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Back when I worked on cargo dragon, there were definitely some coworkers crazy enough to ride C1 up for a few orbits if it were allowed. They would have been fine with just a couple seatbelt straps too...
It's probably less risky than the first flight of the 1903 Wright Flyer. (The Flyer was highly unstable and could barely be controlled.) Modern notions of risk have changed quite a bit in the last century.
I like how they say "no earlier than the forth quarter" in their announcement. Though it may not inspire confidence in a deliverable date, I might start trying to use the turn of phrase at my work.
haha, also, refuse to use any time increment smaller than quarters. "I need to go use the restroom, but I'll be back this quarter."
> This book (a 1982 Pulitzer Prize winner) documents the adventure of the design of a new Data General computer, the MV-8000 Eagle. It is an amazingly well-done portrait of the hacker mindset -- although largely the hardware hacker -- done by a complete outsider. It is a bit thin in spots, but with enough technical information to be entertaining to the serious hacker while providing non-technical people a view of what day-to-day life can be like -- the fun, the excitement, the disasters. During one period, when the microcode and logic were glitching at the nanosecond level, one of the overworked engineers departed the company, leaving behind a note on his terminal as his letter of resignation: "I am going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season."
I wonder how this would all work though. Surely not everyone who joins the raffle has the sort of good health/natural athleticism as a typical astronaut.
From https://www.prizeo.com/campaigns/inspiration4/inspiration4/o... : TO ENTER WITHOUT DONATING: To enter the Sweepstakes for free without donating to the Sponsor's campaign, visit the Sweepstakes Website and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the simple online entry form ("Form"). All fields must be completed. Incomplete entries are void. Each valid submission of the Form earns 100 entries. You may compl…
Here in this thread we saw someone donate $1,000, so that person already has 10,000× the chance of winning of each person who uses the free sweepstakes entry method. :-)
Back when I worked on cargo dragon, there were definitely some coworkers crazy enough to ride C1 up for a few orbits if it were allowed. They would have been fine with just a couple seatbelt straps too...
> crazy enough It's probably less risky than the first flight of the 1903 Wright Flyer. (The Flyer was highly unstable and could barely be controlled.) Modern notions of risk have changed quite a bit in the last century.
It's pretty common to define risk as probability multiplied by severity.
The wright flyer flew about 30mph 8ft off the ground. Death would certainly have been possible, but unlikely. I could imagine someone walking away from a crash. Moderate probability of crash, moderate severity injury. Moderate risk.
C1 was the first flight of an early prototype (over a year before it was ready to fly a mission longer than 3 orbits). It was launched on a rocket with maybe half a dozen flights? Rocket fails: death. Payload separation fails: death. Pressure vessel fails: death. Propulsion system fails: death. Heat shield fails: death. Parachute fails: death. Moderate probability of failure, very high severity of injury. High risk.
From https://www.prizeo.com/campaigns/inspiration4/inspiration4/o... : TO ENTER WITHOUT DONATING: To enter the Sweepstakes for free without donating to the Sponsor's campaign, visit the Sweepstakes Website and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the simple online entry form ("Form"). All fields must be completed. Incomplete entries are void. Each valid submission of the Form earns 100 entries. You may compl…
One subtlety is that you apparently get ten sweepstakes "entries" per dollar you donate, whereas I believe the free-of-charge entry method you linked to only gets you one entry. So your chances of winning would start out at 1% of those of a $10 donor. Here in this thread we saw someone donate $1,000, so that person already has 10,000× the chance of winning of each person who uses the free sweepstakes entry method. :-…
TO ENTER WITHOUT DONATING: To enter the Sweepstakes for free without donating to the Sponsor's campaign, visit the Sweepstakes Website and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the simple online entry form ("Form"). All fields must be completed. Incomplete entries are void. Each valid submission of the Form earns 100 entries. You may complete and submit the Form as many times as you wish, subject to the overall limit of 10,000 entries per person regardless of method of entry.
Hate to be that guy but what's the environmental impact of flying folks to orbit "just for kicks" if this were to become a business
Back when I worked on cargo dragon, there were definitely some coworkers crazy enough to ride C1 up for a few orbits if it were allowed. They would have been fine with just a couple seatbelt straps too...
> crazy enough It's probably less risky than the first flight of the 1903 Wright Flyer. (The Flyer was highly unstable and could barely be controlled.) Modern notions of risk have changed quite a bit in the last century.
Cargo Dragon 1 didn't have a Launch Escape System but was otherwise pretty safe. CRS-7 is an exception, and even then if the flight software had been written to deploy parachutes, probably survivable. CRS-2 had issues with thrusters but not life-threatening ones. Gemini and the Shuttle programs also didn't have LES - Gemini had simple ejector seats and the Shuttle had...nothing after the first test missions removed the ejector seats.
I'd argue Crew Dragon was safer than the first few Shuttle launches as well - the first flights had a 1 in 9 chance of failure. Landing the Shuttle wasn't difficult but had to be successful - other options were trying to ditch in the ocean or using ejection seats on the earliest flights. Some abort options were almost certainly hopeless. STS-1 had massive issues which could have lead to a safety problem. Losing only 2 flights in the STS program is somewhat of a miracle. Falcon 9 now has a higher reliability estimate than STS - 0.99 vs. 0.97 [0] Earlier on in the Falcon 9 program the point estimate was lower - but so too would have been STS's, especially right after Challenger.
[0] http://spacelaunchreport.com/log2020.html See ACTIVE LAUNCH VEHICLE RELIABILITY STATISTICS and RETIRED LAUNCH VEHICLE RELIABILITY STATISTICS
Back when I worked on cargo dragon, there were definitely some coworkers crazy enough to ride C1 up for a few orbits if it were allowed. They would have been fine with just a couple seatbelt straps too...