SpaceX’s new Dragon Control System Is Becoming UNTOUCHABLE
SpaceX’s new Dragon Control System Is Becoming UNTOUCHABLE
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#techmap #techmaps #elonmusk #starshipspacex
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0:00 Intro
0:55 NASA's bet paid off
3:26 Why does Crew Dragon feel more modern than Starliner?
11:48 Conclusion
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SpaceX’s new Dragon Control System Is Becoming UNTOUCHABLE
Imagine you're a NASA astronaut.
Tomorrow, you're launching to the ISS. You have two spacecraft waiting on the launch pad.
One is built by Boeing, a company with more than a century of aerospace experience. Step inside, and you'll find hundreds of switches, buttons, and hand controllers—a cockpit that feels immediately familiar to generations of pilots.
The other is built by SpaceX. Instead of thousands of controls, you're greeted by just three giant touchscreens inside a clean, minimalist cabin that looks more like a futuristic electric car than a spacecraft.
A decade ago, most people assumed Boeing had the better approach.
Today, it's Crew Dragon that astronauts keep coming back to.
So what changed?
SpaceX’s new Dragon Control System Is Becoming UNTOUCHABLE
Why did NASA's crews end up embracing the radical touchscreen design over a cockpit built around decades of aerospace tradition?
NASA's bet paid off
When people talk about America's new generation of spacecraft, two vehicles always come up: SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Boeing's Starliner.
Both were selected by NASA in 2014 as part of the Commercial Crew Program, an effort to restore America's ability to launch astronauts from US soil after the Space Shuttle retired. NASA also wanted something safer, less expensive, and commercially operated for routine trips to the ISS.
On paper, Boeing looked like the obvious winner. The company had spent roughly a century building aircraft and spacecraft and was one of the biggest names in aerospace. SpaceX, meanwhile, was only 12 years old.
SpaceX’s new Dragon Control System Is Becoming UNTOUCHABLE
But SpaceX wasn't an unproven startup anymore.
By 2012, Dragon had already become the first privately developed spacecraft to reach the ISS. Over the next two years, it completed multiple cargo missions for NASA, repeatedly delivering supplies and—just as importantly—bringing scientific experiments safely back to Earth. Unlike other cargo vehicles that burned up during reentry, Dragon was designed to survive the trip home.
SpaceX also had another advantage: cost.
NASA invested about $2.6 billion to develop Crew Dragon, compared with roughly $4.1 billion for Starliner. Much of that difference came from SpaceX building on the Cargo Dragon platform it already had, while Boeing designed Starliner almost entirely from scratch.
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