S8 Ep302: RISKY BUSINESS: DRAGON, NASA, AND REUSABILITY Colleague Eric Berger. To fund its Mars ambitions, SpaceX relied on NASA cargo contracts, which required the development of the Dragon spacecraft. Berger highlights a pivotal moment in 2012 when SpaceX combine

RISKY BUSINESS: DRAGON, NASA, AND REUSABILITY Colleague Eric Berger. To fund its Mars ambitions, SpaceX relied on NASA cargo contracts, which required the development of the Dragon spacecraft. Berger highlights a pivotal moment in 2012 when SpaceX combined two test missions (C2 and C3) to save time, a risky move that required rewriting flight software while the vehicle was near the International Space Station to fix a sensor glitch. Simultaneously, the company faced an "existential" crisis following the 2015 CRS-7 launch failure. Berger details the difficult evolution of reusability, moving from failed parachute concepts to the complex engineering required to land a booster vertically. NUMBER 3
1917 "THE OLD MAN SAT AND TALKED WITH ME FOR HOURS."