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Although there must be almost completely different training between the Boeing capsule and the spacex one, ultimately they had a good sync point to connection t

Although there must be almost completely different training between the Boeing capsule and the spacex one, ultimately they had a good sync point to connection to the space station's "international format docking port". An arbitrary astronaut could ride in either, or at least without that much trouble. But LEO to the moon is going to be so different, and the landers were different. I'm sure there'd be no 'standard controller" so you could put lander from company A with transport to company B. I worry more about spaceX's ability to land starship on the moon. Not because they won't get it right eventually in texas, but the moon isn't smooth. I know they will have a plan to deal with that, but getting a few ton lander with 4 legs to not tip over and handle tilted land is vastly easier than a long and spindly and heavy starship - how will they handle that?

skissane 5y ago
> I worry more about spaceX's ability to land starship on the moon. I'm sure they will land it on the moon multiple times before they put any people on it. (And the other choices like National Team or Dynetics would have done the same.) What's amazing is that Apollo 11 landed on the Moon with humans on it the first time. And the Space Shuttle had astronauts on-board its maiden flight. People took risks with human spaceflight back then that they don't any more. Computers are so much more advanced now, you don't need astronauts to fly things. Even the Space Shuttle, technically could have been fully automated, but NASA had a culture of wanting to put a human in control. And a few deadly disasters have changed the attitude around risking astronauts’ lives to become more risk-averse.
- throwaway6734 5y ago
  >What's amazing is that Apollo 11 landed on the Moon with humans on it the first time. In no small part due to Neil Armstrong's ability to act under pressure.
- kiba 5y ago
  Somehow I am picturing only 1-3 tests for other competitors. SpaceX can do this because their launch platform is so cheap.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  The live announcement[0] just announced that the SpaceX bid includes an uncrewed test flight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6BqZrs0x4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6BqZrs0x4E
- mmcconnell1618 5y ago
  Yes, Apollo 11 had humans on the first actual landing but they previous Apollo missions included "dress rehearsal" flights that did almost everything but touch down. It was not just launch and land the first time with people. Incremental steps along the way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_10
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    And not only Apollo flights, but a couple unmanned probes that did landings.
    - m4rtink 5y ago
      Yep, Surveyors were certainly a good test: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_program There were actually theories that Moon might be covered in fine dust heavy landers might just sink in, so one of the objectives was testing that out. And thankfully the theory turned out to be incorrect. :)
- dnautics 5y ago
  To be fair, the capability for autonomous computing back in those days was far more constrained, especially given launch lift costs and the mass of computing, so you had to have humans
  - skissane 5y ago
    What you say may well be true for Apollo. But for the Space Shuttle, even from the first mission back in 1981, most of the flying was done by the computers. There were only a few steps which had to be done by humans – one of which was flicking the switch to lower the landing gear. NASA could have fully automated it, but they made a decision not to. Part of the reason was a culture which wanted to keep a human in the loop rather than having everything under computer control. It was only after the Columbia disaster that they actually enhanced the Shuttle to enable it to be fully autonomous and perform landing and re-entry without a crew. If the Shuttle was damaged and re-entry was too risky, then the crew would shelter in the ISS and the Shuttle would attempt to re-enter and land without the crew onboard – best case scenario, the Shuttle lands intact; worse case, it breaks up on re-entry while the crew remain safely behind on the ISS. They never had to use this autonomous re-entry/landing capability, however.
    - dnautics 5y ago
      That's fair, after all the contemporaneous buran was quite capable of running completely autonomously. (N==1)
      - m4rtink 5y ago
        And not only that, you could mount a couple turbojet engines on it and fly it like an airplane! :) https://www.buran-energia.com/bourane-buran/bourane-consti-reacteur.php https://www.buran-energia.com/bourane-buran/bourane-consti-r...
    - vibrolax 5y ago
      Sorry for not providing a link to the document giving the procedure for automated shuttle contingency operation. IIRC, there was no plan to de-orbit and land the orbiter. The plan was to ease it away from ISS, open the cargo bay doors, execute the de-orbit burn, and orient the vehicle to break up and burn as completely as possible. Of course, the digital autopilot was capable of performing an automated landing. It was always done manually, ostensibly to maintain pilot proficiency and minimize the reaction time should the autopilot misbehave.
- vibrolax 5y ago
  Apollo had a pretty strict deadline to minimize the chance USSR would accomplish the goal first. NASA accepted the additional risk of foregoing more unmanned tests after the launch vehicle flew successfully. And the Saturn V was itself tested all-up. The schedule had a much larger weight than than current manned programs.

skissane 5y ago

> I worry more about spaceX's ability to land starship on the moon. I'm sure they will land it on the moon multiple times before they put any people on it. (And the other choices like National Team or Dynetics would have done the same.) What's amazing is that Apollo 11 landed on the Moon with humans on it the first time. And the Space Shuttle had astronauts on-board its maiden flight. People took risks with human spaceflight back then that they don't any more. Computers are so much more advanced now, you don't need astronauts to fly things. Even the Space Shuttle, technically could have been fully automated, but NASA had a culture of wanting to put a human in control. And a few deadly disasters have changed the attitude around risking astronauts’ lives to become more risk-averse.

throwaway6734 5y ago
>What's amazing is that Apollo 11 landed on the Moon with humans on it the first time. In no small part due to Neil Armstrong's ability to act under pressure.
kiba 5y ago
Somehow I am picturing only 1-3 tests for other competitors. SpaceX can do this because their launch platform is so cheap.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
The live announcement[0] just announced that the SpaceX bid includes an uncrewed test flight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6BqZrs0x4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6BqZrs0x4E
mmcconnell1618 5y ago
Yes, Apollo 11 had humans on the first actual landing but they previous Apollo missions included "dress rehearsal" flights that did almost everything but touch down. It was not just launch and land the first time with people. Incremental steps along the way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_10
- rbanffy 5y ago
  And not only Apollo flights, but a couple unmanned probes that did landings.
  - m4rtink 5y ago
    Yep, Surveyors were certainly a good test: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_program There were actually theories that Moon might be covered in fine dust heavy landers might just sink in, so one of the objectives was testing that out. And thankfully the theory turned out to be incorrect. :)
dnautics 5y ago
To be fair, the capability for autonomous computing back in those days was far more constrained, especially given launch lift costs and the mass of computing, so you had to have humans
- skissane 5y ago
  What you say may well be true for Apollo. But for the Space Shuttle, even from the first mission back in 1981, most of the flying was done by the computers. There were only a few steps which had to be done by humans – one of which was flicking the switch to lower the landing gear. NASA could have fully automated it, but they made a decision not to. Part of the reason was a culture which wanted to keep a human in the loop rather than having everything under computer control. It was only after the Columbia disaster that they actually enhanced the Shuttle to enable it to be fully autonomous and perform landing and re-entry without a crew. If the Shuttle was damaged and re-entry was too risky, then the crew would shelter in the ISS and the Shuttle would attempt to re-enter and land without the crew onboard – best case scenario, the Shuttle lands intact; worse case, it breaks up on re-entry while the crew remain safely behind on the ISS. They never had to use this autonomous re-entry/landing capability, however.
  - dnautics 5y ago
    That's fair, after all the contemporaneous buran was quite capable of running completely autonomously. (N==1)
    - m4rtink 5y ago
      And not only that, you could mount a couple turbojet engines on it and fly it like an airplane! :) https://www.buran-energia.com/bourane-buran/bourane-consti-reacteur.php https://www.buran-energia.com/bourane-buran/bourane-consti-r...
  - vibrolax 5y ago
    Sorry for not providing a link to the document giving the procedure for automated shuttle contingency operation. IIRC, there was no plan to de-orbit and land the orbiter. The plan was to ease it away from ISS, open the cargo bay doors, execute the de-orbit burn, and orient the vehicle to break up and burn as completely as possible. Of course, the digital autopilot was capable of performing an automated landing. It was always done manually, ostensibly to maintain pilot proficiency and minimize the reaction time should the autopilot misbehave.
vibrolax 5y ago
Apollo had a pretty strict deadline to minimize the chance USSR would accomplish the goal first. NASA accepted the additional risk of foregoing more unmanned tests after the launch vehicle flew successfully. And the Saturn V was itself tested all-up. The schedule had a much larger weight than than current manned programs.