It’s the beginning(first week) of the Lunar New Year — the Year of the Dragon. Happy Lunar New Year!
There's no need to explain what a dragon is; everyone has an image of it in their mind, yet it’s amusing that no one has actually seen one.
There are Western Dragons and Eastern Dragons. We can tell the difference by how they look.
Western Dragons:
- Characteristics: Western dragons, found in European myths, are often depicted as large, fire-breathing creatures with wings, four legs, and a long tail. They are typically portrayed as malevolent or fearsome beasts that guard treasures, capture princesses, or devastate lands. They are similar to the dragons in HBO's "House of the Dragon" and "Smaug" in "The Hobbit."
- Mythology and Literature: In Western mythology, dragons are featured in stories like the legend of Saint George and the Dragon. Nowadays, they appear in fantasy literature and media, where they can be either villains or allies to humans.
Eastern Dragons:
- Characteristics: Eastern dragons, particularly those in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean mythology, are seen as benevolent creatures. They are usually depicted as long, serpentine creatures with four legs but no wings, yet they can still fly. These dragons often symbolize water, rain, clouds, and good luck.
- Cultural Significance: In many Asian cultures, dragons symbolize power, strength, and good fortune. They are celebrated in festivals, such as the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival, and depicted in art and literature, often as protectors of mankind or as symbols of imperial authority. According to traditional Chinese imperial protocol, the dragon robe, also known as the "dragon gown", was an elaborate garment that only the emperor was allowed to wear.
Although no one has actually seen a dragon, there are indeed man-made dragons flying in the sky, courtesy of SpaceX.
- Cargo Dragon (originally Dragon 1): This variant was designed to carry cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. It made history in 2012 as the first commercially-built and operated spacecraft to be successfully recovered from orbit. The Cargo Dragon completed its primary mission objectives and was retired after its CRS-20 mission in March 2020.
- Crew Dragon (Dragon 2): This advanced version can carry up to seven astronauts to and from the ISS. It's a part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which aims to restore the United States' capability to launch humans to space from American soil following the retirement of the Space Shuttle program. The Crew Dragon features several improvements over the original Dragon, including the ability to dock automatically with the ISS, more powerful computers and avionics, and large windows for astronauts to view space and Earth. The Crew Dragon's first crewed flight, Demo-2, successfully transported NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the ISS in May 2020. Both variants of the Dragon spacecraft are reusable, a cornerstone of SpaceX's strategy to reduce the cost of access to space. The Dragon spacecraft are launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket, also developed by SpaceX, from launch sites such as the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
While man-made dragon can take humans to the unknown voids, do you think one day we could encounter a real dragon?
