If things go as planned, 2017 will mark the year when private companies will deliver astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time. And it looks like anyone riding with SpaceX will be riding in style. The company is finalizing the interior design of their Crew Dragon capsule, and they just released some futuristic new pics.
The interior is sleeker than previous designs, though the close-up angles provide a better idea of how small these vessels really are.
The gumdrop-shaped capsule measures about 20 feet tall by 12 feet in diameter, which is not a lot of space, considering it's designed to carry up to 7 astronauts at a time. It's considerably larger than the Russian Soyuz, which can carry up to three passengers. Luckily, a trip to the space station can take as little as 6 hours.
Unlike Soyuz, the Crew Dragon will use thrusters to land, instead of splashing down in the ocean. According to SpaceX, “This system also enables Dragon v2 to land propulsively on Earth or another planet with the precision of a helicopter, making possible interplanetary trips that would otherwise be constrained by ocean landings.”
Hopefully SpaceX has a different spacecraft in mind for Mars, though—otherwise the crew would risk murdering each other after being crammed in this vessel with no privacy for a year. Also … it doesn't have a bathroom.
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