7 ms·
I feel like space is becoming less of a "let's cross our fingers and hope it works on the first try" culture. See space shuttle landing for a typical example.
by joss82 10y ago
I feel like space is becoming less of a "let's cross our fingers and hope it works on the first try" culture. See space shuttle landing for a typical example.
- pasta 10y agoWas it ever? I think millions of dollars doesn't fit "let's cross our fingers". The Space Shuttle had 1 complete backup system and if that one failed another one to land safely.
- eddieroger 10y agoMillions of dollars and human lives. I think things like the fact that Nixon had an Apollo failure speech ready is the exact opposite of "cross your fingers" and more proof that they tried to think through everything they could, including unpredictable failure.
- gozur88 10y agoI agree. Eisenhower had a similar speech ready had the D-Day invasion failed. It's just part of leading any large project that could fail spectacularly.
- throwanem 10y agoThe avionics were multiply redundant, yes. But the Shuttle landed as an unpowered glider. If the first landing approach failed, there was no possibility of another.
- BugsJustFindMe 10y agoTens of millions, hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars, maybe, but I can tell you from experience that single digit millions of dollars runs with "fingers crossed" all the time in underwater robotics. Either your threshold for human indiscretion is just set in the wrong place or there's something else going on.
- cyberferret 10y agoI'm not sure I understand what you are saying here? Are you intimating that they are being over cautious? In any case, I don't thing a supply ship docking rendezvous is comparable to a shuttle landing. As mentioned in the article, the rendezvous can be deferred and reset to another future time fairly easily, and with little consequence. A shuttle landing however, HAS to work first go - there is no go-around and try again, whatsoever. Hence why the shuttle pilots trained extremely rigorously. Even when they used the specially modified Gulfstream [0] (which was flown with flaps extended, gear down and thrust reversers deployed to emulate the shuttle flight characteristics!!) to shoot practice approaches, the pilots were judged on their very first attempt - all follow up approaches was merely working out the kinks. [0] - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts132/100525landing/ http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts132/100525landing/
- joss82 10y agoI was saying that the processes used to be more brittle, at least from a outsider's point of view. I always found the shuttle "single attempt" landing as not cautious at all. What if anything go wrong? Do you just crash and kill all crew on board? Well, I'm comparing apples to oranges actually. See Spacex booster landing is quite hit and miss also, actually. Sorry, forget what I was saying, it's just the wrong things to compare :)
- mikeash 10y agoI don't think the Shuttle landing was particularly problematic. They had a lot of control over the glideslope and lots and lots of runway to work with. I'm sure it's a lot more challenging than the sailplanes I fly, but I wouldn't have any major safety concerns flying on the Shuttle during landing. It's true that SpaceX's booster landings are fairly unreliable, but they don't have to be reliable. They make a bit of a mess when they go kerplooie, but it's no big deal. Lives aren't at risk, and the equipment is cheap enough to lose. The launch was a much better example of brittleness in the Shuttle system. The solid rocket boosters couldn't be shut off or ejected once they lit, so that was about two minutes where there were no options if anything went wrong. Even after booster separation, the abort modes were so difficult that NASA refused to ever test them. The first Shuttle commander said that a return to launch site abort would require "six miracles followed by an act of God" to pull off. Every other manned spacecraft has the capability of aborting a launch at least semi-reliably, and proves it with testing.
- piquadrat 10y agoWith six lives and a $100bn+ space station at stake, I'm quite glad they use caution, to be honest.
- mattshelbourn 10y agoCompletely agree. It's also reassuring that they have software capable of detecting deviations like this because who knows if the astronauts would've caught it. They're already busy with a million other things.
- Shivetya 10y agoI remember their first docking attempt and the excitement of that. What impressed me the most was the fact they had to change the code so the laser spotters focused properly on the right targets (glare? I forget) cargo runs should never make the news, once things become routine people will trust it more. from that base you build out
- wolf550e 10y agoYeah, we don't want a repeat of this: https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4225/multimedia/progress-collision.htm https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4225/multimedia/progress-collisi...
- planteen 10y agoWhoa, that must have been scary
- toxican 10y agoJust as an enthusiast I'm finding what they do rather routine now. The first stage's automated landings were REALLY exciting while they were trying to figure it out, EXTRA exciting when they stuck one, then less and less exciting to me. Still make for gorgeous visuals and are no less impressive objectively, but I'm beginning to understand why people had grown board with lunar landings by Apollo 13.