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NASA Orders SpaceX Crew Mission to International Space Station
- ChuckMcM 11y agoYay, passed phase 1 readiness review. I am a bit surprised they could pass before they have the inflight abort test but hey this is a huge step forward. I keep wondering if there will be a program where a group of 5 can hire a pilot/co-pilot and ride in a Dragon Crew into orbit. Spend the day there, and then fly home. If you are re-using the first stage at that point I can't imagine the cost is going to be more than a few million $ for each "astronaut".
- toomuchtodo 11y agoI'm assuming NASA is pretty confident in SpaceX's SuperDraco thrusters after the unmanned pad abort test [1]. With regards to the second comment, I can find out if you're interested. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_FXVjf46T8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_FXVjf46T8
- rbanffy 11y agoIn-flight abort is a more challenging scenario. If you need to get far from the rocket, you'll have to factor in its own acceleration. The pad won't try to run you over, but an ill-behaved rocket could. Hopefully, the SuperDraco engines will be able to steer the Dragon away from whatever direction the Falcon decided it'd go.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoI don't disagree, but SpaceX has proven (at least, I think) that they can programmatically handle vectoring multiple craft in close proximity with their barge return attempts.
- rbanffy 11y agoTrue. If there is anyone that can pull this off at this fast pace, it's these guys. BTW, if I ever charter a flight to the ISS, I'll have the Pan Am logo painted on the spacecraft.
- dogma1138 11y agoIt's really not as hard as you think off, an ill behaved rocket won't be like a balloon flying around in "random" directions, even if there is loss of vector control at the nozzle the existing inertia of the rocket would keep it flying relatively quite straight. Considering that the capsule still has the inertia from the main engine at the time where the separation/landing boosters fire it doesn't need that much to outrun the existing rocket since it pretty much just needs to get out of it's way. In-Flight Abort is nice, but this is the 1st and only human piloted craft that has it, even if it will have quite a bit of risk attached to it it's still better than the competition.
- lutorm 11y agoThat's not correct. The maximum acceleration of a Dragon mission has been 5G, so if you abort at that time you need 5G just to get your butt off the launch vehicle. You can't abort sideways.
- dogma1138 11y agoThe abort system for the Dragon capsule provides 4.5G of acceleration (human dragon space flight will not reach 5G, don't mix in cargo launches, irrc SpaceX said that the nominal max acc. for human flight will be below 3G similar to an STS launch) and it does kinda abort side ways, as soon as it clears the main rocket it tilts and gets the heck out of the way because it's quit important to be as far away from the rocket as possible in case it explodes (also to prevent any chance of rocket derby catching with the capsule during decent) and out-running it upwards isn't a possible in the long run.
- lutorm 11y agoIf the point is to abort, you can't rely on the engines being throttled down to the accel limit -- you have to be able to successfully get out of any reasonable scenario and the engines running away does not seem unreasonable. (I don't know exactly what the abort requirements are, but the point is just that it's not easy.) Also, during an abort scenario, the aero drag is pushing Dragon back onto the launch vehicle, so you actually need more thrust to overcome that, too. (Although that obviously depends very strongly on the dynamic pressure at which you abort.)
- ChuckMcM 11y agoThat was an excellent demonstration, and the static firings seem to have gone as expected as well. I would guess that the in flight ejection is mostly about being able to maintain both an escape route and the capability to execute it during an unplanned orientation divergence and rapid disassembly :-). Given the low cargo capacity (100kg) it seems like the 'trunk' is dedicated to the eject capability. As for finding a space tourism company, I'd be interested if anyone had approached SpaceX with that as a business plan. I would certainly consider investing in something like that given the right team and opportunity.
- karmicthreat 11y agoWell at that point where there is demand for travel into space create a destination station for them to stay at and get more for their millions.
- karmicthreat 11y agoWell at that point where there is demand for travel into space create a destination station for them to stay at and get more for their millions.
- atroyn 11y agoThis might be seen as the tipping point in commercial space ventures. With SpaceX running LEO operations, NASA/Roscosmos can focus on the planets next.
- rbanffy 11y agoLEO is the most difficult part. I bet NASA and Roscosmos will have tons of company up there.
- dogma1138 11y agoLEO by far isn't the most difficult part, not if you are aiming for moon/inter-planetary transport. LEO is ridiculously easy to get too, The ISS is at 340KM, GEO orbit is 35,000 you can put payload in LEO with "amateur" rockets, GEO/HEO is a completely different story, it's extremely hard and you need a heck of a rocket to do it with any substantial payload. Now from GEO/HEO to anywhere else it's quite easy to get because you are pretty much near the escape velocity so it takes almost no delta-v to get pretty much anywhere you want in the solar system, at least as far as getting to a higher solar orbit goes as the closer you get the faster your solar orbital velocity is so using that speed to get even to the edges of the solar system takes very little energy. If we talk about say a mars shot then most of the energy in that trip goes to 2 things, getting to high earth orbit, and then slowing down for a mars capture the amount of fuel needed to do the martian orbit transfer is almost negligible.
- mikeash 11y agoWhat amateur rockets can put payload into LEO?
- dogma1138 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Space_eXploration_Team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Space_eXploration_Tea... Their "go fast rocket" got to about half the altitude of Sputnik so if you got the cash you don't need to scale "go fast rocket" up by that much to put a cube-sat / micro-satellite up there.
- soperj 11y agoI've been out of the loop. Has SpaceX flown any more rockets since their rocket blew up?
- agildehaus 11y agoNo. Return to flight is scheduled for early December (ORBCOMM OG2). Specific time has not been announced yet.
- soperj 11y agoThanks.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoStage 1 is at the cape: https://twitter.com/Marc944Marc/status/667708558235066368 https://twitter.com/Marc944Marc/status/667708558235066368
- SCAQTony 11y agoSo far, SpaceX has completed 23 launches of both its Falcon 1 & currently active Falcon 9 rocket: http://spacexstats.com/previous.php http://spacexstats.com/previous.php They have had two failures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches#Launch_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He... Out of 25 launches is that a safe enough success rate?
- the8472 11y agoIs 25 a sufficient sample size?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mikeash 11y agoBut this is space flight, not sex with some celebrity. It's worth far more risk.
- rbanffy 11y agoI don't think anyone expects to strapping oneself to a rocket that packs the energy potential of a not-so-small nuke will ever be considered perfectly safe. And remember the failures they had would be survivable with the current launch abort system Dragon has. There was a time sailing across the Atlantic was dangerous.
- avmich 11y agoThat's not very fair comparison for rockets. When people fly in B-747, it also has a pretty significant amount of fuel - and energy - aboard, yet safety complaints are rare regarding that. So the goal for rockets - for now - could be to become as safe to ride as airplanes are. 100% safety is unobtainable, so shouldn't be a requirement.
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- Arjuna 11y agoWhen this mission occurs, it will be particularly historic, because we are at a point in history that is similar to the human spaceflight gap that existed between the Apollo program and the Space Shuttle program in that the U.S. does not currently possess this mission capability. It will also be symbolic for Americans: an American flag was presented to the ISS crew during the STS-135 mission (the final Space Shuttle mission). It is awaiting return by the next mission that is launched from the U.S.
- saganus 11y ago> It will also be symbolic for Americans: an American flag was presented to the ISS crew during the STS-135 mission (the final Space Shuttle mission). It is awaiting return by the next mission that is launched from the U.S. I find it very interesting how the human sense of belonging to a group carries on as we keep, as a society, moving forward. Arguing in favor of, or against it is not really what concerns me, but instead just observing how we change as we move closer and closer to the possibility of having to leave those old notions aside. I guess that's why it's common in sci-fi to have people born in other world have no sense of belonging to the Earth. Probably a lot of the reasons for making it a big deal to return the flag in a US-launched vehicle has to do with PR, but still I can imagine that both engineers and astronauts will be very proud of making that happen nonetheless.
- azernik 11y agoIf we do have to leave Earth-based nationalities and nationalisms behind, I'm quite confident we will find new arbitrary group identities to hold on to. The human tribal impulse is very strong.
- oconnor663 11y agohttp://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/23/we-are-all-msscribe/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/23/we-are-all-msscribe/
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- jacquesm 11y agoI'm surprised they would do this while the previous launch was still a failure and SpaceX has not shown a series of unmanned flights with a reliability as good as what the Russians offered. That would seem to be the benchmark for manned flights.
- lutorm 11y agoAs pointed out in the article, this is basically a direct consequence of the commercial crew program: "The contracts call for orders to take place prior to certification to support the lead time necessary for missions in late 2017, provided the contractors meet readiness conditions." There is plenty of time for NASA to back out if either of the companies don't meet the milestones.
- clockworkelf 11y agoBecause it's all BS anyway.
- clockworkelf 11y agoBecause it's all BS anyway.
- clockworkelf 11y agoHey people this is all bs. There are no humans on the ISS and there never will be. YouTube "ISS hoax".
- satyajeet23 11y agoI can't help but feel, his success is somehow related to how awesome his name sounds!
- kowdermeister 11y agoI came up with pretty cool names before. Not an active ingredient in success :)
- quantisan 11y agoOh, it's a purchasing order. I misread it as a commanding order and thought there's some emergency or something.
- zensavona 11y agoQuick guys, to the rocket!
- peter303 11y agoThree years late better than never. Bush promised 2014 private LEO launches when ending the shuttle program in 2007.