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Well said. On the other hand, the SLS — having a launch escape system and not requiring sophisticated acrobatics in order to reach land safely — is totally the

by pohl 4y ago

Well said. On the other hand, the SLS — having a launch escape system and not requiring sophisticated acrobatics in order to reach land safely — is totally the ship I'd rather be on.

the_third_wave 4y ago
I suspect SpaceX will have to add something resembling an escape system before the thing gets "man-rated". That system could also be used to protect the passengers in case of a failed landing. It will add weight and thus lower the carrying capacity but they seem to have enough margin to allow for such an addition. They already have the header tanks in the top of Starship, adding a number of escape engines and some explosive bolts to separate the nose cone from the rest of the ship should be doable. Add some parachutes to make the thing land at a survivable speed and you're done - beer coaster calculation style that is.
- dingosity 4y ago
  I think they're using the Starship to go from Gateway Station to lunar surface. So you could add an escape system, but where would you escape to?
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    No spacecraft (except the ISS) has a post-launch escape vehicle. Lunar Starship isn't really in-scope for a launch escape system.
    - singleshot_ 4y ago
      Mercury. Apollo.
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        If you're counting the capsule itself, Starship qualifies too. If you're talking about the launch escape tower, that's for during launch. It's gone by the time you reach orbit, leaving you in the same scenario of Lunar Starship in the event of a failure; in space, but no way to get down.
        singleshot_ 4y ago
        Ah, got it. I was thinking “clear of the tower” is the same as post launch but of course, you are completely right.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Something like the B-58's armored escape capsule, perhaps. Each seat had an armored capsule that could close up, including oxygen and steering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_crew_capsule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_crew_capsule
  - gs17 4y ago
    The B-58 article has an interesting note: > Unusually, the ejection system was tested with live bears and chimpanzees; it was qualified for use during 1963 and a bear became the first living being to survive a supersonic ejection.
  - the_third_wave 4y ago
    I was thinking more in terms of the B-1 crew escape capsule [1] consisting of the whole cockpit equipped with rocket engines and parachutes to push it away from the plane and allowing it to land in one piece. The same could be done with the top of Starship, the part above the fuel tanks. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0TVr0_m34s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0TVr0_m34s
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pmontra 4y ago
  They want to carry 100 people. An escape system for those many people is the same scale of a commercial airliner escape system, which is designed to be operated on a stationary plane, on land or water. Astronauts will be well trained to use it but I think that there must be a lot of openings to let 100 people get out quickly in mid air. Maybe they'll agree that Starship is its own escape system. There is a section about Space Shuttle's crew bailout at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes Before the "Ejection escape systems" there are a few paragraphs about "inflight crew escape system" > The vehicle was put in a stable glide on autopilot, the hatch was blown, and the crew slid out a pole to clear the orbiter's left wing. They would then parachute to earth or the sea But 100 people is a different matter IMHO. Ejections seats and capsule were not pursued, the Wikipedia page explains the reasons.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    It's not going to hold 100 people anytime soon. Airliners don't have an in-flight escape system, anyways.
    - mr_toad 4y ago
      > It's not going to hold 100 people anytime soon. Right now we don’t even have that many astronauts.
  - dingosity 4y ago
    "Abort Once Around" was the name my band used in college for a few weeks before people realized who we were.
    - smn1234 4y ago
      and who are you ?
      - dingosity 4y ago
        We also went by "Human Interference Task Force" and "Angus MacHammer and the Ukrainian Glowplugs," renown in North Texas for our musical mediocrity. We were once introduced as "DJ Control Rat and MC 1000 Inch Buddha," which was interesting 'cause we were completely unrelated to MC 1000 Foot Jesus and played bluegrass.
throwntoday 4y ago
SLS will never reach land, you'll be splashing down in the middle of the ocean, stuck inside a tin can getting battered by waves until NASA can scramble their limited resources to get you. The booster presumably like you will have been thrown into the ocean. Very wasteful system.
- sseagull 4y ago
  This is pretty hyperbolic. In the shuttle era, these contingencies were thought of and planned for. The amount of preparation NASA would do before shuttle launches was incredible, including flying medical and rescue teams to the chosen launch abort sites. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes#Transoceanic_abort_landing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes#Tran... "Preparations of TAL sites took four to five days and began one week before launch, with the majority of personnel from NASA, the Department of Defense and contractors arriving 48 hours before launch. Additionally, two C-130 aircraft from the space flight support office from the adjacent Patrick Space Force Base (then known as Patrick Air Force Base) would deliver eight crew members, nine pararescuers, two flight surgeons, a nurse and medical technician, and 2,500 pounds (1,100 kg) of medical equipment to Zaragoza, Istres, or both. One or more C-21S or C-12S aircraft would also be deployed to provide weather reconnaissance in the event of an abort with a TALCOM, or astronaut flight controller aboard for communications with the shuttle pilot and commander."
  - roflyear 4y ago
    I think throwntoday is elons burner
  - PopePompus 4y ago
    But the real risk the shuttle astronauts faced was from NASA management failures, not hardware or weather.
    - bumby 4y ago
      Do you think that is fundamentally different with, say, Boeing or SpaceX? If you look through all the failures and close calls in aerospace they are often rooted in human psychological errors. The pressures that lead to them may change with different organizations, but they don't go away.
CydeWeys 4y ago
I disagree. SLS is hard-limited to a small total number of launches. Starship is going to get into the hundreds soon enough. By that point Starship will legitimately be safer and more reliable than SLS will ever be able to accomplish, so I'd pick it.
GuB-42 4y ago
SpaceX approach when it comes to safety is to make sure everything that can go wrong goes wrong during testing and lesser value launches, so that when it is time to put people onboard, the issues will have been fixed. NASA is about making doing right the first time though careful design. For SpaceX approach to work, they need to test a lot, with a lot of explosions, so they need to make a lot of rockets, they also need repeatability. That's why they are using assembly lines and mass production techniques. Which approach is the best, I don't know. The traditionally designed Delta IV never failed, but on the other hand, we lost two Space Shuttles and their crews. As for the Falcon 9, it had a couple of failed missions, but it has proven very reliable over time.
dotancohen 4y ago
> On the other hand, the SLS — having a launch escape system and not requiring sophisticated acrobatics > in order to reach land safely — is totally the ship I'd rather be on. Have you ever flown on a Boeing 747, without a launch escape system? That said, I do agree about the flip maneuver. I am very interested to see how that evolves.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
Maybe someone can explain to me why SpaceX lands their boosters? I would think weight of fuel required to land booster + legs + steering fins would be much greater than a parachute or two and a water landing. That weight savings would be a cost savings as well as more payload that could be lifted (also a cost savings). Would the booster be destroyed landing in the ocean by parachute?
- chasd00 4y ago
  it's the salt water, it corrodes and ruins everything metal it touches.
- techdragon 4y ago
  Salt water is bad … evil stuff … they already try to avoid siting on the pad as much as possible to reduce salt spray corrosion from the sea air… even the barge trip back to land is less than ideal… salt water is the enemy of any complicated metal objects… so they are doing everything possible to avoid hitting the salt water and to keep the rocket as far away from it as practicable.

by pohl 4y ago

Well said. On the other hand, the SLS — having a launch escape system and not requiring sophisticated acrobatics in order to reach land safely — is totally the ship I'd rather be on.

the_third_wave 4y ago

I suspect SpaceX will have to add something resembling an escape system before the thing gets "man-rated". That system could also be used to protect the passengers in case of a failed landing. It will add weight and thus lower the carrying capacity but they seem to have enough margin to allow for such an addition. They already have the header tanks in the top of Starship, adding a number of escape engines and some explosive bolts to separate the nose cone from the rest of the ship should be doable. Add some parachutes to make the thing land at a survivable speed and you're done - beer coaster calculation style that is.

dingosity 4y ago
I think they're using the Starship to go from Gateway Station to lunar surface. So you could add an escape system, but where would you escape to?
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  No spacecraft (except the ISS) has a post-launch escape vehicle. Lunar Starship isn't really in-scope for a launch escape system.
  - singleshot_ 4y ago
    Mercury. Apollo.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      If you're counting the capsule itself, Starship qualifies too. If you're talking about the launch escape tower, that's for during launch. It's gone by the time you reach orbit, leaving you in the same scenario of Lunar Starship in the event of a failure; in space, but no way to get down.
      - singleshot_ 4y ago
        Ah, got it. I was thinking “clear of the tower” is the same as post launch but of course, you are completely right.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
ceejayoz 4y ago
Something like the B-58's armored escape capsule, perhaps. Each seat had an armored capsule that could close up, including oxygen and steering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_crew_capsule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_crew_capsule
- gs17 4y ago
  The B-58 article has an interesting note: > Unusually, the ejection system was tested with live bears and chimpanzees; it was qualified for use during 1963 and a bear became the first living being to survive a supersonic ejection.
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  I was thinking more in terms of the B-1 crew escape capsule [1] consisting of the whole cockpit equipped with rocket engines and parachutes to push it away from the plane and allowing it to land in one piece. The same could be done with the top of Starship, the part above the fuel tanks. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0TVr0_m34s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0TVr0_m34s
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pmontra 4y ago
They want to carry 100 people. An escape system for those many people is the same scale of a commercial airliner escape system, which is designed to be operated on a stationary plane, on land or water. Astronauts will be well trained to use it but I think that there must be a lot of openings to let 100 people get out quickly in mid air. Maybe they'll agree that Starship is its own escape system. There is a section about Space Shuttle's crew bailout at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes Before the "Ejection escape systems" there are a few paragraphs about "inflight crew escape system" > The vehicle was put in a stable glide on autopilot, the hatch was blown, and the crew slid out a pole to clear the orbiter's left wing. They would then parachute to earth or the sea But 100 people is a different matter IMHO. Ejections seats and capsule were not pursued, the Wikipedia page explains the reasons.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  It's not going to hold 100 people anytime soon. Airliners don't have an in-flight escape system, anyways.
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    > It's not going to hold 100 people anytime soon. Right now we don’t even have that many astronauts.
- dingosity 4y ago
  "Abort Once Around" was the name my band used in college for a few weeks before people realized who we were.
  - smn1234 4y ago
    and who are you ?
    - dingosity 4y ago
      We also went by "Human Interference Task Force" and "Angus MacHammer and the Ukrainian Glowplugs," renown in North Texas for our musical mediocrity. We were once introduced as "DJ Control Rat and MC 1000 Inch Buddha," which was interesting 'cause we were completely unrelated to MC 1000 Foot Jesus and played bluegrass.

throwntoday 4y ago

SLS will never reach land, you'll be splashing down in the middle of the ocean, stuck inside a tin can getting battered by waves until NASA can scramble their limited resources to get you. The booster presumably like you will have been thrown into the ocean. Very wasteful system.

sseagull 4y ago
This is pretty hyperbolic. In the shuttle era, these contingencies were thought of and planned for. The amount of preparation NASA would do before shuttle launches was incredible, including flying medical and rescue teams to the chosen launch abort sites. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes#Transoceanic_abort_landing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes#Tran... "Preparations of TAL sites took four to five days and began one week before launch, with the majority of personnel from NASA, the Department of Defense and contractors arriving 48 hours before launch. Additionally, two C-130 aircraft from the space flight support office from the adjacent Patrick Space Force Base (then known as Patrick Air Force Base) would deliver eight crew members, nine pararescuers, two flight surgeons, a nurse and medical technician, and 2,500 pounds (1,100 kg) of medical equipment to Zaragoza, Istres, or both. One or more C-21S or C-12S aircraft would also be deployed to provide weather reconnaissance in the event of an abort with a TALCOM, or astronaut flight controller aboard for communications with the shuttle pilot and commander."
- roflyear 4y ago
  I think throwntoday is elons burner
- PopePompus 4y ago
  But the real risk the shuttle astronauts faced was from NASA management failures, not hardware or weather.
  - bumby 4y ago
    Do you think that is fundamentally different with, say, Boeing or SpaceX? If you look through all the failures and close calls in aerospace they are often rooted in human psychological errors. The pressures that lead to them may change with different organizations, but they don't go away.

CydeWeys 4y ago

I disagree. SLS is hard-limited to a small total number of launches. Starship is going to get into the hundreds soon enough. By that point Starship will legitimately be safer and more reliable than SLS will ever be able to accomplish, so I'd pick it.

GuB-42 4y ago

SpaceX approach when it comes to safety is to make sure everything that can go wrong goes wrong during testing and lesser value launches, so that when it is time to put people onboard, the issues will have been fixed. NASA is about making doing right the first time though careful design. For SpaceX approach to work, they need to test a lot, with a lot of explosions, so they need to make a lot of rockets, they also need repeatability. That's why they are using assembly lines and mass production techniques. Which approach is the best, I don't know. The traditionally designed Delta IV never failed, but on the other hand, we lost two Space Shuttles and their crews. As for the Falcon 9, it had a couple of failed missions, but it has proven very reliable over time.

dotancohen 4y ago

> On the other hand, the SLS — having a launch escape system and not requiring sophisticated acrobatics > in order to reach land safely — is totally the ship I'd rather be on. Have you ever flown on a Boeing 747, without a launch escape system? That said, I do agree about the flip maneuver. I am very interested to see how that evolves.

JKCalhoun 4y ago

Maybe someone can explain to me why SpaceX lands their boosters? I would think weight of fuel required to land booster + legs + steering fins would be much greater than a parachute or two and a water landing. That weight savings would be a cost savings as well as more payload that could be lifted (also a cost savings). Would the booster be destroyed landing in the ocean by parachute?

chasd00 4y ago
it's the salt water, it corrodes and ruins everything metal it touches.
techdragon 4y ago
Salt water is bad … evil stuff … they already try to avoid siting on the pad as much as possible to reduce salt spray corrosion from the sea air… even the barge trip back to land is less than ideal… salt water is the enemy of any complicated metal objects… so they are doing everything possible to avoid hitting the salt water and to keep the rocket as far away from it as practicable.