SpaceX Gets Astronauts To Try Out Its Dragon Crew Cabin 84
Zothecula writes "With the space shuttle program now officially over, the United States needs a new reusable vehicle for getting supplies to and from the International Space Station. NASA is considering the Dragon spacecraft, designed by California-based SpaceX Exploration Technologies, to take over that role. The Dragon's scheduled late March/early April test flight to the ISS will be unmanned, utilizing a cargo configuration of the spacecraft. Last Friday, however, SpaceX released photographs of an engineering model of its planned seven-passenger crew cabin, complete with a crew that included real, live astronauts."
60 Minutes piece optimistic about SpaceX (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this cabin designed to handle pressure suits? (Score:2, Interesting)
The seats, particularly the top 2 in the middle, look really close together. In jumpsuits or other normal clothes this wouldn't be a problem as in the photo, but I'm not seeing how two astronauts wearing an ACES, Sokol or some private sector pressure suit could sit side by side in the top seats without one of them placing his arm on top of the the guy beside him. The Soviets already tried the idea of suitless ascent/re-entry so they could fit 3 seats instead of 2 and it killed Soyuz 11's crew - even with good engineering there are too many ways a pressure leak can occur during launch or landing conditions to risk the astronauts life on a single point of failure. Are they really planning a suitless cabin layout or was this just a pure publicity photo instead of an honest test?
Re:60 Minutes, Neil Armstrong etc (Score:5, Interesting)
While I will be the first to say that the congressional testimony of Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernen about commercial spaceflight was more shilling for the traditional launcher builders (Lock-Mart, Boeing, ATK) than about any real concerns, there is a legitimate issue at hand in terms of moving to commercial services. There are examples of commercial outsourcing for government services that fall flat on their face (Blackwater Security... to give an example) where it does work better if they are government employees doing the job.
On the other hand, these same guys shilling for the SLS vehicle are also dissing well established vehicles like the Delta IV and Atlas V, suggesting those vehicles are so unreliable that shipping multi-billion dollar satellites into orbit isn't proof that they can also ship people into orbit too.
I don't think the issue at hand is that spaceflight should be special, but that these two former astronauts simply don't accept the possibility that some of these new companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin have the right motivations to be able to provide a safe and effective way to get into space. There is also the distinct possibility that these younger companies simply don't know enough about spacecraft engineering to be able to compete against the traditional companies either. There are examples of some of these companies having to "relearn" lessons from the past by blowing up rockets or other mistakes which caused a mission failure that the more traditional companies wouldn't have done, so the concern that perhaps what these young upstarts are doing could in the long run cost more is legitimate.
The problem with this line of thought is that it is presuming that the federal government is going to be footing the tab for failures by private companies. Instead, what you actually do see is that private commercial spaceflight developers are risking their own money (or the money of their investors) and when they make too many mistakes, the companies simply go bankrupt. Organizations like Benson Aerospace, Kistler, or "Space Services, Inc. of America" have tried in the past to build rockets and have failed to do so. Indeed there is a big list of failed companies. On the bright side, there seem to be several companies who have learned the lessons from the past and are being successful today in spite of those past failures of others.
Re:Is this cabin designed to handle pressure suits (Score:4, Interesting)
...astronauts wearing an ACES, Sokol or some private sector pressure suit...
I sort of hope they use Sokol suits, or something with compatible valves, making it easier for astronauts to go up in one type of space craft and, if necessary, return in a different one. Of course, the seat liners would also have to be compatible with the ones used in Soyuz, but it'd be nice to be able to switch crafts without having to send up a second pressure suite and seat liner, like we did when we had astronauts switching between the shuttle and a Soyuz mid flight.