In its photo gallery, SpaceX has a nice picture of its Dragon capsule engineering model. The resolution of the picture currently on SpaceX's web site is 0.7 megapixels, but I managed to snag the 1.4 megapixel version before SpaceX changed files. You can access the 1.4 megapixel version by clicking on the thumbnail below. The 1.4 megapixel version is suitable for use as a desktop background, with a monitor in portrait mode.
It's tough to get a good sense of scale in this picture. Nobody is standing next to the model, for instance. Because of this, it's difficult to tell how big the hatch is and how much of a squeeze it would be to fit 7 people in the capsule per SpaceX's specifications.
Assuming the camera is being held by a person and judging by the size of things in the background, I think it might be safe to say that the hatch is about one body-length above the ground. From that assumption, I put the hatch at roughly two feet wide. Depending on how the interior is laid out, it looks like it would be sufficiently large to carry seven people on a short duration trip.
Posted by: PhysBrain | March 28, 2007 at 02:43 PM