Dragon un-birthed, and has just been released - first departure burn underway. Moving away. So cool watching this.
Dragon re-entering now - live on Nasa TV. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html Splash down in 12mins.
We were watching it live during a meeting, and someone made a similar comment. We figured that with a successful end to such a high profile mission, the folks in the control center would at least stand up and shake hands. It was sort of anti-climactic. Still, this is all very very good news, and certainly a sign post of things to come.
Depends on who you ask. Some tend to think that SpaceX is still several years from a man-rated vehicle, but in the past couple of weeks Elon has moved that goal head. In a recent press conference, Elon said that SpaceX could be ready as early as 2014.
Dragon descent, as seen by one of the chase planes: It's quite cool seeing it disappear through the cloud deck, followed by those huge parachutes. And by the looks of the end of the video, Dragon appears to be a pretty good yacht as well.
