I agree with the comments over there. This is ridiculous.
I’m particularly amused by the hand wringing about “space-rated” parts (which is as silly and meaningless these days as “human rating”), and the (completely arbitrary) LOC probability of 1 in 270.
Thank you, Rand. This does indeed look to be another in the seemingly endless efforts by Old Space/NASA FUDsters to throw shade on the new guys who are busily eating their lunches.
Something else I might just as easily have mentioned is the implicit assumption throughout that Old Space/The Government(NASA) knows exactly how to do all this stuff already and all these upstart interlopers are doing is riding roughshod over, you should pardon the expression, Settled Science.
“SpaceX does not plan to completely mature its Dragon seat designs until spring 2016”
Oh dear! Only a year to make any needed changes to the seats! Where’s the cup holder?!
The worries over the crew seats for Dragon are amusing. If they don’t get those designs finalized then there could be increased machining costs and schedule delays? Well what about cup holders? Those could be a shop stopper right there.
It’s not like they need to manufacture 50,000 seats (like Boeing would for an airliner), and they’re not zero-zero ejection seats.
I suggest a stamped piece of metal with straps, but SpaceX will undoubtedly go with something spiffy.
Lots of cosmetically impeccable carbon fiber composite would be my guess.
I suggest a stamped piece of metal with straps, but SpaceX will undoubtedly go with something spiffy.
last I heard SpaceX was seriously evaluating seats from racing cars. Sounds kind of funny, but I appreciate the extensive real world experience behind the seats.
As an engineer, that is the FIRST place I would look. Think about how many engineering hours have been dumped into making car seats verses the number or hours developing space craft seats. I’ll guess that they have spent millions of man years over the last 100 years vs. a few 100 thousand hours over the last 50 years. Heck, if I was Space X, I’d sub contract that out to a company that does just car seating.
But race car seats aren’t designed to withstand the loads and stresses of zero-G.
Oh wait…
Good idea so long as they don’t use seats from Nascar or Indy-type cars. The seats in those babies only support your right ass cheek.
This sounds a bit like someone is making a mountain out of mole hill. So they had some CDR action items. Big deal. So they are proceeding at risk. (although it looks like SX is in a better spot:
-SX: We don’t know exactly how we are going to bolt in our chairs.
-Boeing: We don’t know exactly what parts to put into our life support system.
One of those seems a bit more risky to me.
“Space rated” What does that even mean?
I’ve never worked on NASA crap so I’m not sure what they are looking for but I do know there is already document that tells you how to environmentally test components. (Mil-Std-1540 or SMC-S-016) That should make sure your stuff will work in space. Sure it is expensive to test all your sub components, to those levels but not something that should break the bank. There is nothing magical about designs that have flown before, nor is there anything bad about COTS. If COTS parts pass a 1540 test then they are good enough to fly.
LOC? HA didn’t the Space Shuttle pass their 1:270 but only actually performed at something like 1:50? I’d say they should fire anyone that brings up LOC.
I think it’s a hoot that SpaceX has been paid about half of what Boeing has, and has actually flown Dragons into orbit and back 7 times, and conducted a pad abort test, while Boeing has yet to produce more than a mockup.
But it’s the safest mockup ever.
But Boeing’s capsule will have tray tables.
Wait until they actually launch them with Atlas Vs…
The FUD is strong with this one!
Truth is, no matter what the probability calculations say, there will almost surely be bad days when unknown-unknowns or weak-signal events bite a flight in the rear. Either stay in bed or be a real ma–er, wo–, er, crew member and climb on top of the rocket.
On that 1 in 270 part, I read Larry J’s comment at the link regarding fueling. He brings up something I saw often at NASA: a greater concern for the life of any crew member over that of any given person supporting the mission.
Even if you take a view that some in society are more important than others, if you saw the decisions made on that basis, you often found people making awful decisions.
Which is safer, an unfuelled rocket or one loaded with propellant? Obviously, the unfuelled one is safer. Getting the crew safely on board, clearing the pad crew, arming the LES, and then fuelling the rocket makes perfect sense. Why they’d believe that the reverse is true is hard to understand. Just because they’ve always done things the more dangerous way, that’s no reason why they should continue that way.
Indeed, and the zero-zero abort system will likely be fueled whether the booster is fueled or not. So if something was going wrong, the crew would have a chance. The ground support personnel can only run to the buckets… yeah that’s not going to happen.
Pad rats lives matter!
Oh, so I see that the announcement that neither SpaceX nor Boeing will be flying with crew in December as planned hasn’t filtered down to here. Right now the schedule for the remaining milestones is so unrealistic that we probably won’t see crew on either vehicle until 2018.
Also, you wouldn’t believe what we’ve heard about the seats.
Also, you wouldn’t believe what we’ve heard about the seats.
Try us.
The latest info seems to be that SpaceX will do an unmanned flight in May 2017 and Boeing about a month later. Crewed missions are planned for August/October 2017 respectively. Of course, there are lies, damned lies, and launch forecasts.
But when you are at say, 60 successful flights, wouldn’t saying you your expectation of 1 failure in 200 be, from a practical perspective on an evolving design, almost as good as saying 1 in 270?
No man. Don’t you see? This criterion goes all the way to 270!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOO5S4vxi0o