Where we are at right now in Spacecraft development it doesn't make sense to dictate a standard for IVA suits.
Does not having a standard for suit connections make sense in the long run for the space industry?
not sure where I said near or medium termWhere we are at right now in Spacecraft development it doesn't make sense to dictate a standard for IVA suits.
Tweaks to the original design coupled with loss of institutional knowledge over 60 years since the Apollo Program?I still don't understand how Boeing can fuck up this badly considering helium and thrusters were used in the Apollo program.
There were two significant problems with this Starliner. One was a helium leak before launch that got worse after launch.Then is all the hubub about that specific circumstance? Why are those astronauts stuck up there for almost a year at this point?
I have no idea in this specific issue. But in many things, aerospace has made things much more complex. Sometimes for real improvements, sometimes for imaginary improvements, sometimes because it's easier to imagine electrical control vs mechanical control, and sometimes because doing things the simple mechanical way is never even considered because software is more sexy.I still don't understand how Boeing can fuck up this badly considering helium and thrusters were used in the Apollo program.
Great write-up, I'm not in your field but I work with similar kinda of RCA with highly technical junk, much of it proprietary black boxes.There were two significant problems with this Starliner. One was a helium leak before launch that got worse after launch.
We assessed it before launch and decided it was pretty well understood and even if it got worse we’d be fine. What we saw on orbit didn’t change that original assessment.
The other problem and the one that is preventing them from coming home is 5 of the 20+ Reaction Control Thrusters had performance issues. They had to delay rendezvous with the ISS and perform troubleshooting to recover some of the thrusters before docking.
If enough RCS thrusters fail while trying to deorbit it would be catastrophic. We had seen similar problems on the previous unmanned flights. The problem was supposedly identified and adjustments made to how the thrusters work to prevent it. While it looked better during ground testing it didn’t catch the actual issue.
Testing done this summer to try and replicate the issue showed a different issue that’s not well enough understood to feel comfortable letting them nominally come home on Starliner.
So the decision is to come home on a dragon. Crew-8 which is up there right now and comes home later in September has 4 seats and 4 regular crew assigned. We’d prefer from a safety stand point to have them come home in suits in a seat. Which means flying Crew-9 with 2 crew instead of 4 and having Butch and Suni take over for 2 of the astronauts who were supposed to fly. They would then cover the 6 month increment before coming home as part of Crew-9.
NASA doesn’t have a spare vehicle sitting around to fly up and take them home so the safest and least impactful way home is to integrate them into Crew-9 / Increment 72.
SpaceX has space vehicles and flight proven boosters but they are all kind of booked.NASA doesn’t have a spare vehicle sitting around to fly up and take them home so the safest and least impactful way home is to integrate them into Crew-9 / Increment 72.
Was the problem mechanical or software one? What did SpaceX do differently that makes them more reliable?The other problem and the one that is preventing them from coming home is 5 of the 20+ Reaction Control Thrusters had performance issues. They had to delay rendezvous with the ISS and perform troubleshooting to recover some of the thrusters before docking.
Was the problem mechanical or software one? What did SpaceX do differently that makes them more reliable?
What does a delay rendezvous in space look like? A ship going super fast to the ISS would have to slow down considerably and sync with the ISS I'm assuming, but that seems super complicated to me. Boggles my mind . Pretty awesome stuff though.They had to delay rendezvous with the ISS and perform troubleshooting to recover some of the thrusters before docking.
I’m not going to go into their failure modes.Was the problem mechanical or software one? What did SpaceX do differently that makes them more reliable?
When you are doing a rendezvous the chase vehicle and the ISS are basically in the same orbit, going the same direction at the same altitude at the same velocity. The maneuver is somewhat complicated but there’s several spots where the chase vehicle can stop and hang out if there is a problem and the relative velocities are minimal.What does a delay rendezvous in space look like? A ship going super fast to the ISS would have to slow down considerably and sync with the ISS I'm assuming, but that seems super complicated to me. Boggles my mind . Pretty awesome stuff though.
Thanks for confirming that SpaceX is using hypergolic thrusters. I had that notion.I’m not going to go into their failure modes.
I will generically say that RCS hypergolic thrusters are not like car engines in which there’s standard engineering and parts that make it easy to produce a reliable engine. They are all a bit different bespoke designs and the thermal, structural, and chemical environments they operate in are very challenging.
Hypergolic propellants like hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide are great in that they can be stored as liquids at reasonable pressures and temperatures for months which is important for a vehicle that will sit for 6 months at the ISS. They ignite on contact (def of hypergolic) which simplifies the thruster design and produce a reasonable amount of thrust.
Where they suck is they are toxic and when exposed to humidity can cause corrosion or contamination. Add in thermal effects from various burns and it’s challenging to design a thruster that doesn’t have issues.
Everyone uses them. Dragon, Starliner, Orion, Soyuz, etc.Thanks for confirming that SpaceX is using hypergolic thrusters. I had that notion.
Yea, but it seems Boeing had a better idea. I get that hypergolic substances are highly toxic and hazardous.Everyone uses them. Dragon, Starliner, Orion, Soyuz, etc.
After the ISS, humanity should build a Death Star replica. Minus the Death Beam weapon.
Would be a bit odd to call something the Death Star without all the, you know, death.You want to build aomeone but skip its raison d'etre?
It will make designing and testing thrusters easyYou want to build something but skip its raison d'etre?
After the ISS, humanity should build a Death Star replica. Minus the Death Beam weapon.
It's a sphere, there isn't one.I cannot get behind this. The superlaser has to be there. Otherwise, what's the point?
An artificial self sustainable world that can go anywhere in space. What's the problem with that? Why do we need the laser unless we're gonna be annihilating entire planets? If that is decided to be the ultimate motivation behind its creation, aliens should come and obliterate us first. We don't deserve to be a space faring species.Otherwise, what's the point?
Lasers are dumb anyhow, any inhabited planet is going to have ample supplies of rocks nearby you can use to reduce any civilization into cataclysmic rubble.An artificial self sustainable world that can go anywhere in space. What's the problem with that? Why do we need the laser unless we're gonna be annihilating entire planets? If that is decided to be the ultimate motivation behind its creation, aliens should come and obliterate us first. We don't deserve to be a space faring species.
An artificial self sustainable world that can go anywhere in space. What's the problem with that? Why do we need the laser unless we're gonna be annihilating entire planets? If that is decided to be the ultimate motivation behind its creation, aliens should come and obliterate us first. We don't deserve to be a space faring species.