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SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

nasa.gov

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Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#591

Post by oska »

dianastamm wrote: post #501
ChuckMcM wrote: post #86

It is hard to convey how "sustainable" this feels to me. For the first time, humans have gone into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture. All of the NASA missions prior to this have an ambience of "uneconomical but useful". Even the shuttle, which was supposed to be this cost effective space truck, turned out to be not even close. And the last thing I'm feeling is the a…

I cringed when I saw the Tesla car though. Kinda cheapened the whole thing for me

Bit of a strange criticism. They've got to drive out in something, why not an electric vehicle? And the spacesuits are bulky and difficult to move in, so the falcon doors on that Tesla model make sense for easy egress.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#592

Post by rtkwe »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #92
haunter wrote: post #60

I'm actually surprised they use a touchscreen interface, and they will use that for the manual docking too! https://i.imgur.com/YKiqIqO.jpg

There are two rows of physical buttons below the touch screens along with a large manual abort lever. The physical buttons are used for manual docking.

> The physical buttons are used for manual docking.

I don't think so, they're using the screens for docking too according to their own site. [0] You can do the same basic task the pilot would be doing during a manual approach from what I think is Waypoint 1 (meaning Dragon is in front of the ISS pointed mostly towards it). You can see the actual text on the buttons here [1] and they're all critical system tasks like power cycling the controllers, aborts/emergency response commands, or manual triggers for things during landing.

[0] https://iss-sim.spacex.com/

[1] https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2...

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#593

Post by ReticentVole »

kharak wrote: post #102

I'm glad that the space age has been rekindled. I wish Europe would do something similar.

Tech in Europe is far behind, because huge sums of money are spent on pensions and welfare, supported by huge taxes on income and consumption.

Plus, the continent speaks 20+ different languages.

There is no room or encouragement for individual entrepreneurs like Elon Musk. They are regulated and taxed to death.

Europe faces labor shortages in farms and factories, and their solution has been to import labour, illegally, from the 3rd world - to the detriment of their local population and societies. They are anti-tech, at a fundamental level.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#594

Post by kenneth »

Chathamization wrote: post #510
Rebelgecko wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about the intricacies of asteroid mining, but human beings are very capable entities. As great as machines like the Mars rovers are, there's no comparison. A human astronaut could probably accomplish as much in a week as a Mars rover can in a year. When I was reading the daily diaries of one of the rover drivers, it was incredible how much effort and thought went into the most trivial activities. A…

> A human astronaut could probably accomplish as much in a week as a Mars rover can in a year. The estimates I've seen for a human mission to Mars are about 100-500 times the budget for Curiosity. So even if astronauts could accomplish things 52X faster (and I'm skeptical they would), it still wouldn't be as cost efficient. And that's even before you factor in the fact that the Mars Rover is going to be doing work on…

We (well, Europeans) explored the earth when it looked quite similar to space exploration today. Year-long journeys with very little chance of survival, and no idea what was waiting on the other side. We ended up making some amazing discoveries (the new worlds) that turned out to be of vast economical benefits. Who says space exploration can't be similar.

(Yes, there is a lot of controversy over colonialism that I won't get into here.)

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#595

Post by irrational »

sandworm101 wrote: post #160
ChuckMcM wrote: post #86

It is hard to convey how "sustainable" this feels to me. For the first time, humans have gone into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture. All of the NASA missions prior to this have an ambience of "uneconomical but useful". Even the shuttle, which was supposed to be this cost effective space truck, turned out to be not even close. And the last thing I'm feeling is the a…

>> into orbit in a spacecraft that was designed from the ground up to be a commercial venture. If we are talking pure commercial travel, it is a vehicle without a destination. The ISS is definitely not a commercial project. There are lots of reasons for the ISS to exist, and they have changed over time, but it has never been a money-making venture. While the dragons certainly do come in under budget, they are a more…

I thought mining was the big commercial reason to launch people into space.

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#596

Post by jhgb »

dleslie wrote: post #475
catalogia wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the comparison between Elon Musk and Henry Ford starts to break down a bit towards the end of your comment. Elon Musk tweets plenty I don't like, but he's far from a Nazi.

This is definitely a hindsight is 20/20 moment. In an age where radio was new, where televisions were even newer, where transcontinental news took hours, days or even weeks to travel, the knowledge that the Nazis were engaging in mass murder was not readily available. When allied troops liberated the concentration camps they filmed everything that they saw because they were concerned that without footage no one would…

Wait, are you saying that people didn't notice that Nazis were mass-killing people until 1945? What had they been doing since 1939?

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#597

Post by rtkwe »

justin66 wrote: post #491
Rebelgecko wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the Hamilton Standard suit for EVAs? I don't think the ones they wore today are comparable, they're more of a replacement for the "pumpkin suits"

I thought they were both designed by Hamilton Standard. If not, my bad. I don't think I'd want to stick up for any of the older suits as being aesthetically, or much more importantly, functionally, being as good as they should have been. Of all the possible critiques of SpaceX, an attack on the new space suits is a genuinely weird one.

I don't know it might just be that it's different from any other suit but it looks like they got stuck between wanting a more modern clean design and the fact that it's real middle aged men that need to wear and move in them and they just look weirdly boxy with the big white expanse on the front and back of the torsos. Look at these for example they're just very square and empty.

It's mostly just that older suits [0] and scifi suits [1] have painted a picture of there being more stuff involved in a suit to break up the expanse of the torso and the back, so they look weirdly plain. I bet they're perfectly fine functionally, and the single port seems like a good idea, but the do kind of miss the mark for me aesthetically.

Also really hope they figure out how to make flexible necks work because this [2] video of them trying to look to the top of their rocket looks so uncomfortable.

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/AC...

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/19/16104004/science-fiction-...

[2] https://youtu.be/rjb9FdVdX5I?t=5819

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#598

Post by rtkwe »

ShorsHammer wrote: post #485
fermienrico wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it’s painted black against black backdrop when the decision to pull it happens in milliseconds level. :facepalm: This is what a Martin Baker ejection handle looks like: https://c8.alamy.com/comp/BJTDWG/martin-baker-ejection-seat-... With all due respect to all the engineers that work at SpaceX, the UI of the cockpit has regressed to the point of pure marketing. Same with the suit design, looks like an awful low b…

> Functionalism Interested what exactly isn't functional about the suits? Most of this post seems to be entirely about looks and outward appearances alone.

They seem to be pretty awkward to look up in at least.

https://youtu.be/rjb9FdVdX5I?t=5819

Re: SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit

#599

Post by jdm2212 »

philwelch wrote: post #318
jdm2212 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SpaceX can achieve much higher profit margins by reusing rockets What I've always heard is the legacy defense contractors are used to cost-plus contracts where you don't make bigger profits by reducing costs. They sometimes don't adapt well to firm-fixed-price contracts because changing the organizational culture takes ages. And also the reality is that they can keep raking in money anyway -- Boeing is in fact coll…

That might be the case, but it doesn't take a genius to realize that you can turn a bigger profit by making your rockets reusable. Boeing isn't even just a "legacy defense contractor"--a massive part of their business is commercial airliners. That hasn't gone well for them either lately. I think the more reasonable explanation for Boeing is that they already have access to ULA's proven launch vehicles, so designing a…

> Boeing just chose a more conservative strategy

That's the legacy defense contractor strategy -- deliver something that checks off the boxes on the government requirement list at an exorbitant price. It's a very conservative strategy; lots of money, no risk.

The problem is that at some point SpaceX started landing rockets and the formerly safe strategy became extremely risky because Boeing/ULA not only has a competitor, the competitor is cheaper. But getting a fat, lazy organization to innovate and compete is hard even when facing an existential threat, and Boeing/ULA have not (yet?) managed that transformation. They've known it's necessary for years [1] but haven't been able to change course.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/03/ula-executive-admits...

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