• BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        Falcon 9 is definitely manned.

        The capsule Crew dragon, developed by Spacex for NASA, that flies on the Falcon 9 is the currently the only human rated orbital spacecraft in the US

        • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          5 months ago

          My apologies, looks like the first manned flight was on 16 November 2020 after about 9 years of delays. Weather forced them to abandon their goal of reaching the ISS.

          • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            5 months ago

            I don’t know where you found this number, the commercial crew contract was awarded by NASA in September 2014 to SpaceX and Boeing (Boeing getting twice the amount of money than SpaceX). It was expected that two crew capsule would be certified by NASA in 2017.

            SpaceX only certified the capsule Crew Dragon with a crewed launch in 2020, so 3 years delay. In the mean time NASA is still waiting for Boeing to do its first crewed Starliner launch.

            There is plenty of reason to hate Musk but people at SpaceX did accomplish great things.

            Without SpaceX NASA would still be relying on Soyuz to send astronauts to the ISS.