the hype of making space flight cheaper or safer, but boy oh boy did it have
some unmatched capabilities. So great job NASA, Boeing and SpaceX! I honestly couldn't be more excited for this new chapter of spaceflight. And don't you all worry, I'll be doing my best to
bring it all to you guys! I'm planning to try and make it down to all the demo missions and
cover them live, in person! If you want to help contribute and ensure I can bring you
the best coverage possible, consider becoming a Patreon supporter by visiting Patreon.com/everydayastronaut, where you'll also gain access to behind the scenes content
and exclusive livestreams. If you want another fun
way to support what I do, head over to my webstore at
everydayastronaut.com/shop, where you'll find shirts like this, and Grid Fin Not-A-Coasters,
and prints of rocket launches and lots of other fun stuff. You can even find all
the music in my videos, which is always original. And not only that, be sure and check out my
new EP called 27 Merlins, which I wrote the music to
the Falcon Heavy launch. That's right, when you watch that video, you are watching the straight video off of SpaceX's livestream. It has not been cut in any way. The music was written to all
of the events of the flight. So it's a fun new way to
experience the launch, definitely check it out,
right here on YouTube. Thanks everybody, that's
gonna do it for me. I'm Tim Dodd, The Everyday Astronaut, bringing space down to
earth for everyday people. (energetic melodic music)
Here's an article version if you guys want to digest some of the charts and infographics easier. I can't wait for DM-1! I'll be there live and I'll start streaming a few hours before hand, so stay tuned for more!
Concur! Makes me wonder if there's equivalent footage for Soyuz?
Pretty cool that you can use your own footage. Good stuff!
Good explanation of the Atlas naming system, too.
78mmm vs 10mmm? Does that Shuttle pressurised volume figure include a space Lab in the cargo bay?
Excellent video! I especially liked your explanation of why Atlas V/Starliner needs two SRBs to enable a flatter trajectory for safe aborts. The graphical animation was worth a thousand words in visualizing it.
Minor nitpick: there seemed to be an off-by-one error on the screen where you show the ISS Soyuz flight schedules by year. It showed the year in progress to be 2018, with the actual 2018 missions (e.g. MS-09) listed as 2017. (I know...everyone writes the old year for a while after the new year begins. ;-))
I put off watching this because it was 30 minutes, but that was a mistake!! This was the most information dense and awesome video I’ve seen from you in quite a while. And still comprehensible. Even then, I could tell you were talking fast to try to squeeze in more. Amazing work!
Well done! You never disappoint at delivering high quality content! Thank You!
Love your content dude!
Gonna be honest... I thought the thumbnail was displaying pens till I saw the space shuttle..