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Excellent news! Thank you NASA for making the right human and engineering decision. This was news to me tho, "and Dragon-specific spacesuits for Wilmore and Wi

Excellent news! Thank you NASA for making the right human and engineering decision. This was news to me tho, "and Dragon-specific spacesuits for Wilmore and Williams." The spacesuits are specific to the vehicle? Changing my underwear so I can drive to hardware store.

marssaxman 2y ago
Don't spacesuits typically have some umbilical connection to the capsule life support systems? It's easy to imagine that these connectors might not be standardized between different capsules, and that sending up a new space suit might be easier than designing an adapter.
- sitkack 2y ago
  927! We are literally building the future, HTF do we keep getting into these situations?
  - yhvh 2y ago
    Efficiency
  - marssaxman 2y ago
    What does "927" mean?
    - fouronnes3 2y ago
      927 is a noun at this point to me. Hell so many xkcd could be: 1319, 936, 2347. It's crazy how often referencing a xkcd is the highest signal to noise way of communicating a concept.
      - marssaxman 2y ago
        I guess that's a real S5:E2 experience.
        genewitch 2y ago
        there's a joke that goes something like A group of professors liked jokes, but got tired of hearing the same ones, so they started numbering them. So instead of telling a joke or funny observation when something happened, they'd say "112" and the others would laugh. or "64", more laughter. One day they get a new prof on their team and after a few weeks of this number, laugh, number, laugh, during a meeting, the new guy says "-149". There's dead silence for a while. The eldest prof starts laughing, "i've never heard that one!"
        ramses0 2y ago
        The new guy thinks he's got the hang of it and says "112" at lunch the next day. Silence... "it's all in the delivery, man!"
      - fragmede 2y ago
        those are good ones. 386, 303, 979, and 1053 also come to mind.
      - Kim_Bruning 2y ago
        XKCD as a new (pattern) language you say? At least it's more pithy than "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra".
  - userbinator 2y ago
    https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- bewaretheirs 2y ago
  Easy to imagine but there are so many details to nail down that it's hard to do in practice. In the words of someone in the industry who tends to be on the laconic side: "It is not as simple as a 'common connector'. There are different pressures, mixture ratios, comm gear, seat interfaces, etc. A requirement for commonality flows requirements upstream to the suit, seat and spacecraft. " https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=60593.msg2618370#msg2618370 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=60593.msg2...
  - marssaxman 2y ago
    I meant it the other way around - incompatibility is the easy-to-imagine default! In absence of some heavily-funded, top-down, NASA-driven standards-development process, no such thing as a standard spacesuit connection should be expected to exist.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Some where recently, I read something about this being an accepted thing. If you have 2 separate capsules that both use the same connector where there is a fault found with the connector, then both capsules are grounded because of the one connector.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Animats 2y ago
> "and Dragon-specific spacesuits for Wilmore and Williams." Oh, good. Previous proposals included having them return in a Dragon unsuited.[1] [1] https://futurism.com/stranded-astronauts-spacex-boeing-spacesuits-incompatible https://futurism.com/stranded-astronauts-spacex-boeing-space...
- bewaretheirs 2y ago
  I believe that's still the contingency plan in the unlikely event that they have to evacuate the ISS in the period between Starliner undocking and Crew-9 docking.
  - grawp 2y ago
    Yes it is and it is not the first time having such contigency plan. Quite recently there was a Soyuz with crippled cooling and the contingency plan for the American astronaut that came with it was to evacuate via Dragon if there was an emergency before new Soyuz arrived.
- dudeinjapan 2y ago
  Justin Bailey mode
- dylan604 2y ago
  From the press conference today, they stated that there is already an extra SpaceX suit on the ISS. Both astronauts have tried it on, and it fits. They will be bringing an additional empty suit up when Crew launches.
somenameforme 2y ago
I'm unsure of the specifics of the Dragon capsule, but I know that on the Soyuz even the seats themselves are custom molded to each astronaut. You've gotta keep in mind that the capsules are designed for failure scenarios. That includes things like extremely high g force ejections (pushing close to 20g) from a failing rocket, depressurization scenarios, and so on. It all seems a bit over the top when things go well, but especially as we start to up the rate of sending people into space - things don't go well quite often. The Space Shuttle only sent people to space 135 times, and there was a complete loss of life on two of those missions. If aircraft had that sort of failure rate then you'd see a plane dropping out of the sky about once a minute, literally.
- jonplackett 2y ago
  That is quite the analogy. Not sure if it says more about the insane dangers of space or the insane reliability of airplanes.
  - stbenjam 2y ago
    Aviation is insanely reliable. The 777 flew thousands of flights per day, every day for 18 years before its first fatality. It’s why scandals like the 737 Max are so appalling. We know better. Boeing knew better.
    - Retric 2y ago
      Personally I am amazed just what the focus on safety has achieved. The 737 Max was objectively surprisingly safe to fly at the time of the groundings. As in for the average flying passenger their odds were significantly higher to die of something else on the day of their flight than from a crash. But still we know how to do better and things improved. Imagine if we treated each individual car accident as a failure and millions of like could have been saved. It may have involved making breathalyzers a mandatory feature etc, but I suspect there’s a lot more we could do even without that.
      - 2y ago
tmalsburg2 2y ago
How do you know it’s the right decision?
- baggy_trough 2y ago
  Because every Starliner flight has had serious problems but the same cannot be said of the SpaceX vehicle, which is in addition more proven.
- alangibson 2y ago
  Acceptable loss of crew event is like 1 in 250 (can't remember the exact number). They can't quantify the probability of failure, so not putting them in Starliner is the right call.
  - schiffern 2y ago
    Yep, 1-in-270. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Program#Spacecraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Program#Spacec...
    - skissane 2y ago
      1-in-270 is overall probability threshold for a 210 day notional ISS stay. For the journey home from ISS to Earth, the probability threshold is 1-in-1000. Likewise, it is 1-in-1000 for the journey from Earth to ISS. The riskiest part, which increases the probability from 1-in-500 to 1-in-270, is the ISS stay – the extended stay in space is faced with a continuous risk of micrometeoroid damage.
      - cdchn 2y ago
        Its kind of grim to think a trip to the ISS has a 1:270 chance of death just from the unavoidable roulette of getting zinged by a micrometeroid.
        schiffern 2y ago
james_pm 2y ago
The suit is part of the spacecraft. In the case of Dragon, it pressurizes, inflates and deflates at times depending on the phase of the mission.
- schiffern 2y ago
  Exactly this. You can hear it directly from the SpaceX employees who developed the suits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LMwKwcMdIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LMwKwcMdIg
ozim 2y ago
I think you underestimate space travel to space station. Well it seems like it is routine thing now and spacex seems like routinely launches without a flaw. But going up there and making it back is still huge feat that is possible only by collaboration of huge numbers of super experienced and highly trained professionals. I am going a bit over the top - but still travel even to low earth orbit is something far outside of any human being reach - on his own or his group of buddies.
lostlogin 2y ago
> Changing my underwear so I can drive to hardware store. If there was a fair chance I’d die on the trip, damn straight if be in my super hero undies too.
- sitkack 2y ago
  For years I would fly with Sponge Bob Squarepants themed underwear so in the infinitesimal chance of a catastrophe someone cleaning up the wreck might get a chuckle.

marssaxman 2y ago

Don't spacesuits typically have some umbilical connection to the capsule life support systems? It's easy to imagine that these connectors might not be standardized between different capsules, and that sending up a new space suit might be easier than designing an adapter.

sitkack 2y ago
927! We are literally building the future, HTF do we keep getting into these situations?
- yhvh 2y ago
  Efficiency
- marssaxman 2y ago
  What does "927" mean?
  - fouronnes3 2y ago
    927 is a noun at this point to me. Hell so many xkcd could be: 1319, 936, 2347. It's crazy how often referencing a xkcd is the highest signal to noise way of communicating a concept.
    - marssaxman 2y ago
      I guess that's a real S5:E2 experience.
      - genewitch 2y ago
        there's a joke that goes something like A group of professors liked jokes, but got tired of hearing the same ones, so they started numbering them. So instead of telling a joke or funny observation when something happened, they'd say "112" and the others would laugh. or "64", more laughter. One day they get a new prof on their team and after a few weeks of this number, laugh, number, laugh, during a meeting, the new guy says "-149". There's dead silence for a while. The eldest prof starts laughing, "i've never heard that one!"
        ramses0 2y ago
        The new guy thinks he's got the hang of it and says "112" at lunch the next day. Silence... "it's all in the delivery, man!"
    - fragmede 2y ago
      those are good ones. 386, 303, 979, and 1053 also come to mind.
    - Kim_Bruning 2y ago
      XKCD as a new (pattern) language you say? At least it's more pithy than "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra".
- userbinator 2y ago
  https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
bewaretheirs 2y ago
Easy to imagine but there are so many details to nail down that it's hard to do in practice. In the words of someone in the industry who tends to be on the laconic side: "It is not as simple as a 'common connector'. There are different pressures, mixture ratios, comm gear, seat interfaces, etc. A requirement for commonality flows requirements upstream to the suit, seat and spacecraft. " https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=60593.msg2618370#msg2618370 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=60593.msg2...
- marssaxman 2y ago
  I meant it the other way around - incompatibility is the easy-to-imagine default! In absence of some heavily-funded, top-down, NASA-driven standards-development process, no such thing as a standard spacesuit connection should be expected to exist.
dylan604 2y ago
Some where recently, I read something about this being an accepted thing. If you have 2 separate capsules that both use the same connector where there is a fault found with the connector, then both capsules are grounded because of the one connector.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Animats 2y ago

> "and Dragon-specific spacesuits for Wilmore and Williams." Oh, good. Previous proposals included having them return in a Dragon unsuited.[1] [1] https://futurism.com/stranded-astronauts-spacex-boeing-spacesuits-incompatible https://futurism.com/stranded-astronauts-spacex-boeing-space...

bewaretheirs 2y ago
I believe that's still the contingency plan in the unlikely event that they have to evacuate the ISS in the period between Starliner undocking and Crew-9 docking.
- grawp 2y ago
  Yes it is and it is not the first time having such contigency plan. Quite recently there was a Soyuz with crippled cooling and the contingency plan for the American astronaut that came with it was to evacuate via Dragon if there was an emergency before new Soyuz arrived.
dudeinjapan 2y ago
Justin Bailey mode
dylan604 2y ago
From the press conference today, they stated that there is already an extra SpaceX suit on the ISS. Both astronauts have tried it on, and it fits. They will be bringing an additional empty suit up when Crew launches.

somenameforme 2y ago

I'm unsure of the specifics of the Dragon capsule, but I know that on the Soyuz even the seats themselves are custom molded to each astronaut. You've gotta keep in mind that the capsules are designed for failure scenarios. That includes things like extremely high g force ejections (pushing close to 20g) from a failing rocket, depressurization scenarios, and so on. It all seems a bit over the top when things go well, but especially as we start to up the rate of sending people into space - things don't go well quite often. The Space Shuttle only sent people to space 135 times, and there was a complete loss of life on two of those missions. If aircraft had that sort of failure rate then you'd see a plane dropping out of the sky about once a minute, literally.

jonplackett 2y ago
That is quite the analogy. Not sure if it says more about the insane dangers of space or the insane reliability of airplanes.
- stbenjam 2y ago
  Aviation is insanely reliable. The 777 flew thousands of flights per day, every day for 18 years before its first fatality. It’s why scandals like the 737 Max are so appalling. We know better. Boeing knew better.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Personally I am amazed just what the focus on safety has achieved. The 737 Max was objectively surprisingly safe to fly at the time of the groundings. As in for the average flying passenger their odds were significantly higher to die of something else on the day of their flight than from a crash. But still we know how to do better and things improved. Imagine if we treated each individual car accident as a failure and millions of like could have been saved. It may have involved making breathalyzers a mandatory feature etc, but I suspect there’s a lot more we could do even without that.
    - 2y ago

tmalsburg2 2y ago

How do you know it’s the right decision?

baggy_trough 2y ago
Because every Starliner flight has had serious problems but the same cannot be said of the SpaceX vehicle, which is in addition more proven.
alangibson 2y ago
Acceptable loss of crew event is like 1 in 250 (can't remember the exact number). They can't quantify the probability of failure, so not putting them in Starliner is the right call.
- schiffern 2y ago
  Yep, 1-in-270. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Program#Spacecraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Program#Spacec...
  - skissane 2y ago
    1-in-270 is overall probability threshold for a 210 day notional ISS stay. For the journey home from ISS to Earth, the probability threshold is 1-in-1000. Likewise, it is 1-in-1000 for the journey from Earth to ISS. The riskiest part, which increases the probability from 1-in-500 to 1-in-270, is the ISS stay – the extended stay in space is faced with a continuous risk of micrometeoroid damage.
    - cdchn 2y ago
      Its kind of grim to think a trip to the ISS has a 1:270 chance of death just from the unavoidable roulette of getting zinged by a micrometeroid.
      - schiffern 2y ago

james_pm 2y ago

The suit is part of the spacecraft. In the case of Dragon, it pressurizes, inflates and deflates at times depending on the phase of the mission.

schiffern 2y ago
Exactly this. You can hear it directly from the SpaceX employees who developed the suits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LMwKwcMdIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LMwKwcMdIg

ozim 2y ago

I think you underestimate space travel to space station. Well it seems like it is routine thing now and spacex seems like routinely launches without a flaw. But going up there and making it back is still huge feat that is possible only by collaboration of huge numbers of super experienced and highly trained professionals. I am going a bit over the top - but still travel even to low earth orbit is something far outside of any human being reach - on his own or his group of buddies.

lostlogin 2y ago

> Changing my underwear so I can drive to hardware store. If there was a fair chance I’d die on the trip, damn straight if be in my super hero undies too.

sitkack 2y ago
For years I would fly with Sponge Bob Squarepants themed underwear so in the infinitesimal chance of a catastrophe someone cleaning up the wreck might get a chuckle.