4 ms·

Amazing stuff. Some screencaps of Musk sitting inside the thing: http://i.imgur.com/U2wkPV6.png http://i.imgur.com/U2wkPV6.png, http://i.imgur.com/KHM0Phn.png

by moskie 12y ago

Amazing stuff. Some screencaps of Musk sitting inside the thing: http://i.imgur.com/U2wkPV6.png http://i.imgur.com/U2wkPV6.png, http://i.imgur.com/KHM0Phn.png http://i.imgur.com/KHM0Phn.png 21st century spacecraft indeed.

Osmium 12y ago
Here's a high-res image of the control panel: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bo0_-6iCMAAmCL8.jpg:orig https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bo0_-6iCMAAmCL8.jpg:orig Very retro chic with some 2001 vibes. Some interesting speculation on the touch screens and vibration damping over on reddit too: http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/26tb6o/dragon_v2_controls/chuavcu http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/26tb6o/dragon_v2_con...
- moskie 12y ago
  The image there shows the physical controls he mentioned that act (if I understood correctly) as failsafes if the touchscreen breaks down.
- MichaelAO 12y ago
  From the reddit discussion: "I read an article on the SLS/Orion. They had a problem with vibrations making screens unreadable. It would have cost millions of dollars to dampen the pod vibrations so the pilots could read their instruments. Then a scientist realized that if you changed the monitor refresh rate to match the vibrations, the screens looked perfectly clear. The million dollar fix was abandoned for a 10 cent accelerometer that adjusted the refresh rate automatically. I see no reason why spacex couldn't use this solution to make the screens useful in the rigor of flight."
  - rbanffy 12y ago
    The SLS/Orion used a solid-rocket first stage. Vibrations were, at one point, risking the lives of the crew. IIRC, a very heavy dampener was added to the original design, further reducing effective launch capacity. I assume the liquid fuel engines on the F9 offer a much less bumpy ride.
    - mikeash 12y ago
      One really starts to wonder at NASA's obsession with solid rockets for manned launchers. I get it for the Space Shuttle, they were cornered and gave it a shot, but surely it's obvious now that it's a bad idea.
      - ak217 12y ago
        The obsession comes from political connections of ATK Thiokol. (I don't mean to accuse NASA bureaucrats of corruption. What I think happens is that NASA and partners come up with a design and take it to Congress for funding. Congress asks for more design choices. Curiously, the design that uses certain contractors receives funding, and the other ones don't.)
        tanzam75 12y ago
        The politics of the SRBs are absolutely disgusting and date back to the original choice of Thiokol in the 1970s. Thiokol won the contract for the space shuttle SRBs because James Fletcher was the head of NASA. Fletcher had previously been president of the University of Utah. He thus had connections with Thiokol, and also with Senator Jake Garn (R-Utah). There were four bids for the SRBs. NASA engineers selected the Aerojet bid, which came in at the lowest price. Fletcher overruled his own engineers and picked Thiokol. Because Thiokol was located in landlocked Utah, their SRBs would have to be delivered in pieces and reassembled at the Cape, using O-rings to seal the joints. The failure of the O-rings in cold weather then killed the 7 astronauts on Challenger. To add insult to injury, Aerojet had been planning to manufacture the SRBs in Florida, in one piece, shipping them to the Cape by barge. Hence, no assembly, no O-rings, and no dead astronauts. To add further insult to injury, James Fletcher was reappointed NASA Administrator after the Challenger explosion! Jake Garn became one of only two Congressmen to fly into space.
        mikeash 12y ago
        "The space sickness he experienced during the journey was so severe that a scale for space sickness was jokingly based on him, where 'one Garn' is the highest possible level of sickness." At least some sort of revenge was had upon him.... Looks like he flew before the Challenger explosion. I wonder if he ever realized how close to death he came on his own flight, and his own role in it.
  - tanzam75 12y ago
    As clever as that may be, it is still a workaround for a problem that shouldn't even exist. Astronauts on Soyuz and Shenzhou do not have any problem with vibrations making the screen unreadable. That's because they don't have a vibration problem. Soyuz and Shenzhou are launched on liquid rocket boosters. Similarly, astronauts on Dragon won't have any problem seeing the screen due to vibrations. The Falcon 9 is also an all-liquid rocket. The reason that SLS/Orion will vibrate so badly is that it uses solid rocket boosters. The SLS uses SRBs because it is required to use shuttle-derived components. The shuttle used SRBs because they were cheaper than the proper solution of designing liquid rocket boosters. This sums up, in a nutshell, what's wrong with the American space program. A budget expedient from the 1970s is forcing technical workarounds well into the 21st century.
    - criley2 12y ago
      You're being downvoted but you're absolutely correct. Even today, in the 21st century, the US Congress mandates Solid Rocket Boosters in all NASA heavy lifters, as a Congressional mandate with strong oversight on design to ensure compliance. The reason is purely political. There is no engineering or scientific benefit to SRB's, not a single one. But there are benefits to propping up SRB companies with NASA purchase mandates that we source ICBM stuff from.
- rbanffy 12y ago
  Their typographic choices are appalling. Microgramma is, obviously, a much better choice for space applications, specially for white-on-black text.
  - loganu 12y ago
    Care to expand? It's not obvious to me what differentiates a space-suitable typeface from others.
    - msl 12y ago
      The document "On The Typography of Flight-deck Documentation" [1], prepared on contract for NASA might be of interest. [1] http://cache.preserve.io/q8grbgyj/56bf2d42b93df82c576f20f05ba8f6aa.pdf http://cache.preserve.io/q8grbgyj/56bf2d42b93df82c576f20f05b...
    - rbanffy 12y ago
      Microgramma is the font used in the USS Discovery control panels and HAL-9000 screens in 2001. edit: Actually, I'm wrong. It seems Microgramma and Manifold are used for HAL's displays, but the panels seem to be set in Futura and Univers. http://typesetinthefuture.com/2001-a-space-odyssey/ http://typesetinthefuture.com/2001-a-space-odyssey/
31reasons 12y ago
This is science fiction stuff. Thank you Elon Musk.
deadfall 12y ago
I did the same screenshot. Blown away by how simple the controls look. Everything is on the UI. Endeavor spacecraft controls: http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4f803e53ecad04f562000035/space-shuttle-endeavor.jpg http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4f803e53ecad04f5620... I understand these are two different machines, but now it feels like we are in the future.
- nickff 12y ago
  To be fair to the engineers who designed the space shuttle, they could have automated almost all of the launch, docking and landing procedures, but they had to please the astronauts as well, and the latter wanted to 'fly' the craft. Some (such as Chris Kraft) have even argued that it would have been better to do this, so that the shuttles could be tested and demonstrated without humans in danger, to verify safety after Challenger and Columbia. It should also be made clear that even when an astronaut is 'manually' controlling the space shuttle, they are only providing inputs to the outer loop of a very complex feedback control system.
  - Someone 12y ago
    "so that the shuttles could be tested and demonstrated without humans in danger, to verify safety after Challenger and Columbia." You could demonstrate, but I don't think it was possible to verify safety with such small a fleet in a decent timeframe. Let's say you accept a 1:100 chance of disaster, and you want to verify that experimentally. You certainly can't do that with fewer than 50 normal launches. That would have taken NASA over 5 years (assuming a vastly sped up launch schedule made possible by the lack of danger to humans) Alternatively, suppose you decide to test beyond the normal flight parameters, and launch a few shuttles with ice on them, a few with O-rings that aren't 100% up to standard, a few in high winds, etc. Even if you try to stay just on the edge of destructive testing, you would run out of shuttles to launch before you know it.
    - mikeash 12y ago
      I believe the approach would be to look for sub-critical failures, not testing to destruction (or lack thereof). For example, there were a lot of O-ring leak incidents in the years leading up to Challenger. Almost every flight had a problem with it to some degree. It just wasn't bad enough to destroy the craft until various factors came together. Similarly, leading-edge damage from debris was a problem throughout the Shuttle program, but it wasn't severe enough to lead to disaster until Columbia got unlucky. Once you were confident in the cause of the disasters, it would be reasonable to mitigate them, then fly a couple and look for any sign of these smaller failures, which should also be stopped by the fixes.
justadude 12y ago
It reminds me of the pod[1] (best picture I could find) that Jodie Foster used in the movie Contact. Well worth watching if you haven't already! [1] http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kncX0RhY9G8/UEsQLfuICsI/AAAAAAAAXRg/s9rzdJH7N-8/s1600/1.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kncX0RhY9G8/UEsQLfuICsI/AAAAAAAAXR...
ginko 12y ago
Keep in mind that it looks like a 21st century spacecraft because it was explicitly designed to look like one.

by moskie 12y ago

Osmium 12y ago

Here's a high-res image of the control panel: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bo0_-6iCMAAmCL8.jpg:orig https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bo0_-6iCMAAmCL8.jpg:orig Very retro chic with some 2001 vibes. Some interesting speculation on the touch screens and vibration damping over on reddit too: http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/26tb6o/dragon_v2_controls/chuavcu http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/26tb6o/dragon_v2_con...

moskie 12y ago
The image there shows the physical controls he mentioned that act (if I understood correctly) as failsafes if the touchscreen breaks down.
MichaelAO 12y ago
From the reddit discussion: "I read an article on the SLS/Orion. They had a problem with vibrations making screens unreadable. It would have cost millions of dollars to dampen the pod vibrations so the pilots could read their instruments. Then a scientist realized that if you changed the monitor refresh rate to match the vibrations, the screens looked perfectly clear. The million dollar fix was abandoned for a 10 cent accelerometer that adjusted the refresh rate automatically. I see no reason why spacex couldn't use this solution to make the screens useful in the rigor of flight."
- rbanffy 12y ago
  The SLS/Orion used a solid-rocket first stage. Vibrations were, at one point, risking the lives of the crew. IIRC, a very heavy dampener was added to the original design, further reducing effective launch capacity. I assume the liquid fuel engines on the F9 offer a much less bumpy ride.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    One really starts to wonder at NASA's obsession with solid rockets for manned launchers. I get it for the Space Shuttle, they were cornered and gave it a shot, but surely it's obvious now that it's a bad idea.
    - ak217 12y ago
      The obsession comes from political connections of ATK Thiokol. (I don't mean to accuse NASA bureaucrats of corruption. What I think happens is that NASA and partners come up with a design and take it to Congress for funding. Congress asks for more design choices. Curiously, the design that uses certain contractors receives funding, and the other ones don't.)
      - tanzam75 12y ago
        The politics of the SRBs are absolutely disgusting and date back to the original choice of Thiokol in the 1970s. Thiokol won the contract for the space shuttle SRBs because James Fletcher was the head of NASA. Fletcher had previously been president of the University of Utah. He thus had connections with Thiokol, and also with Senator Jake Garn (R-Utah). There were four bids for the SRBs. NASA engineers selected the Aerojet bid, which came in at the lowest price. Fletcher overruled his own engineers and picked Thiokol. Because Thiokol was located in landlocked Utah, their SRBs would have to be delivered in pieces and reassembled at the Cape, using O-rings to seal the joints. The failure of the O-rings in cold weather then killed the 7 astronauts on Challenger. To add insult to injury, Aerojet had been planning to manufacture the SRBs in Florida, in one piece, shipping them to the Cape by barge. Hence, no assembly, no O-rings, and no dead astronauts. To add further insult to injury, James Fletcher was reappointed NASA Administrator after the Challenger explosion! Jake Garn became one of only two Congressmen to fly into space.
        mikeash 12y ago
        "The space sickness he experienced during the journey was so severe that a scale for space sickness was jokingly based on him, where 'one Garn' is the highest possible level of sickness." At least some sort of revenge was had upon him.... Looks like he flew before the Challenger explosion. I wonder if he ever realized how close to death he came on his own flight, and his own role in it.
- tanzam75 12y ago
  As clever as that may be, it is still a workaround for a problem that shouldn't even exist. Astronauts on Soyuz and Shenzhou do not have any problem with vibrations making the screen unreadable. That's because they don't have a vibration problem. Soyuz and Shenzhou are launched on liquid rocket boosters. Similarly, astronauts on Dragon won't have any problem seeing the screen due to vibrations. The Falcon 9 is also an all-liquid rocket. The reason that SLS/Orion will vibrate so badly is that it uses solid rocket boosters. The SLS uses SRBs because it is required to use shuttle-derived components. The shuttle used SRBs because they were cheaper than the proper solution of designing liquid rocket boosters. This sums up, in a nutshell, what's wrong with the American space program. A budget expedient from the 1970s is forcing technical workarounds well into the 21st century.
  - criley2 12y ago
    You're being downvoted but you're absolutely correct. Even today, in the 21st century, the US Congress mandates Solid Rocket Boosters in all NASA heavy lifters, as a Congressional mandate with strong oversight on design to ensure compliance. The reason is purely political. There is no engineering or scientific benefit to SRB's, not a single one. But there are benefits to propping up SRB companies with NASA purchase mandates that we source ICBM stuff from.
rbanffy 12y ago
Their typographic choices are appalling. Microgramma is, obviously, a much better choice for space applications, specially for white-on-black text.
- loganu 12y ago
  Care to expand? It's not obvious to me what differentiates a space-suitable typeface from others.
  - msl 12y ago
    The document "On The Typography of Flight-deck Documentation" [1], prepared on contract for NASA might be of interest. [1] http://cache.preserve.io/q8grbgyj/56bf2d42b93df82c576f20f05ba8f6aa.pdf http://cache.preserve.io/q8grbgyj/56bf2d42b93df82c576f20f05b...
  - rbanffy 12y ago
    Microgramma is the font used in the USS Discovery control panels and HAL-9000 screens in 2001. edit: Actually, I'm wrong. It seems Microgramma and Manifold are used for HAL's displays, but the panels seem to be set in Futura and Univers. http://typesetinthefuture.com/2001-a-space-odyssey/ http://typesetinthefuture.com/2001-a-space-odyssey/

31reasons 12y ago

This is science fiction stuff. Thank you Elon Musk.

deadfall 12y ago

I did the same screenshot. Blown away by how simple the controls look. Everything is on the UI. Endeavor spacecraft controls: http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4f803e53ecad04f562000035/space-shuttle-endeavor.jpg http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4f803e53ecad04f5620... I understand these are two different machines, but now it feels like we are in the future.

nickff 12y ago
To be fair to the engineers who designed the space shuttle, they could have automated almost all of the launch, docking and landing procedures, but they had to please the astronauts as well, and the latter wanted to 'fly' the craft. Some (such as Chris Kraft) have even argued that it would have been better to do this, so that the shuttles could be tested and demonstrated without humans in danger, to verify safety after Challenger and Columbia. It should also be made clear that even when an astronaut is 'manually' controlling the space shuttle, they are only providing inputs to the outer loop of a very complex feedback control system.
- Someone 12y ago
  "so that the shuttles could be tested and demonstrated without humans in danger, to verify safety after Challenger and Columbia." You could demonstrate, but I don't think it was possible to verify safety with such small a fleet in a decent timeframe. Let's say you accept a 1:100 chance of disaster, and you want to verify that experimentally. You certainly can't do that with fewer than 50 normal launches. That would have taken NASA over 5 years (assuming a vastly sped up launch schedule made possible by the lack of danger to humans) Alternatively, suppose you decide to test beyond the normal flight parameters, and launch a few shuttles with ice on them, a few with O-rings that aren't 100% up to standard, a few in high winds, etc. Even if you try to stay just on the edge of destructive testing, you would run out of shuttles to launch before you know it.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    I believe the approach would be to look for sub-critical failures, not testing to destruction (or lack thereof). For example, there were a lot of O-ring leak incidents in the years leading up to Challenger. Almost every flight had a problem with it to some degree. It just wasn't bad enough to destroy the craft until various factors came together. Similarly, leading-edge damage from debris was a problem throughout the Shuttle program, but it wasn't severe enough to lead to disaster until Columbia got unlucky. Once you were confident in the cause of the disasters, it would be reasonable to mitigate them, then fly a couple and look for any sign of these smaller failures, which should also be stopped by the fixes.

justadude 12y ago

It reminds me of the pod[1] (best picture I could find) that Jodie Foster used in the movie Contact. Well worth watching if you haven't already! [1] http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kncX0RhY9G8/UEsQLfuICsI/AAAAAAAAXRg/s9rzdJH7N-8/s1600/1.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kncX0RhY9G8/UEsQLfuICsI/AAAAAAAAXR...

ginko 12y ago

Keep in mind that it looks like a 21st century spacecraft because it was explicitly designed to look like one.