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It's crazy the US could soon have up to 5 different spacecraft/launch systems that can take humans to orbit with 2 more in development: Falcon 9 + Dragon, SLS
by fiftyfifty 2y ago
It's crazy the US could soon have up to 5 different spacecraft/launch systems that can take humans to orbit with 2 more in development:
Falcon 9 + Dragon, SLS + Orion, Atlas V (Vulcan Centaur) + Starliner
Close to orbital payload launch, likely human rated in the future: Vulcan Centaur + Dream Chaser, Superheavy + Starship
Under development: New Glenn + Space Vehicle (?), Neutron
- ragebol 2y agoIs neutron to be man rated?
- fiftyfifty 2y agoRocket Lab mentions “human spaceflight” on the Neutron page, that’s the only mention I’ve seen of it. I haven’t seen any plans for a spacecraft for carrying humans or how they might handle re-entry. https://www.rocketlabusa.com/launch/neutron/ https://www.rocketlabusa.com/launch/neutron/
- nordsieck 2y ago> Is neutron to be man rated? Yes and no. It's probably more accurate to say "human ratable". They're planning on designing the rocket with human rating in mind, so that if they want to do it in the future, it'll be easier. But NASA doesn't human rate a rocket - they human rate the entire system as a whole, so it doesn't really make sense to say "human rate Neutron".
- dotnet00 2y agoI wonder how that's supposed to work with their unique captive fairing design. Feels like they'd have to design crew flight specific boosters which don't have the fairings.
- nordsieck 2y ago> likely human rated in the future: Vulcan Centaur + Dream Chaser IMO, this one is the least likely. There are a lot of problems that need to be over come for Dream Chaser to be crew rated. And AFAIK, they aren't getting NASA money to do it.
- sho_hn 2y ago> There are a lot of problems that need to be over come for Dream Chaser to be crew rated. Intriguing. Can you elaborate?
- dotnet00 2y agoIIRC one of the big ones is that of how the crew is supposed to board the vehicle. Cargo Dreamchaser is launched in a fairing so that its aerodynamics don't matter on the way up. This is fine because the cargo can be loaded prior to payload integration. But that won't work if they're carrying crew.
- JanSolo 2y agoStar Liner has all the same problems that the Space Shuttle had. In an emergency, how do you get the crew out safely?
- nordsieck 2y ago> Star Liner has all the same problems that the Space Shuttle had. In an emergency, how do you get the crew out safely? Starliner has a launch abort system; the Shuttle did not. From what I understand, they use a very powerful rocket (much more powerful than Crew Dragon) to get the capsule far away from the booster. I guess it can get far enough away that NASA is satisfied that falling bits of burning SRB aren't a danger to the parachutes.
- somenameforme 2y agoDuring the Starline abort test only 2 of the 3 parachutes opened, and that was a pad abort test - no SRBs!! NASA not only calling that a "success", but a sufficient success to move onto crewed testing was about the moment I lost all faith in Bridenstine being different. Immediately after leaving office he picked up a cushy consulting type gigs for various aerospace/defense companies (aka Boeing et al). Shocker. For those who might not know SRB = solid rocket booster. Boeing uses them, SpaceX doesn't. An SRB is basically like a giant firecracker. You light it and it starts burning and doesn't stop until its done. It poses substantial safety concerns in the case of an accident where you need to abort the flight. But they're cheap, extremely powerful, and relatively simple contrasted against liquid fuel engines.
- hammock 2y ago> It's crazy the US could soon have up to 5 different spacecraft/launch systems that can take humans to orbit with 2 more in development We had a launch system that could take humans to the moon in 1972.. haven't had one since. Maybe we will get another one in our lifetime, if it is even possible.
- picture 2y agoIs there much practical reason that requires sending people to the moon still? Modern robots are cheaper and can perform science more effectively than any human
- striking 2y agoBragging rights (ostensibly "practical" in a geopolitical, soft power projection sense)
- picture 2y agoDidn't we get to brag about it already? The value of continuing to have the capability seems to be outweighed by the costs of maintaining the facilities and equipment
- hammock 2y ago[flagged]
- hollerith 2y agoCan you provide a link? I have been unable to find any report of Putin's expressing such a disbelief. I did find a report that "a former chief of Russian space agency Roscosmos has voiced doubt over the authenticity of the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing", but of course that is not the same thing: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/russia-s-former-space-chief-doubts-us-landing-on-moon/2892170 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/russia-s-former-space-chief-...
- pdonis 2y agoI don't think it's crazy; it's competition, which is what should be happening. We want multiple private companies to be in this game, because that's the only way access to space will ever become practical at any kind of scale.
- eastbound 2y ago[flagged]
- octonion137 2y agoAgree, LLMs cost millions to train and we only have a few, who knows if the next LLM will be an Einstein
- kspacewalk2 2y agoYes, we want access to space at scale. Exploring space is no more "leasure" than experimental physics is a "hobby".
- tonynator 2y ago[flagged]
- pfdietz 2y ago"Ensuring the survival of the human race" is such a remote goal that it cannot be a justification for current space activities. Anything that could be done now would only create a tenuous foothold that could not survive the loss of human life on Earth.
- tonynator 2y ago[flagged]
- pfdietz 2y agoThe argument I'm making is that self sufficient colonies are so far away that building non-self sufficient colonies isn't on the critical path. The basic problem is the productivity needed is enormously higher than what we have now. Today, a large number of people can support a small number of people in space -- and that's with the high productivity we have with industry optimized for Earth (where, for example, repairing things and dissipating heat are much easier.) To make a colony self-sufficient, industry has to be so productive that supporting one person in space takes the work of fewer than one person. And, that productivity has to be in space. Not just building spacecraft and stations, but all the necessary materials and interlocking webs of devices and services that an industrial economy uses.
- supportengineer 2y agoI just want to live long enough to see a ship, intended for long-term use, assembled in orbit.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoInteresting. And I'm thinking I want to see a permanent lunar base but also, "Where does it end?" Humans walked on the Moon in my lifetime. I should be contented with that.
- lastofthemojito 2y ago> Humans walked on the Moon in my lifetime. I should be contented with that. I'm apparently younger than you, and humans have not walked on the moon in my lifetime. I'm discontented by that.
- fullspectrumdev 2y agoSame, I’m terribly disappointed that I can’t simply walk on the moon. Parents generation really dropped the fuckin ball there eh
- nyokodo 2y ago> Parents generation really dropped the … ball there Really probably your grandparents or great grandparents depending on your age. Most Americans born after the moon landings had boomer or gen-x parents. All the men who walked on the moon and the majority of those in high office until roughly the 1990s were silent generation, the GI generation or older. They’re the ones who had the power to keep the space program going but didn’t. Once your parents had significant influence the Apollo program was long gone, the know how to build the hardware was gone, they would have had an even harder time than us rebuilding it because the commercial impetus wasn’t there and we didn’t yet have insane internet billionaires competing for launch contracts.
- jakswa 2y agoI don't recall a ball, but they dropped a feather and a hammer (the gravity experiment).
- pbreit 2y agoOnly possible with the existence of "billionaires".
- aquaticsunset 2y agoIf by that you mean "average people pooling their billions to further advance science and technology", sure. None of this was done in a vacuum of billionaire self funding.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoIs that true? We live in a remarkably gilded age where a handful of people (whose names we all know) cashed in on the Dot-Com Boom. Their pleasure appears to be, for a few of them anyway, rockets and spacecraft. A vacuum of billionaire self funding? Of course not, but would these ventures have progressed to where they are without the deep pockets of some of these billionaires?
- BlarfMcFlarf 2y agoThe funding was from nasa contracts, which is public funds. Someone would have done it even as a consortium of sub billionaires.
- ben_w 2y agoIIRC, Musk wasn't listed as a billionaire until 2012, and that possibly as a result of (rather than cause of) SpaceX having successfully sent cargo to the ISS. People mock him for being bad at estimating how long projects will take… but even if you agree with the critics, he's still the one-eyed in the land of the blind when it comes to space mission project planning.
- adastra22 2y agoHe did self-fund SpaceX to the tune of $100M or so. He wasn’t a billionaire, but that was awful close.
- CHSbeachbum420 2y agoIt's the new billionaire yacht club.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> billionaire yacht club They comment on a thread about Boeing’s Starliner ferrying NASA astronauts to the ISS atop a ULA rocket.
- mr_toad 2y agoI doubt there are any billionaires in Boeing, or NASA.
- dylan604 2y agoFor purposes of discussion, ignoring Boeing is something I think is acceptable at this point. They comment was clearly a nod to Bezos/Musk. Sadly, as far behind as Blue Origin is to SpaceX, I still the less poorly of them than Boeing even after today's launch
- cryptonector 2y agoSLS + Orion is so expensive that it's not worth listing, IMO.
- adastra22 2y agoAlso doesn’t meet the same flight certification standards as the other options listed.
- cletus 2y agoSLS is a jobs program. It's not economically viable at over $1 billion per launch. As for Blue Origin and New Glenn, this is an object lesson that simply throwing money at the problem doesn't necessarily solve it. Did you know Blue Origin was founded ~18 months before SpaceX? For the longest time (up until ~9 months ago), Bezos had the former Honeywell CEO in charge of Blue Origin, which to me was such an odd choice. You see, this guy seems to embody everything wrong with corporate America: he was completely focused on not failing rather than succeeding. So there were constant delays with New Glenn and the BE-4 engine, which is years behind schedule. You can't fail if you don't launch. And the new CEO (David Limp) used to be in charge of Kindles.
- dubcanada 2y agoYou seem to assume a good CEO equals a successful company, and a good CEO also needs to have industry experience. I don't know if either of those are actually true, there are plenty of good CEOs who came from zero experience in the industry. And plenty of bad CEOs who came from plenty of experience in the industry. Both of these run successful and not successful companies. For example the currently Boeing CEO does not have experience in airplanes, came from a business background. And is considered a bad CEO by the average person (though considered a good CEO by stockholders, or at least was before the past few months).
- notatoad 2y ago>You seem to assume a good CEO equals a successful company the only assumption i see is the counter to that - a bad CEO equals an unsuccessful company. and i don't think that's a very controversial assumption.
- dubcanada 2y ago> And the new CEO (David Limp) used to be in charge of Kindles. Seems to imply there is an issue with a CEO of a space company previously working on Kindles. > Bezos had the former Honeywell CEO in charge of Blue Origin, which to me was such an odd choice Also seems to imply the CEO is bad because their previously only worked at Honeywell on thermostats. In my mind none of the above has anything to do with how good or bad a CEO is. Perhaps I am misreading it. In which case ignore me.
- renewiltord 2y agoIt's a really exciting time. Also the Chinese have lots of space going on. Chang'e 5 is on its way back from the moon. Tiangong is quite large now. I'm thrilled to see humanity accelerate this.
- helsinki 2y agoI wonder when we will first step foot on the moon?
- ChuckMcM 2y agoFor me the crazy part is that SpaceX has done 12 crewed flights before Boeing even got their first set of test pilots of the ground. I recall back when NASA was justifying giving nearly twice as much money to Boeing that "because they were much more likely to be ready sooner."
- mattmaroon 2y agoIt's not surprising that people in the largest organization on earth (our federal government) think that way. They are so risk averse it creates its own risk, namely, what if you miss out on one great opportunity after another due to risk aversion.
- throwawaymaths 2y agoDon't forget that for the foreseeable future, until other plans are made, there is a hard mission count limit for starliner, which is the number of remaining atlas V cores. The engines are Russian made and subject to sanction, so nasa could just refuse to recertify starliner on a new platform, so sad, so sorry, and have starliner just disappeae into tte night while saving face fir boeing.
- goodcanadian 2y ago. . . so nasa could just refuse to recertify starliner on a new platform . . . That could happen, but I don't see it as likely. NASA is far more likely to spend ridiculous amounts of money to keep it alive in the name of "competition" or some such.
- verzali 2y agoNASA is keener on having Starliner flying than Boeing is. More likely scenario is Boeing decide they don't want to fly it anymore and they don't bother proceeding with the recertification, at least not without getting a lot more money from NASA.
- adastra22 2y agoSLS + Orion should be in that second category.
- DeathArrow 2y ago>It's crazy the US could soon have up to 5 different spacecraft/launch systems that can take humans to orbit with 2 more in development: While EU has none.
- creshal 2y agoEU cannibalized its one (1) existing production line for making spacecraft (used to be busy making ATVs for ISS resupply) for Orion's service module production. They're not interested at all in increasing their own capabilities, they just want to not completely lose it.
- mattmaroon 2y agoWent from 0 to many pretty fast really.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]