Thursday 8/12/10 This afternoon on the way out we saw a space shuttle escape pod drill! A huge helicopter carried the pod to 14,000 ft and released it. It came floating down with 3 giant orange parachutes and splashed in the water. We spotted a BLUE WHALE for a while and saw several spouts in the distance.
Thursday 8/12/10 9:00 am trip. We saw the spouts and were just about to the whales, 6 miles SW of Morro Bay, when the Coast Guard boat came along side and ordered us to leave the area because of a drill. We were unable to find other whales. Return passes were issued.
Wednesday 8/11/10 We saw whales on both trips.
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That wasn't a space shuttle escape pod test since it has none and there are only a few flights left before it's retired.
ReplyDeleteWhat you saw was a parachute test for SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft.
Dragon will be doing cargo resupply and return to the ISS, DragonLab orbital laboratory flights. Cargo capacity: 6 metric tonnes up and 3 metric tonnes down.
After a launch abort system is finished it will fly up to a 7 person crew, or a mix of cargo and crew, to either the ISS or the Boeing/Bigelow commercial space station going up in 2014-2015, replacing the shuttle crew capability.
It's first full-up test is coming in late Sept or early Nov. this year atop a Falcon 9 booster.
http://www.spacex.com