5 ms·

Back when I worked on cargo dragon, there were definitely some coworkers crazy enough to ride C1 up for a few orbits if it were allowed. They would have been fi

Back when I worked on cargo dragon, there were definitely some coworkers crazy enough to ride C1 up for a few orbits if it were allowed. They would have been fine with just a couple seatbelt straps too...

WalterBright 6y ago
> crazy enough It's probably less risky than the first flight of the 1903 Wright Flyer. (The Flyer was highly unstable and could barely be controlled.) Modern notions of risk have changed quite a bit in the last century.
- sgtnoodle 6y ago
  I dunno, I'd say it's rational for someone to be weary of joyriding in the first flight of a space capsule only designed to fly for three orbits. It's pretty common to define risk as probability multiplied by severity. The wright flyer flew about 30mph 8ft off the ground. Death would certainly have been possible, but unlikely. I could imagine someone walking away from a crash. Moderate probability of crash, moderate severity injury. Moderate risk. C1 was the first flight of an early prototype (over a year before it was ready to fly a mission longer than 3 orbits). It was launched on a rocket with maybe half a dozen flights? Rocket fails: death. Payload separation fails: death. Pressure vessel fails: death. Propulsion system fails: death. Heat shield fails: death. Parachute fails: death. Moderate probability of failure, very high severity of injury. High risk.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    > unlikely The pilots laid prone and head first. An auger in meant they'd go head first into the ground. I don't think there was a harness or anything to prevent that. The Wrights were actually terrified of a nosedive into the ground, which is why they put the stabilizer out front. This made it much more responsive to pitch commands. Ironically, this was also the source of the pitch instability, making an abrupt nosedive more likely.
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      Curtis started out making airplanes by copying the Wright designs, including putting a stabilizer in a fixed position in front. Amateurs would buy his airplanes and race them. One racer crashed into a fence and damaged the forward stabilizer. In a hurry to rejoin the race, he simply sawed it off and took off. He found the airplane flew faster and better without it. He transmitted this to Curtis after the race, who promptly pulled the stabilizer off all his airplanes that were in production. And thus, the forward stabilizer disappeared.
- generj 6y ago
  Honestly some straps inside the already pressurized capsule + some CO2 filtering and Crew Dragon 1 is probably much less risky than most of the early human space flights. We forget how many astronauts and cosmonauts died in the early days (especially if you include pilots of high altitude test flights which tested many concepts later used in the space programs). There were many additional close calls on either side, averted only by skilled test pilots, ground controllers, and luck. Cargo Dragon 1 didn't have a Launch Escape System but was otherwise pretty safe. CRS-7 is an exception, and even then if the flight software had been written to deploy parachutes, probably survivable. CRS-2 had issues with thrusters but not life-threatening ones. Gemini and the Shuttle programs also didn't have LES - Gemini had simple ejector seats and the Shuttle had...nothing after the first test missions removed the ejector seats. I'd argue Crew Dragon was safer than the first few Shuttle launches as well - the first flights had a 1 in 9 chance of failure. Landing the Shuttle wasn't difficult but had to be successful - other options were trying to ditch in the ocean or using ejection seats on the earliest flights. Some abort options were almost certainly hopeless. STS-1 had massive issues which could have lead to a safety problem. Losing only 2 flights in the STS program is somewhat of a miracle. Falcon 9 now has a higher reliability estimate than STS - 0.99 vs. 0.97 [0] Earlier on in the Falcon 9 program the point estimate was lower - but so too would have been STS's, especially right after Challenger. [0] http://spacelaunchreport.com/log2020.html http://spacelaunchreport.com/log2020.html See ACTIVE LAUNCH VEHICLE RELIABILITY STATISTICS and RETIRED LAUNCH VEHICLE RELIABILITY STATISTICS
  - sgtnoodle 6y ago
    For sure. Cargo dragon on falcon 9 is a solid combo compared to the space shuttle. I wouldn't say that C1 was low risk (for a human to joyride in), though. Probably less risky than the first shuttle launch, but that's a pretty low bar based on how the shuttle was developed. C1 was designed, validated and launched for the purpose of flying a few orbits with a wheel of cheese in it. It was an early test flight long before cargo dragon was complete. Likewise, crew dragon's first manned flight was likely way lower risk than probably any shuttle mission. It largely benefited from all the learnings from cargo dragon and a lot of practical testing though.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  The difference would be public fallout in case of a death. That would be really crazy, not the risk for the person involved. In 1903, there was no radio, no TV, people would not learn about someone killed in his own contraption or boarding a risky prototype. Maximally as a short notice on sixth page of a newspaper. There was also no competing industry. In 2021, the outrage of seeing somebody killed on video because a new ship failed would be enough to stop the program for years. Musk detractors who hate his entire style and persona would feel instantly vindicated - "see, this abominable billionare finally killed somebody, as we prophecied since 2002!". THe competition (ULA) would do its utmost to bury SpaceX under tons of papers and years of investigation, because their cheap flights are eating into Boeing et al. sacred territory. And I think that would happen even if that person on board was not just volunteer, but an illegal stowaway.
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    > see, this abominable billionare finally killed somebody, as we prophecied since 2002!" Technically, Tesla's irresponsible so-called "autopilot" has already killed a handful of people, but generally the public has not been upset about it. [Accounting here (not all were killed by autopilot): https://www.tesladeaths.com/ https://www.tesladeaths.com/]
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      This is true, but we are much more desensitized against carnage on the roads. There is a fantastic line in Neil Gaiman's American Gods: “There were car gods there: a powerful, serious-faced contingent, with blood on their black gloves and on their chrome teeth: recipients of human sacrifice on a scale undreamed-of since the Aztecs.”
- vannevar 6y ago
  NASA pegs the risk of loss of crew for the Dragon at 1 in 276 (https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spacex-crew-dragon-loss-crew-mission-failure-chances-probability-2020-5); https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spacex-crew-dragon-loss... the demonstrated risk on the Shuttle over the lifetime of the program ended up being 1 in 68 (2 in 135 launches). For comparison, the risk on a commercial airline flight is less than one in a million.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rpiguyshy 6y ago
what was the work environment like? do you have an opinion on elon musk? whos more right, his detractors or his proponents? i coulnt help but notice that you suffer with an inflammatory disorder -- just wanted to mention that eliminating carbohydrates is one of the most effective methods of reducing inflation that ive come across. dont write it off until you check out the success stories on meatrx.
- sgtnoodle 6y ago
  It's been almost 8 years since I was there. Working on flight software was probably fairly unique compared to other parts of the company. We were critical path for the company more often than not, so there was a lot of visibility and support, and a lot of praise when we hit milestones. Other engineering disciplines often worked harder than us, but didn't get the same praise due to less visibility. Folk at SpaceX are allowed and encouraged to work unsustainably hard, though, and so there's lots of depression leading to burn-out. My manager cared about my well being and it was possible for me to strike a sustainable balance; I had to consciously prioritize it though. I liked most of my coworkers and I'm pretty laid back socially, but a few drove me crazy. We'd play lan games on occasion. The froyo and eventual coffee bar and cafeteria were nice, and most of the company parties at the time were over-the-top. The first 20 seconds of a rocket/spaceship launch that succeeds or fails as a direct result of your work is a notable high. I wouldn't say I know Elon Musk, but I attended meetings with him on occasion, and happened to sit next to him once at a fancy team dinner. I never directly had a negative experience with him, and in all the outrageous stories that I heard both sides to, he seemed to be acting rationally. He's definitely an intense, awkward dude. If there's a problem he thinks he can solve, he solves it; if you say a problem can't be solved and you don't have hard physical evidence, he'll fire you. As long as you act in good faith, he seems willing to move mountains for you if it will help reach the company goal. He has flaws like any human/martian hybrid, so I imagine some of his detractors are right about some things and some of his proponents are wrong about some things. I certainly wouldn't bet against him though.
  - spicyramen 6y ago
    Haha human/martian hybrid
simonh 6y ago
When I was in the military we would use the term "no move before xx:xx", to make it clear how much time people had for preparing kit, cooking up, down time, etc.
KineticLensman 6y ago
The first three man spaceflight - Voskhod 1 [0] in 1964 - was actually in a capsule designed for a crew of two. They didn't wear spacesuits so as to create room and make the additional weight more manageable. The third crewman - Georgy Katys - was actually an engineer rather than a cosmonaut, and was offered a seat for propaganda purposes. Allegedly his presence on the flight was a trade to buy his silence regarding the actual safety of the mission - he really wanted to get into space. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voskhod_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voskhod_1

WalterBright 6y ago

> crazy enough It's probably less risky than the first flight of the 1903 Wright Flyer. (The Flyer was highly unstable and could barely be controlled.) Modern notions of risk have changed quite a bit in the last century.

sgtnoodle 6y ago
I dunno, I'd say it's rational for someone to be weary of joyriding in the first flight of a space capsule only designed to fly for three orbits. It's pretty common to define risk as probability multiplied by severity. The wright flyer flew about 30mph 8ft off the ground. Death would certainly have been possible, but unlikely. I could imagine someone walking away from a crash. Moderate probability of crash, moderate severity injury. Moderate risk. C1 was the first flight of an early prototype (over a year before it was ready to fly a mission longer than 3 orbits). It was launched on a rocket with maybe half a dozen flights? Rocket fails: death. Payload separation fails: death. Pressure vessel fails: death. Propulsion system fails: death. Heat shield fails: death. Parachute fails: death. Moderate probability of failure, very high severity of injury. High risk.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  > unlikely The pilots laid prone and head first. An auger in meant they'd go head first into the ground. I don't think there was a harness or anything to prevent that. The Wrights were actually terrified of a nosedive into the ground, which is why they put the stabilizer out front. This made it much more responsive to pitch commands. Ironically, this was also the source of the pitch instability, making an abrupt nosedive more likely.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Curtis started out making airplanes by copying the Wright designs, including putting a stabilizer in a fixed position in front. Amateurs would buy his airplanes and race them. One racer crashed into a fence and damaged the forward stabilizer. In a hurry to rejoin the race, he simply sawed it off and took off. He found the airplane flew faster and better without it. He transmitted this to Curtis after the race, who promptly pulled the stabilizer off all his airplanes that were in production. And thus, the forward stabilizer disappeared.
generj 6y ago
Honestly some straps inside the already pressurized capsule + some CO2 filtering and Crew Dragon 1 is probably much less risky than most of the early human space flights. We forget how many astronauts and cosmonauts died in the early days (especially if you include pilots of high altitude test flights which tested many concepts later used in the space programs). There were many additional close calls on either side, averted only by skilled test pilots, ground controllers, and luck. Cargo Dragon 1 didn't have a Launch Escape System but was otherwise pretty safe. CRS-7 is an exception, and even then if the flight software had been written to deploy parachutes, probably survivable. CRS-2 had issues with thrusters but not life-threatening ones. Gemini and the Shuttle programs also didn't have LES - Gemini had simple ejector seats and the Shuttle had...nothing after the first test missions removed the ejector seats. I'd argue Crew Dragon was safer than the first few Shuttle launches as well - the first flights had a 1 in 9 chance of failure. Landing the Shuttle wasn't difficult but had to be successful - other options were trying to ditch in the ocean or using ejection seats on the earliest flights. Some abort options were almost certainly hopeless. STS-1 had massive issues which could have lead to a safety problem. Losing only 2 flights in the STS program is somewhat of a miracle. Falcon 9 now has a higher reliability estimate than STS - 0.99 vs. 0.97 [0] Earlier on in the Falcon 9 program the point estimate was lower - but so too would have been STS's, especially right after Challenger. [0] http://spacelaunchreport.com/log2020.html http://spacelaunchreport.com/log2020.html See ACTIVE LAUNCH VEHICLE RELIABILITY STATISTICS and RETIRED LAUNCH VEHICLE RELIABILITY STATISTICS
- sgtnoodle 6y ago
  For sure. Cargo dragon on falcon 9 is a solid combo compared to the space shuttle. I wouldn't say that C1 was low risk (for a human to joyride in), though. Probably less risky than the first shuttle launch, but that's a pretty low bar based on how the shuttle was developed. C1 was designed, validated and launched for the purpose of flying a few orbits with a wheel of cheese in it. It was an early test flight long before cargo dragon was complete. Likewise, crew dragon's first manned flight was likely way lower risk than probably any shuttle mission. It largely benefited from all the learnings from cargo dragon and a lot of practical testing though.
inglor_cz 6y ago
The difference would be public fallout in case of a death. That would be really crazy, not the risk for the person involved. In 1903, there was no radio, no TV, people would not learn about someone killed in his own contraption or boarding a risky prototype. Maximally as a short notice on sixth page of a newspaper. There was also no competing industry. In 2021, the outrage of seeing somebody killed on video because a new ship failed would be enough to stop the program for years. Musk detractors who hate his entire style and persona would feel instantly vindicated - "see, this abominable billionare finally killed somebody, as we prophecied since 2002!". THe competition (ULA) would do its utmost to bury SpaceX under tons of papers and years of investigation, because their cheap flights are eating into Boeing et al. sacred territory. And I think that would happen even if that person on board was not just volunteer, but an illegal stowaway.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  > see, this abominable billionare finally killed somebody, as we prophecied since 2002!" Technically, Tesla's irresponsible so-called "autopilot" has already killed a handful of people, but generally the public has not been upset about it. [Accounting here (not all were killed by autopilot): https://www.tesladeaths.com/ https://www.tesladeaths.com/]
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    This is true, but we are much more desensitized against carnage on the roads. There is a fantastic line in Neil Gaiman's American Gods: “There were car gods there: a powerful, serious-faced contingent, with blood on their black gloves and on their chrome teeth: recipients of human sacrifice on a scale undreamed-of since the Aztecs.”
vannevar 6y ago
NASA pegs the risk of loss of crew for the Dragon at 1 in 276 (https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spacex-crew-dragon-loss-crew-mission-failure-chances-probability-2020-5); https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spacex-crew-dragon-loss... the demonstrated risk on the Shuttle over the lifetime of the program ended up being 1 in 68 (2 in 135 launches). For comparison, the risk on a commercial airline flight is less than one in a million.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rpiguyshy 6y ago

what was the work environment like? do you have an opinion on elon musk? whos more right, his detractors or his proponents? i coulnt help but notice that you suffer with an inflammatory disorder -- just wanted to mention that eliminating carbohydrates is one of the most effective methods of reducing inflation that ive come across. dont write it off until you check out the success stories on meatrx.

sgtnoodle 6y ago
It's been almost 8 years since I was there. Working on flight software was probably fairly unique compared to other parts of the company. We were critical path for the company more often than not, so there was a lot of visibility and support, and a lot of praise when we hit milestones. Other engineering disciplines often worked harder than us, but didn't get the same praise due to less visibility. Folk at SpaceX are allowed and encouraged to work unsustainably hard, though, and so there's lots of depression leading to burn-out. My manager cared about my well being and it was possible for me to strike a sustainable balance; I had to consciously prioritize it though. I liked most of my coworkers and I'm pretty laid back socially, but a few drove me crazy. We'd play lan games on occasion. The froyo and eventual coffee bar and cafeteria were nice, and most of the company parties at the time were over-the-top. The first 20 seconds of a rocket/spaceship launch that succeeds or fails as a direct result of your work is a notable high. I wouldn't say I know Elon Musk, but I attended meetings with him on occasion, and happened to sit next to him once at a fancy team dinner. I never directly had a negative experience with him, and in all the outrageous stories that I heard both sides to, he seemed to be acting rationally. He's definitely an intense, awkward dude. If there's a problem he thinks he can solve, he solves it; if you say a problem can't be solved and you don't have hard physical evidence, he'll fire you. As long as you act in good faith, he seems willing to move mountains for you if it will help reach the company goal. He has flaws like any human/martian hybrid, so I imagine some of his detractors are right about some things and some of his proponents are wrong about some things. I certainly wouldn't bet against him though.
- spicyramen 6y ago
  Haha human/martian hybrid

simonh 6y ago

When I was in the military we would use the term "no move before xx:xx", to make it clear how much time people had for preparing kit, cooking up, down time, etc.

KineticLensman 6y ago

The first three man spaceflight - Voskhod 1 [0] in 1964 - was actually in a capsule designed for a crew of two. They didn't wear spacesuits so as to create room and make the additional weight more manageable. The third crewman - Georgy Katys - was actually an engineer rather than a cosmonaut, and was offered a seat for propaganda purposes. Allegedly his presence on the flight was a trade to buy his silence regarding the actual safety of the mission - he really wanted to get into space. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voskhod_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voskhod_1