A NEW ERA OF SPACE RIDES - CREW DRAGON VS SOYUZ CAPSULE

Besides the touchscreen and a clean look, what’s the difference between the Crew Dragon and Soyuz capsules? How is the Crew Dragon special? Is there some sort of secret room? A bathroom? Actually think about this. A ride to the ISS takes anything between 6 hours and two days and astronauts can’t just pull aside and do their thing. Never thought of that?

Well… Then keep on reading.

Now targetting May 30th, 2020, Demo-2 mission will be taking place and will launch astronauts from American soil for the first time in nearly a decade, but that’s not even the best part about it.

The most exciting thing is that the launch will be done in a modern, XXI century capsule: SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. This launch will be an historic one as it will be the first time astronauts get sent to space by a private company.

CONTEXT

America is days away from proving it has once again the ability to send astronauts into space on its own, recovering a capability lost almost 9 years ago with the retirement of the Space Shuttle. Ever since the US has relied on the Russian Government Space Agency's -Roscosmos- Soyuz capsule to get their astronauts into space.

This capsule's technology, despite having been able to deliver perfectly and perform everytime astronauts stepped inside, is quite old as it was developed and remained majorly unchanged since the 60's and 70's. We will be focusing on that instead of diving into specs to keep things rather practical.

CREW DRAGON VS SOYUZ

So what’s the difference between this modern capsule and the Soyuz? Well, that’s exactly it. It’s modern (It has a touchscreen, duh). It looks to have been taken straight out of a sci-fi movie, yet it’s still practical.

The touchscreen is the main interface astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will have with the vehicle, and the display is just as futuristic as the physical capsule (You can actually experience a bit of this if you wish thanks to a docking simulator SpaceX released. You should definitely check it out).

They do however have a few rows of buttons (38 in total), but these are in fact placed behind transparent boards as they are meant to be used as a backup in case both the main interface and ground control failed to control the capsule.

Both Crew Dragon and Soyuz have been built with a very specific purpose: to dock to the International Space Station (ISS). This means that, unlike the Space Shuttle, they don’t need to take care of tasks such as delivering useful cargo, acting as a mini space station itself as it built the actual ISS, or act as a lunar lander as the Apollo Lunar Module. That does simplify things, though it doesn't make them simple.

Still, Crew Dragon’s control panel is remarkably different from its Russian counterpart. It goes beyond a mere touchscreen which by the way, Soyuz would not be able to just get and install one.

Soyuz capsules were designed decades ago when touchscreen technology was simply not available or weren’t reliable enough, so it makes sense they were implemented in the first place. Physical buttons are an older yet more reliable longterm technology so it’s not a problem to keep them.

But there’s also the fact that when seated inside the vehicle you need to use a stick in order to reach some og the buttons as these are too far to reach, literally. So implementing a touchscreen would need the capsule to be completely redesigned.

OTHER DIFFERENCES (AND A TOILET)

Other differences between both space vehicles is that Soyuz can only carry three passengers who will be pretty packed during the ride, while Crew Dragon can fit up to seven with enough room for a rather comfortable ride, though NASA has stated they will only be using four.

The Soyuz capsule relied on a traditional launch abort tower in case something went wrong during the flight while Crew Dragon has engines integrated in its main structre to perform this task.

Regarding docking to the ISS, both Soyuz and Crew Dragon can do it autonomously unlike the Space Shuttle, although for Demo 2 Doug Hurley will take over the vehicle to test the manual systems.

And yes, Crew Dragon has a toilet, most likely located in a compartiment over the seats so that you will have some privacy when evacuating. Details about it are not known; since the spaceship was privately developed and many of its systems are considered proprietary secrets.

Soyuz has one too. It’s rather rudimentary and it’s located in the left hand side of the control panel (It’s actually quite a fantastic piece of engineering, it takes care of urine and smell directing it away from the working area).

CONCLUSION THOUGHTS

Regardless of which one you like best it’s undeniable that Soyuz has done an outstanding job flawlessly continuing the flow of astronauts to and from the ISS while America was incapacitated to do so, and Crew Dragon will set the dawn of a new, fast evolving, accessible and commercial space era.

Really great times ahead. Best of luck to Bob and Doug on their journey.

Thank you for reading.