One of the interesting things about the Crew Dragon spacecraft is that it looks more modern than what astronauts are used to. While the Russian Soyuz capsule, which is currently the only way to get to the International Space Station (ISS), has a ton of buttons and dials, SpaceX decided to go full touchscreen. A new article from TechCrunch offer some perspective from the two astronauts that will soon board Crew Dragon on what it's like to use the touchscreen, you can read it over here.
“It was on the order of at least 5 or 6 years ago that we went out to SpaceX and evaluated a bunch of different control mechanisms,” said Hurley. “They were looking at every which way of flying the vehicle, and ultimately they decided on a touchscreen interface.”
“Of course, you know, growing up as a pilot my whole career, having a certain way to control the vehicle, this is certainly different,” he continued. “But we went into it with a very open mind, I think, and worked with them to define the way you interface with it — the way your touches actually registered on the display, in order to be able to fly it cleanly and not make mistakes touching it, not potentially putting in a wrong input.”