As befits a company with a growing reputation for changing the game, the unveiling of SpaceX's human-rated Dragon v.2 vehicle last week was akin to the roll-out of a civil airliner or a luxury super-car. Yet for all the pumping music, light effects and enthusiastic crowd, the less predictable aspect of the event was the vehicle itself. Far from being what some space industry watchers had forecast would be a warmed-over version of the Dragon currently used to haul cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), the v.2 was revealed as a sophisticated vehicle aimed at pinpoint landing capability and configured with advanced display and thermal protection systems as well as what SpaceX says will be the world's first fully additively manufactured flightworthy rockets.
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