credit: Andy Elson
This photo shows a carbon fibre nose cone for a Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Falcon 5 that would have launched Magic Dragon, the first manned capsule designed for SpaceX
The nose cone was produced by W J Todd Engineering, based in Yeovil, England, for Andy Elson, a contract engineer who developed SpaceX's Magic Dragon capsule
The nose cone was to fold back sufficiently for Magic Dragon's common berthing mechanism, to be used to dock with the International Space Station
Elson also developed what he calls a "pneumatic computer" to carry out the fold backing actuation, which he says "worked most of the time"
As well as the blog entry Magic Dragon: The UK's first commercially built manned capsule demonstrator more details about the original SpaceX plans for its first capsule and Falcon 5 will be revealed in a forth coming story at www.flightglobal.com/spaceflight
"would have launched Magic Dragon"
Why would have? isn't it still on the agenda?
Falcon 5 is pretty much history I think. Certainly it is not on the SpaceX website. Now they have Falcon 9 and Dragon and COTS why go back to Magic Dragon?
When you read the article on flightglobal.com I think you will see why Magic Dragon is now history. Interesting though it is.