American private space transportation company SpaceX has developed and produced several spacecraft named Dragon. The first family member, now referred to as Dragon 1, flew 23 cargo missions to the ISS between 2010 and 2020 before being retired. With this first version not designed for carrying astronauts, it was funded by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

with $396 million awarded through the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, with SpaceX being announced as a winner of the first round of funding on August 18, 2006. SpaceX developed its

Dragon 2 Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed and manufactured by American aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, primarily for flights to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX has also launched private missions such as Ins ...

spacecraft starting in 2014, with a cargo version and a crewed version. It entered service in 2019 with the Demo-1 flight, and performed its first flight with astronauts on May 30, 2020, during the

Crew Dragon Demo-2 Crew Dragon Demo-2 (officially Crew Demo-2, SpaceX Demo-2, or Demonstration Mission-2) was the first crewed test flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The spacecraft, named '' Endeavour'', launched on 30 May 2020 on a Falcon 9 booster, and ca ...

flight. SpaceX also investigated a version named Red Dragon for Mars exploration, but the project did not go forward. A version named Dragon XL Is proposed to provide Gateway Logistics Services to the

Lunar Gateway The Lunar Gateway, or simply Gateway, is the first planned extraterrestrial space station in lunar orbit intended to serve as a solar-powered communication hub, science laboratory, and short-term habitation module for government-agency astr ...

Name

SpaceX's CEO,

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The ...

, named the spacecraft after the 1963 song "

Puff, the Magic Dragon "Puff, the Magic Dragon" (or just "Puff") is a song written by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary from a poem by Leonard Lipton. It was made popular by Yarrow's group in a 1962 recording released in January 1963. Lipton wrote a poem about a ...

" by

Peter, Paul and Mary Peter, Paul and Mary was an American folk group formed in New York City in 1961 during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio consisted of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone Paul Stookey, and contralto Mary Travers. The group's reper ...

, reportedly as a response to critics who considered his spaceflight projects impossible. Early on, it had actually been named ''Magic Dragon'', and t-shirts had been printed with this name. As late as September 2012, SpaceX board member Steve Jurvetson was still referring to it as "The Magic Dragon, Puffed to the sea." That was his caption to a photo of the capsule several months after it had completed its COTS 2 demo flight where the spacecraft had accomplished its first docking with the

ISS The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (J ...

. This song, ostensibly composed for children, had long been associated with perceived references to smoking marijuana. And Elon Musk has a history of making coded references to marijuana. In 2022, Musk offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share, which was widely interpreted as a reference to 420 cannabis culture. On August 7, 2018, Musk had tweeted a proposal to take Tesla private at a price of $420 a share, which the SEC was reported to have determined to be a reference to marijuana that would "amuse" his then-girlfriend. On September 7, 2018, Musk explained to Joe Rogan that his personal experience with marijuana is that he smokes it "almost never", and that it has no noticeable effect on him. On September 18, 2008, Elon Musk explicitly stated in a public forum that this was the reason why he chose this name, saying that "so many people thought I

ust be UST or Ust may refer to: Organizations * UST (company), American digital technology company * Equatorial Guinea Workers' Union * Union of Trade Unions of Chad (Union des Syndicats du Tchad) * United States Television Manufacturing Corp. * UST Gro ...

smoking weed to do this venture."

Dragon 1

Dragon 1 was the original Dragon iteration, providing cargo service to the ISS. It flew 23 missions between 2010 and 2020, when it was retired.

Dragon 2

Starting in 2014, SpaceX developed ''

SpaceX Dragon 2 Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed and manufactured by American aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, primarily for flights to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX has also launched private missions such as Ins ...

''. Dragon 2 has a crewed variant and a cargo variant. It began providing service in 2019.

''Red Dragon''

''Red Dragon'' was a cancelled version of the Dragon spacecraft that had been previously proposed to fly farther than

Earth orbit Earth orbits the Sun at an average distance of 149.60 million km (92.96 million mi) in a counterclockwise direction as viewed from above the Northern Hemisphere. One complete orbit takes days (1 sidereal year), during which time Eart ...

and

transit Transit may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Transit'' (1979 film), a 1979 Israeli film * ''Transit'' (2005 film), a film produced by MTV and Staying-Alive about four people in countries in the world * ''Transit'' (2006 film), a 2006 ...

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

via

interplanetary space Interplanetary may refer to: * Interplanetary space, the space between the planets of the Solar System *Interplanetary spaceflight, travel between planets *The interplanetary medium, the material that exists in interplanetary space *The InterPlane ...

. In addition to SpaceX's own privately funded plans for an eventual Mars mission,

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) labo ...

had developed a concept called ''Red Dragon'': a low-cost Mars mission that would use

Falcon Heavy Falcon Heavy is a partially reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle that is produced by SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer. The rocket consists of two strap-on boosters made from Falcon 9 first stages, a center core also made from a Falc ...

as the launch vehicle and trans-Martian injection vehicle, and the

-based capsule to enter the

atmosphere of Mars The atmosphere of Mars is the layer of gases surrounding Mars. It is primarily composed of carbon dioxide (95%), molecular nitrogen (2.8%), and argon (2%). It also contains trace levels of water vapor, oxygen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and no ...

. The concept was originally envisioned for launch in 2018 as a NASA Discovery mission, then alternatively for 2022, but was never formally submitted for funding within NASA. The mission would have been designed to return samples from Mars to Earth at a fraction of the cost of NASA's own sample-return mission, which was projected in 2015 to cost US$6 billion. On 27 April 2016, SpaceX announced its plan to go ahead and launch a modified Dragon lander to Mars in 2018. However, Musk canceled the ''Red Dragon'' program in July 2017 to focus on developing the Starship system instead. The modified ''Red Dragon'' capsule would have performed all

entry, descent and landing Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the ent ...

(EDL) functions needed to deliver payloads of or more to the Martian surface without using a parachute. Preliminary analysis showed that the capsule's atmospheric drag would slow it enough for the final stage of its descent to be within the abilities of its

SuperDraco SuperDraco is a hypergolic propellant rocket engine designed and built by SpaceX. It is part of the SpaceX Draco family of rocket engines. A redundant array of eight SuperDraco engines provides fault-tolerant propulsion for use as a launch es ...

retro-propulsion thrusters.

Dragon XL

On 27 March 2020, SpaceX revealed the Dragon XL resupply spacecraft to carry pressurized and unpressurized cargo, experiments and other supplies to NASA's planned

under a Gateway Logistics Services (GLS) contract. The equipment delivered by Dragon XL missions could include sample collection materials, spacesuits and other items astronauts may need on the Gateway and on the surface of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

, according to

. It will launch on SpaceX

rockets from

LC-39A Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) is the first of Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39B, were first designed for the Saturn V launch vehicle. T ...

at the

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. The Dragon XL will stay at the Gateway for 6 to 12 months at a time, when research payloads inside and outside the cargo vessel could be operated remotely, even when crews are not present. Its payload capacity is expected to be more than to lunar orbit. There is no requirement for a return to Earth. At the end of the mission the Dragon XL must be able to undock and dispose of the same mass it can bring to the Gateway, by moving the spacecraft to a heliocentric orbit.

References