Launch News SpaceX to send privately crewed Dragon spacecraft around the Moon in 2018

[dman]

How bout Herman Goering ?

Springtime for Hitler......?????

 

[K_Jameson]

the AMOS-6 mishap.

Accidents as that happen precisely when you are in hurry.

 

[Andy44]

Well the first falcon heavy flight article has already been built and was scheduled to fly in the spring of 2017 before the AMOS-6 mishap. First flight of FH before the end of the year doesn't seem like all that much of a stretch.

True.

And frankly, given their history, I'd place more trust in SpaceX's judgment on matters of safety than I would NASA's.

Jury's still out on that IMO; SpaceX has yet to fly any humans. AMOS-6 was lost because SpaceX was trying to be more efficient at the cost of risking the payload. That's the kind of risk you can tolerate with unmanned cargo, but with a crew you need to take more time to manage risk. Needs to be a shift in philosophy from unmanned to manned.

Accidents as that happen precisely when you are in hurry.

Yes, and loss of Challenger was also driven partially by schedule pressures.

 

[Kyle]

I must remind you that NASA, and not SpaceX, has sent a space capsule intended for men beyond low earth orbit for the first time in forty years.

You guys trust too much in a single man.

6,000 km isn't much different from 400km when compared to the distance of the Moon. As far as I'm concerned, both organizations have yet to demonstrate any real teeth for their BLEO agendas. Both NASA and SpaceX have yet to fly the rockets planned for these lunar missions.

 

[Hlynkacg]

In regards to Challenger I would append that to say "driven almost entirely schedule pressures" with a bit left over for "by rights the Shuttle shouldn't have been 'man rated' in the first place". Ditto Apollo 1, and arguably Columbia. Point being that NASA has a long history of allowing complacency and politics to undermine good engineering practices and basic common sense.

"Lax" standards rigorously adhered to and enforced are worth infinitely more than stringent standards that are routinely ignored.

 

[C3PO]

6,000 km isn't much different from 400km when compared to the distance of the Moon.

True, if you're talking about distance. If you're talking about energy, 6,000 km is much closer to the Moon than you would think.

 

[Fabri91]

The capsule would only need one supersynchronous flight - Enough for verifying everything works, fast enough for certifying the heatshield and reentry systems. During such a flight, the ECLSS could be verified, the communication system and the navigation system, even if unmanned.

Most other subsystems are already verified during the ISS flights.

The first manned flight could then go straight to the moon. So, instead of launching a commercial payload on the first FH flight, it would need to launch a lunar Dragon.

One audacious test flight before the manned show. That is possible. Slightly risky. But possible.

They should just use a wheel of cheese as test payload, as was done on the first test flight of Dragon:

 

[K_Jameson]

Yes, and loss of Challenger was also driven partially by schedule pressures.

Precisely because events as Challenger, Columbia and Apollo 1 have happened in the past, we should not push our luck with the same attitude of rushing times and accepting avoidable risks.

NASA seems to have learnt this (at least until the weird announcement of a possible manned debut of SLS!). I hope that SpaceX don't experience a similar tragedy on his skin to learn the same thing.

 

[dman]

They should just use a wheel of cheese as test payload, as was done on the first test flight of Dragon:


That's sounds pretty chessy to me.....

---------- Post added at 01:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:13 PM ----------

Delays to FALCON HEAVY were because Space-X was concentrating on
commercial payloads and perfecting the FALCON 9 and returning of the
boosters.

Had no reason to push FALCON HEAVY - no paying customers

Then you had all the accidents, AMOS and launch pad explosion, SPACE-X had
to put everything else on hold while fixing those problems

Hopefully have no more incidents before scheduled test of FALCON HEAVY

 

[Urwumpe]

Precisely because events as Challenger, Columbia and Apollo 1 have happened in the past, we should not push our luck with the same attitude of rushing times and accepting avoidable risks.

Challenger wasn't rushed. Columbia wasn't rushed. Apollo 1 was maybe rushed in general, but even there, taking more time wouldn't have prevented the accident.

All those accidents happened either by taking known risks (Challenger, Columbia) or by lacking the imagination for unknown risks.

The latter could happen to the Dragon. Sure. But the only way to prevent this is to test it. And you can't test for things you don't know yet.

The really high risk for a lunar fly-by is the TLI and the reentry. Unless the propulsion system is modified for the flight, it should not be an issue since it is flight-proven already and should have the necessary DV for mid-course corrections. There are no major maneuvers necessary during the flight, so even a partial failure of the propulsion system doesn't harm.

The TLI is a minor risk because SpaceX has never done such a maneuver. But it should only have small differences to a GTO insertion.

Of course, it needs to be proven that the ECLSS works. The heat shield must show its potential before a human sits there. Should SpaceX use any kind of aerobatics during reentry (Skip reentry), this needs to be certified first.

But beyond that, the flight would be just meat in a tin. Some tourists making a tour around the moon and mostly being challenged by boredom and some amount of space sickness.

 

[Unstung]

Challenger wasn't rushed. Columbia wasn't rushed. Apollo 1 was maybe rushed in general, but even there, taking more time wouldn't have prevented the accident.

All those accidents happened either by taking known risks (Challenger, Columbia) or by lacking the imagination for unknown risks.

The latter could happen to the Dragon. Sure. But the only way to prevent this is to test it. And you can't test for things you don't know yet.

The really high risk for a lunar fly-by is the TLI and the reentry. Unless the propulsion system is modified for the flight, it should not be an issue since it is flight-proven already and should have the necessary DV for mid-course corrections. There are no major maneuvers necessary during the flight, so even a partial failure of the propulsion system doesn't harm.

The TLI is a minor risk because SpaceX has never done such a maneuver. But it should only have small differences to a GTO insertion.

Of course, it needs to be proven that the ECLSS works. The heat shield must show its potential before a human sits there. Should SpaceX use any kind of aerobatics during reentry (Skip reentry), this needs to be certified first.

But beyond that, the flight would be just meat in a tin. Some tourists making a tour around the moon and mostly being challenged by boredom and some amount of space sickness.

Challenger was rushed to launch because of its delays. NASA wanted to finally get the shuttle off the ground and ignored concerns engineers had with basic materials science. Similarly, NASA chose the most expedient option during STS-107, to downplay any possible tile damage. In all three disasters, NASA was too careless over safety.

Elon Musk should not rush a manned BEO Dragon mission and risk crew safety. I expect this mission to be delayed for a long time. SpaceX hasn't even been able to increase its launch cadence to where it should be.

It's easy for people on a web forum to say that sending people to the moon on a free-return trajectory is easy.

 

[K_Jameson]

Challenger wasn't rushed.

It was, absolutely. They wanted to launch it without further delays, despite all risks.

Columbia wasn't rushed.

Columbia was the final result of the policy of "accepting avoidable risks", as said. The launch system had a well known and documented flaw and even though, until then, that flaw had not caused fatalities, it was only a matter of time for this to happen.

Apollo 1 was maybe rushed in general, but even there, taking more time wouldn't have prevented the accident.

I don't know how can you say this with confidence. More time, maybe, would have allowed to discover the flaws in cables insulations, or maybe to rethink the hatch in prevision of the need of a fast escape... and so on. On the other hand, the tragedy has allowed to focus the efforts on safety, and thus retrospectively it had a positive effect. But a fact remains: NASA had over-confidence on himself.

It's easy for people on a web forum to say that sending people to the moon on a free-return trajectory is easy.

:yes:

---------- Post added at 02:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:22 PM ----------

And you can't test for things you don't know yet.

Indeed, test flights serves to find things that can go wrong. If you don't make enough test flights, the risk is to find these thing... at the expense of your crew.

 

[Linguofreak]

All those accidents happened either by taking known risks (Challenger, Columbia) or by lacking the imagination for unknown risks.

Apollo 1 involved taking known risks as well. The crew had specifically expressed concern over flammables in the cabin, but they weren't removed.

---------- Post added at 17:23 ---------- Previous post was at 16:32 ----------

Elon Musk should not rush a manned BEO Dragon mission and risk crew safety. I expect this mission to be delayed for a long time. SpaceX hasn't even been able to increase its launch cadence to where it should be.

The biggest thing that makes me confident of a good result for the SpaceX mission isn't anything about SpaceX itself, it's that the mission was conceived and will be funded, personally, by the crew. Unlike with NASA, they aren't employees of the organization whose crews might be affected by refusing to fly the mission: they'll want to live through it, and if they think SpaceX is being to reckless, they'll back out.

Anyways, a list of missions testing functionality relevant to this mission:

First flight of the Falcon Heavy sometime this summer. (Demonstrates FH)

Falcon Heavy flight with USAF payload, Sept 30, 2017. (Demonstrates FH)

Uncrewed Dragon 2 flight to ISS, Nov 2017. (Demonstrates Dragon 2)

Falcon 9 launch for a Lunar X Prize customer late this year. (Demonstrates TLI)

Dragon 2 in flight abort test, early 2018. (Demonstrates launch abort at Max Q)

First crewed Dragon 2 flight, May 2018. (Demonstrates Dragon 2)

The thing that makes me most nervous is the lack of an Apollo 4 equivalent flight demonstrating hyperbolic reentry. Otherwise, between the above tests and them having built experience with F9 and Dragon 1, I think they will have demonstrated readiness for the manned Lunar mission quite well.

There would be cause for alarm if the above tests slip significantly in schedule without the manned lunar mission slipping accordingly.

And what really alarms me is the administration asking NASA to investigate the feasibility of flying EM-1 with crew, rather than asking congress to give NASA the funding to move up the schedules for EM-1 and EM-2 as designed.

 

[Urwumpe]

It's easy for people on a web forum to say that sending people to the moon on a free-return trajectory is easy.

It is much easier to say it is too hard to be possible or to risky to do it. Who does not want to do something, will always have great reasons why he shouldn't do it.

It takes much more effort and much less laziness to do the opposite.

 

[mike-c]

I do not dare to comment about what SpaceX is doing right or wrong.

Dealing with risk management outside aviation, i like this one ...

very much.
Although lengthy.

 

[Urwumpe]

It was, absolutely. They wanted to launch it without further delays, despite all risks.

Not really - it was already delayed as said. What really caused issues: They did not want to delay launch by introducing a new flight rule. The NASA feeling was, that this isn't really necessary, the subcontractor just wants to be on the safe side for a phenomena he can't understand yet. Similar was the feeling at the thiokol management.

The did not realize that the engineers really understood the phenomena already and knew that this flight rule was important.

There was a strong divergence between the engineers, who understood the technology, and the managers, who did the decisions.

That is something that could also happen to SpaceX, but right now I don't see it. Despite all Elon Musk, the important decisions are always based on the expertise of the engineers.

 

[K_Jameson]

Not really - it was already delayed as said.

I've said the same thing: they wanted no further delays. And they choose to launch the damn thing, although it was strong debate about the risk. This is still a rushed approach. Or ill-advised, if you prefer.

 

[Urwumpe]

I've said the same thing: they wanted no further delays. And they choose to launch the damn thing, although it was strong debate about the risk. This is still a rushed approach. Or ill-advised, if you prefer.

I would call it ill-advised there. According to the existing flight rules, it was fine. Changing the flight rules shortly before launch would have meant delays.

 

[Hlynkacg]

Apollo 1 involved taking known risks as well. The crew had specifically expressed concern over flammables in the cabin, but they weren't removed.

Not only this, but North American Rockwell engineers had also expressed concerns about recurring leaks in AS-204's cooling system and the potential for shorts but it was felt by NASA that the time required to solve the issue would present an unacceptable delay to a project that was already far behind schedule.

My personal take is that, assuming the first flights of FH and Dragon 2 later this year go well, there is no reason to think that SpaceX can't pull off a lunar mission in time for Apollo 8's 50th Anniversary. In any case, I'd definitely feel more confident trusting my life to a Falcon/Dragon at this point than I would the first flight of SLS/Orion.

 

[Donamy]

If Elon Musk announced, he was one of the crew. Then people would be fine with it.