SpaceX NASA returning human spaceflight to United States today (canceled)

https://www.spacex.com/

by danbr • 6 years ago

316 323 6 years ago

*Pending weather

bonestamp2• 6 years ago

On this note, does anybody know what the weather thresholds are that would cancel the launch? I mean, the current forecast suggests it will almost definitely be raining at 433pm Eastern, and wind will be around 10 mph. Is some amount of rain tolerable? How much wind is acceptable?

danbr3• 6 years ago

Here’s some information on the Space Shuttle Weather Launch Commit Criteria. There are probably some added bits for the water recovery incase of an abort with Crew Dragon. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/pdf/531435main_weather-...

Edit: and for the falcon 9 (non crew) https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/649911main_051612_falcon9_weather_c...

bryanlarsen3• 6 years ago

Nominally a 60% chance of a go for launch weather, but according to Ken the Bin on Ars Technica, the weather in the abort corridor is poor so he expects a postponement.

lovelettr• 6 years ago

I live on Merritt Island. Our power has been out since 6:30 this morning due to intense storms in the area. That having been said, it is currently sunny and calm.

Given what the weather has been like since Sunday I could see it being postponed. I hope the weather holds and gives a window.

gpm6• 6 years ago

Typically that percent chance doesn't actually consider all the launch criteria as crazy as that sounds.

It misses the upper level winds, and for the human launch I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that it is missing some weather criteria in the abort recovery zone as well.

bryanlarsen3• 6 years ago

Eric Berger now has an article about the iffy weather: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/spacex-may-launch-to...

S_A_P3• 6 years ago

I get that you dont want to fly a giant rocket full of liquid oxygen and other explosives into a thunderstorm or hurricane, but what are some practical reasons for postponing a launch due to weather. As I (hardly) understand once you get high up in the atmosphere there is high wind even on a clear day, does rain matter that much?

greedo• 6 years ago

The weather needs to be good enough for a safe recovery downrange if there's an abort.

ceejayoz3• 6 years ago

Various reasons, well explained here (in several answers, including one pointing out that Challenger blew up in part due to cold weather): https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/4967/why-are-rocke...

danbr3• 6 years ago

I would think by far it’s for crew safety.

Recovery due to an in-flight abort would be difficult in rough seas and weather if they had to be plucked out of the Atlantic.

The aerostructure of the falcon 9 can only withstand so much side loading due to aerodynamic forces and wind before exceeding the operational limits of the rocket (body to keep it all from breaking apart, and the engines working hard to keep them on the correct trajectory).

ncallaway2• 6 years ago

First of all, weather is much more than just rain.

One of the things that's monitored closely in the launch corridor are the upper atmospheric winds. Specifically the wind sheer in the upper atmosphere. Strong wind isn't typically a problem, but high wind sheer in the upper atmosphere can be problematic.

Additionally, they check the weather in the entire recovery corridor. That is, anywhere that the capsule could end up during an abort. They want to make sure that if the capsule ends up in the ocean, the weather permits recovery operations. An abort and safe splash-down doesn't do us much good if the astronauts then drown because recovery operations are impaired due to weather.

We're putting two lives on this rocket. A small delay is absolutely the right trade-off to reduce risk.

mlindner2• 6 years ago

The issue isn't so much high wind but wind shear. Namely when you pass through a sharp change in air direction there's a bending force applied to the rocket that's proportional to the vehicle speed and atmospheric density. This can get very high and risk destroying the rocket.

imshashank• 6 years ago

Love the new "Space" suits and the touch screen panel inside the capsule. This is going to be amazing. My prayers with the brave astronauts.

danbr3• 6 years ago

The space suits, UI, design of it all feels exactly what I’ve though the future of space technology would be. Maybe not all the way there yet, but a great leap from hundreds of manual switches and raw aluminum of the shuttle era.

avmich4• 6 years ago

a great leap from hundreds of manual switches and raw aluminum of the shuttle era.

Wonder if reliability of virtualized controls surpasses the one of dedicated hardware though.

I suspect one of the reasons Apollo computers were all built with just one type of logical chip is the ability to replace faulty parts - one just need a single type of replacement. If for some reason touchscreen malfunctions, what options are left for the crew?

EvanAnderson3• 6 years ago

Having used (and been highly dissatisfied with) touch-based controls in cars I cannot imagine why touch-based controls for a spacecraft are a good idea. The ergonomics are terrible.

Switches can certainly fail, with potentially dire consequences (see the Apollo 14 abort switch failure). I would assume the number of failure modes for touch-based interface hardware are vastly more.

Touch controls are, no doubt, easily reconfigurable, which is probably great for profit margins. The idea of the human spaceflight industry applying "cost down" mentality to crew vehicles scares the heck out of me (and I'm not even flying in them). (I'm thinking about the Boeing MCAS mentality, but for spacecraft...)

luizfzs2• 6 years ago

The space suit looks like it's made for a Halloween party. It looks kind of not flexible and fragile.

The touch screen panel is surely very cool.

smeeth2• 6 years ago

Right? Reading some of the comments here I thought I was going crazy - the suits look like they were made for a 2003 made-for-tv movie.

Boeing suits look WAY better imo

j-pb• 6 years ago

I bet one day these damn panels are gonna kill a crew.

Non haptic controls in critical systems like cars, planes, and rockets are an insane fad.

fermienrico4• 6 years ago

Elon has fascination for sci-fi aesthetics so no matter what, he is going to shoe horn it in.

Sci-fi UI/UX was developed in a short time under pressure when movies were being made. The authors did not consider literally anything about the implications such as ergonomics, cost, reliability, discoverability, etc. Literally zero research behind it. It was not an engineering project by any stretch of the meaning.

Sci-fi aesthetic is the cancer of our society propelled by big budget films and cultural impact worldwide. It has absolutely no place in space exploration.

All this is decoration and marketing. Personally, I also hate the new space suit design, it looks like a movie set than those badass suits astronauts used to wear. They screamed of technical prowess, not aesthetics. Emerging aesthetics were absolutely badass: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Tim_Kopr...

SpaceX/NASA are preparing the suiting up process right now. It looks like a low budget bad sci-fi movie: https://i.imgur.com/MzdPwD6.png

bhhaskin3• 6 years ago

keep in mind that those aren't space suits, but flight suits.

mariushn2• 6 years ago

Is the touch screen usable during lift-off / landing? I'm thinking gravity (4+g?) and trepidations is making it hard to touch a specific spot.

Or, maybe there isn't much to do manually during this phase, and for the little things there are some classic controls.

Koshkin8• 6 years ago

Can't be worse than touchscreens in a tank: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/news/a1908...

mlindner2• 6 years ago

There's physical buttons and handles as well for manual abort and what not.

orbital-decay3• 6 years ago

It's both. They have a handle below the screen precisely for this reason. [1] You can grab it and press the buttons below/tap the lower part of the screen above with your thumb. This seems much more reasonable and pragmatic than the sci-fi looking mockup they originally presented. [2] Although my understanding is that it's probably not a huge problem, because Soyuz introduced the stick to push the buttons only in its later variants.

Also, judging from the photos, they seem to have their button covers supported by the frame. In 2003, there was an incident when a cosmonaut inadvertently fired RCS thrusters on the Soyuz attached to the station, simultaneously pushing several buttons with his foot while loading the spacecraft with cargo to be returned to Earth, crushing the protective caps that were pressing against the (relatively flimsy) case. The thrusters fired for quite some time until a ground operator noticed it and turned them off remotely. After that, the covers in Soyuz were redesigned to press against the frame. Seems like that incident has been learned from in Crew Dragon as well.

[1] https://imgur.com/KyAaQS0

[2] https://imgur.com/pTYfAew

Ididntdothis• 6 years ago

I have listened to a podcast about the F-35. It has touchscreens but they also put a lot of the critical functions onto the stick so the touchscreen doesn't need to be used when things are shaking. I imagine it's the same here. The astronauts probably don't have much to do during a launch and can't do much when things go wrong.

dahfizz3• 6 years ago

If you watch the livestream, the UI elements are much larger on the touch screens than would be possible if there was a dedicated physical button for every possible function. If precision is a concern, then these screens are safer.

bhhaskin3• 6 years ago

There really isn't a whole lot you can do during lift-off/landing anyways. Main thing is the abort handle and that is pre-programmed.

rkagerer• 6 years ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2floxq/are_there_co...

If I remember right, all the important controls are done with buttons and a joystick, while h touch screens are only for informational displays.

JKCalhoun• 6 years ago

Hate the helmets. Sorry.

I think the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo cool was that the hardware was completely lacking in design: it was as practical as a carburetor and as stylish. And that's why we liked them.

Koshkin8• 6 years ago

At least there is no face lighting inside them. (Or is there??)

heyflyguy• 6 years ago

Please let this go well.

randomsearch5• 6 years ago

Agreed. I'm so nervous, this seems high risk.

NikolaeVarius9• 6 years ago

High risk relative to?

samcat116• 6 years ago

For some context they certified the Dragan capsule with a LOC (loss of crew) rating of 1 in 270, which is more than double what the shuttle had (IIRC it ranged from 1 in 10 for the first shuttle flight to 1 in 90 towards the end of the career)

ProAm• 6 years ago

This is just a link to the SpaceX homepage?

xeromal• 6 years ago

https://youtu.be/rjb9FdVdX5I

adrow• 6 years ago

Anyone know of any other tool like this that might give an idea of where in the sky to look based on your location?

https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink-lat...

bujak3000• 6 years ago

https://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=71000&l... set your location top right

mrtksn3• 6 years ago

The cold war is back, the fashion is back and out of all the things that are back I am glad that the USA is back in space flights.

Wish you the best luck and hope that this will lead to some serious competition. Soyuz is great but we need to do more as species.

dmos62• 6 years ago

do more as species

Space exploration and exploitation is awesome, but shouldn't the first items on the "do more as species" todo list be about taking care of earth?

gpm6• 6 years ago

First, yes (or similar terrestrial activities). Only, definitely not.

mrtksn3• 6 years ago

These things don't have to be mutually exclusive. Unless you create an AI to build paperclips, of course.

avmich4• 6 years ago

We raise the question if the space deserves exploration fairly frequently here. For some reason, neither commercial advantages - certain things, like global communications, navigation, imaging can be conveniently done with satellites - not traditional expansion of species habitat reasons - though I'm sure for each Columbus crew there were some loudly wondering why sail at all - serve as a good enough explanation.

galacticaactual• 6 years ago

Why is this question never raised whenever the latest web company raises X million dollars that could’ve funded green tech?

simonh3• 6 years ago

I think as a species, it should be possible for us to do more than one thing at a time.

KoftaBob• 6 years ago

Sure, that should be a higher priority. Is there a sentiment somewhere that space exploration is a higher or more urgent priority than green energy?

Symmetry2• 6 years ago

All efforts have diminishing returns. If the tiny amount of resources our species spends on space exploration were re-directed towards taking care of Earth you wouldn't see any difference there. And also, efforts in space benefit the Earth a lot through things like comms and weather satellites and by learning more about our come by comparing it with other planets. Comparing the atmosphere of Earth with that of Venus and Mars, for instance, told us a lot about the importance of the ozone layer and we might have only just stopped the production of CFCs if it hadn't been for space exploration.

kempbellt2• 6 years ago

There are over 7 billion people on the planet. We can do a few things at once.

LoSboccacc3• 6 years ago

https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-...

in general, there's a lot of items on the urgent list, there's so much money to go around and you don't want to invest everything in endeavour X only for Y to be worse and catch you by surprise.

so you allocate some budget to secondary research as well. NASA doesn't even burn that much in the grand scheme of things.

derekp73• 6 years ago

This is like parents telling their children "If you have time to goof off and play games, you should have time to study harder / do the dishes / mow the lawn". This isn't an either /or, also even if you stopped doing X completely, and did only Y, you still won't be done with Y. Because there is always more Y to do. So as long as Y isn't fully achievable, might as do some X also.

aquajet• 6 years ago

Whom exactly is this Cold War against?

Rerarom• 6 years ago

Shanghaiskaya Cooperation Organization

koheripbal2• 6 years ago

Anyone with large stockpiles of nuclear weapons that isn't vested in the success of the global financial system.

Koshkin8• 6 years ago

Well, the human species first and foremost should be seen as consisting of individuals, and while being deeply excited about and appreciative of all the high-tech endeavors, I keep asking myself, how much they are - and for how long they will continue to be - dependent on a near-slave labor of millions of said individuals around the world. (It's still there, on a massive scale, in spite of automation, machines, robots, the AI and what not we take as a given these days.)

mrtksn3• 6 years ago

That's not going away until we robotize everything. We no longer hunt, all the genetic material for hunting left in us is now just an artefact, we no longer ride horses for transportation, we no longer loose contact from our friends and families for prolonged periods, we no longer do many many things. I think we no longer eat meat too - I mean sure we eat meat but for most of us meat is this thing in the supermarket and we don't have an intuitive understanding from where it is coming from.

Something like that needs to hapen with robotics before we no longer have people who do the undesirable jobs.

There's this movie "Downsizing" about people getting miniaturized and live lavish lives as their material needs get smaller. It's not a very good movie but what stike me in the move was that even in that kind of society they needed to have miniaturized people for the labour that no one wants to do and they had to have slums and so on so that the society works. I find this very realistic because even though we have rich countries and poor countries, we still have to have income gradient everywhere so that some people will do the jobs that others don't want to do.

I don't think that this will go away without eliminating the need for near slave labour.

billfruit3• 6 years ago

Yes, but is manned missions really going to achieve much. I thought there was much differing opinion about the value/lack of value of manned missions among the space community itself.

nradov• 6 years ago

The US kind of has to preserve at least a minimal manned spaceflight capability in case we really need it for something in the future. If we completely lose the infrastructure, supply chains, and institutional knowledge it will become impossible to restart from scratch in a reasonable time frame. Think about it like paying for an insurance policy. It's worth doing even if it eats into the budget for unmanned satellites and probes.

kens3• 6 years ago

By the way, NASA style is to avoid using "manned" and use a term like "crewed" or "piloted" instead. The Manned Spaceflight Center is an exception.

See https://history.nasa.gov/styleguide.html

billfruit3• 6 years ago

As much as many US "hawks" seems to want it, I think another cold war is one of the least desirable thing to start now.

koheripbal2• 6 years ago

As long as other nuclear powers exist - there will be cold wars.

There are two alternatives...

1. Non-nuclear hot wars.

2. A single global authority.

badrabbit• 6 years ago

What fashion?

elteto2• 6 years ago

How long will the approach to the ISS take?

Previous unmanned Dragon missions take ~1 day to approach and dock but I can't imagine they will subject the astronauts to the same.

ceejayoz3• 6 years ago

They've got it down to a few hours. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TMA-08M#Expedited_dockin...

It used to take days. Not fun in a tiny capsule like Soyuz, I'd imagine. https://www.engadget.com/2013-03-29-soyuz-cuts-travel-time-t...

martythemaniak• 6 years ago

Similar - about 18-19hrs before docking. You should be able to watch it live tomorrow morning.

It's funny that it takes that long, since they could theoretically make it up there in like half an hour or so. Here's a good overview of what's gonna happen today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr_zfpzGxQQ

elteto2• 6 years ago

Thanks, that was a really good mission rundown.

On a separate note, it's amazing how Tim has built such a brand in such a short time, I remember when he started out a couple of years ago.

futureproofd• 6 years ago

He said exactly what I was thinking: Initiate ludicrous mode on the way to the launch site.

fanf2• 6 years ago

Half an hour is very optimistic! The Soyuz expedited rendezvous takes hours. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/21819/how-did-soyu...

ghostpepper• 6 years ago

This video explains the whole mission from the astronaut's point of view in about 15 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr_zfpzGxQQ

He has lots of great videos including some very well produced content on rocket engine design, starship etc.

The short answer to your question is just over 19 hours until docking, and then I think another 2 hours after that until the hatch opens.

manaskarekar• 6 years ago

Good luck to all involved, this is a remarkable moment.

exdsq• 6 years ago

As a Brit, I am jealous that I'll not be able to work with NASA or SpaceX. This is a really exciting time, best of luck to the team.

onion2k• 6 years ago

There are lots of jobs in the space industry here in the UK - https://spacecareers.uk/

TomVDB• 6 years ago

I’ve been having mild anxiety about this mission ever since it was announced.

Working on manned space flight is not for me. The stakes are just too high.

os7borne• 6 years ago

Honestly, wondering how the touch interface will work in this mission. Always thought it will be tough to make sure the touch works as opposed to physical switches and buttons.

eagerly waiting for the launch, though! Wishing luck from India!

dylan6042• 6 years ago

If they have to take their gloves off to get the TouchID to work, then that's kind of a bummer. Don't know how well FaceID works while wearing the helmets either.

iso16312• 6 years ago

They don't

mabbo2• 6 years ago

For those who aren't giant space nerds (like me) the very best place to get info on SpaceX and SpaceX launches has always been Reddit's /r/SpaceX[0]. The launch today (like all launches) has a dedicated thread[1] with mods keeping all details up to date, all links that matter organized.

It's 100% not sponsored or run by SpaceX, but honestly it's probably doing a better job than a corporate PR side could manage. Fantastic amount of details on everything in their wiki and posts, and friendly people who answer questions happily.

[0] https://reddit.com/r/spacex

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/glwz6n/rspacex_cctc...

coronadisaster• 6 years ago

It's 100% not sponsored or run by SpaceX

but it feels like it is sometimes

skunkworker• 6 years ago

There are a lot of fanboys in there for sure, but /r/spacex sometimes gets close to industrial espionage.

majkinetor• 6 years ago

Many reddit communities are like that. Not sure what they did to collect such folks on single place, but reddit is something else.

slfnflctd• 6 years ago

Well, mostly, they replaced Usenet and a hodge-podge jumble of forum sites running generic interfaces where you have to click to a new page for every 50 comments (or less), which have no comment reply nesting.

Reddit brought a more useful/readable interface, allowed anonymous accounts with no email address, and had a very simple & powerful (if flawed) voting system. This attracted content creators of all kinds, which led to a rapidly growing audience, and it snowballed.

I don't like one company owning all this stuff, but I do love what users in niche subs have created there. With a massive general audience comes better populated niches, excellence riding the coattails of the mediocre. Also, should Condé Nast ever screw the pooch here, plenty of clones are waiting in the wings.

LoSboccacc3• 6 years ago

all the best, of course, but isn't this a little premature

sgt• 6 years ago

We're in 2020, this is way overdue.

LoSboccacc3• 6 years ago

I didn't mean the go to space part but the boasting about it part

ak-472• 6 years ago

Demo-2 is the final major test for SpaceX’s human spaceflight system to be certified by NASA for operational crew missions to and from the International Space Station.

The two astronauts along with the Falcon 9 will be docking with the ISS and then returning home. No crew swap is happening, which seems like a waste of energy. I get that SpaceX isn't "operationally certified", but is a crew swap inherently more risky?

Diederich• 6 years ago

I understand your point, but it's just the way they do things. I believe it gives them more scheduling flexibility.

I read somewhere that the first 'operational' SpaceX <-> ISS will be in a couple of months.

_Microft7• 6 years ago

The mission was initially intended to be a short, crewed test flight, lasting only a week and a half but the spacecraft that was planned to be used for this was lost in a test accident.

Now they are flying on its successor capsule which is rated for much longer (iirc up to 110 days of) space operations. This allows NASA to extend the mission and lets the astronauts Hurley and Behnken help out on the ISS which are currently short on people iirc. They received training for this extended mission in the last few month.

QuotedForTruth• 6 years ago

They will stay for 1 to 4 months. Its apparently partially dependent on whether they are prepared to launch the first actual crew mission on Aug 30.

A crew swap would require astronauts that are on station to return on the dragon, something they may not have trained for. So to do a swap, you'd probably have to take more than just the two test pilots up since they are likely required to pilot the capsule back down. Taking additional crew on the test flight would certainly be more risky to those additional lives.

mabbo2• 6 years ago

The two astronauts along with the Falcon 9 will be docking with the ISS and then returning home

Just to be clear, the Falcon 9 is the booster that never gets to orbit. It's not going to the ISS- not moving fast enough to achieve orbit. Just the little Dragon spaceship on the nose of the rocket will get to the ISS.

No crew swap is happening, which seems like a waste of energy. I get that SpaceX isn't "operationally certified", but is a crew swap inherently more risky?

Believe it or not, they've sent this 7-seat spacecraft to the ISS already (well, the same model) just to verify it could do it. It arrived empty, it went home empty (except for a plushy that stayed behind). The point is that SpaceX is going to be doing this maybe hundreds of times in the future, but the first time, they want to minimize the number of people that could die if something goes wrong.

Remember, this whole test would have been done 6 months ago except that the sister to this spaceship unexpected exploded during a simple ground test. This stuff is dangerous.

ak-472• 6 years ago

Thanks!

jonathanlydall• 6 years ago

Really appreciate them also having UTC on their website [1].

[1] https://www.spacex.com/launches/

jcun41282• 6 years ago

curious those "NACA-duct-looking" things at the bottom of the capsule doesn't seem to have any holes... what are they for?

edit: part of controlled airflow maybe when coming down in reverse/re-entry?

Tuna-Fish• 6 years ago

They are the SuperDraco thrusters, for launch escape. There are no holes because there are covers that get blown away by the thrusters, to protect them during re-entry if they are not used.

jcun41282• 6 years ago

Ahh that's right I think I've seen footage of them firing before. The cover thing makes sense, thanks.

sidcool3• 6 years ago

Are the space suits also designed by SpaceX?

minkzilla4• 6 years ago

Yes they are both designed and made by SpaceX. There was a short segment about them in the official coverage.

sidcool3• 6 years ago

Wow. Are these suits comparable to the ones worn by Apollo astronauts?

nickik5• 6 years ago

They hired the guy who did the marvel super hero customs.

tibbydudeza2• 6 years ago

Last time I was interested in space was the Mars Lander.

Going to ISS is easy afaik but when are we ever going to try landing on the moon again (don't even talk about Mars).

Jaruzel• 6 years ago

NASA's Artemis project has got you covered on that one:

https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/

nickik5• 6 years ago

Going to ISS is easy afaik

Given that only 3 nations in history have produce anything that could potentially do it, that statement seems like utter lunacy.

mchusma• 6 years ago

The production quality of the SpaceX feed is amazing and emotional. Right now (9:40am or so) the bios on the astronauts are great. They have really invested over their launches in making space inspirational, and this feed is clearly something they spent a ton of time on.

Very emotionally uplifting, I highly recommend watching the feed now if you like space.

ardy422• 6 years ago

The production quality of the SpaceX feed is amazing and emotional. Right now (9:40am or so) the bios on the astronauts are great. They have really invested over their launches in making space inspirational, and this feed is clearly something they spent a ton of time on.

Kinda like a Nike ad.

relham3• 6 years ago

I assume the astronauts and everyone involved is tested daily for COVID-19. I am sure that bringing the virus to the IIS would be disastrous. Anyone has any insights on the measures taken to prevent it? This Verge article[0] appears to describe the preventative steps to be less severe than I'd expect. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/25/21264868/spacex-nasa-laun...

Symmetry2• 6 years ago

Ever since one of the astronauts got sick on one of the Gemini missions the astronauts have undergone quarantines for a period before going up into space.

relham3• 6 years ago

And still Ken Mattingly was pulled from Apollo 13 3 days before takeoff because of a potential exposure to measles. In the live video, most of the technicians and even Musk are wearing masks, most of them staying at some distance though. I doubt they were all quarantined for the last 2 weeks.

rurban2• 6 years ago

Why should it be desastrous? I hope you do know the odds.

The COVID-19 fatality odd is 0.3%, the Dragon-lost odd probably much higher, maybe at around 5%. The Falcon 9 has over 80 starts now, but this is only the 3nd Dragon 2 start, and one of it failed.

relham3• 6 years ago

I think the astronauts health makes them much less likely to die from Corona than 0.3% but exposing the current crew of the IIS does not sound like a good idea either.

Fatality rate is one thing, but being in a small space can cause high concentrations of virus and any health complication in space is a big deal.

A catastrophic failure is definitely a risk, but not sure how its magnitude should diminish our caution when it comes to bringing the virus to the space station (by your calc, it lowers the risk only by 5%).

sevencolors• 6 years ago

When did NASA switch back to the "worm" logo? One of my favorites

hadtodoit• 6 years ago

Godspeed to the men on board. And God bless the SpaceX team for bringing it all back home.

seph-reed• 6 years ago

It really warms my heart that the landing pad is called "OF COURSE I STILL LOVE YOU DRONE SHIP"

In a consumer era where almost all naming is done by marketing and void of any soul, it really, really makes me happy to see a little bit growing through the cracks in the concrete.

tialaramex• 6 years ago

The name is just "Of course I still love you". They're named after vessels from Iain M Banks' "Culture" SF setting.

Culture spaceships have AI "minds" and the mind of a large ship-constructing ship will name its offspring. They tend to have an odd sense of humour, there are plenty of sites with lists of Culture ship names, and Banks wrote footnotes excusing the obvious references to 20th century human culture as matters of translation (e.g. there is an Offensive Unit named "I said I have a big stick" which is a reference to Theodore Roosevelt's "Speak softly and carry a big stick").

https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the...

Reelin• 6 years ago

It's actually a drone ship (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_spaceport_drone_shi...) named "Of Course I Still Love You" after the fictional ship of the same name from Bank's novel "The Player of Games" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games).

- Your friendly neighborhood pedant.

gpm6• 6 years ago

40% chance of good weather, if you're an optimist (from livestreamer)

Heh

grecy3• 6 years ago

An update just now on the radio said the one they were tracking is no longer a concern, and the one over Orlando is expected to be their decision today, and it's getting weaker.

Good news!

finger• 6 years ago

I see they are using touch screens. What would they do if the screens froze?

minkzilla4• 6 years ago

If one freezes then use the other 3. If they all freeze let the autopilot do it's job.

naggreg• 6 years ago

I find it sort of weird to not have buttons in there: with all the vibrations you would think it's rather difficult to touch the exact control that you want. I guess they considered that...

mirekrusin• 6 years ago

ctrl+alt+del

rrmm2• 6 years ago

Houston, we have a sad-mac.

elric• 6 years ago

Looks like there are some physical buttons underneath the touch screens. Not sure what they do, but hopefully they're used for important stuff.

I just watched one of the astronauts push buttons on the touch screen, and it's shocking how small the icons on the screen are relative to their fingers. I would not want to try to the hit the right icon while accelerating!

gpm6• 6 years ago

That seems like an unlikely failure scenario. But I imagine if that happened during launch they would pull the abort lever since that would be indicative of a significant failure. Later they and the engineers on the ground would work to control the vehicle either remotely or to fix the displays... or both. And probably abort to the ground as quickly as is reasonably possible.

imglorp• 6 years ago

I'm curious what the physical buttons on the seat armrests do.

minkzilla4• 6 years ago

When they were doing comm checks I noticed that they were being pressed right before the astronauts would talk.

ag56• 6 years ago

And what happens during launch when — I assume — everything starts vibrating wildly? They better be enormous virtual buttons.

NikolaeVarius9• 6 years ago

They stare at them while waiting for the automatic launch sequence that has been in use by rockets since the early space race.

m4rtink3• 6 years ago

Actually I remember reading an article mentioning that they use vibration data from accelerometters to slightly shift content on thescreen, thus preventing the screen from appearing blurry to the crew during the launch. Pretty clever. :)

But indeed, the launch is automated and for any the few important manual thing (basically just manual launch abort trigger) they have separate physical controls.

qchris• 6 years ago

I'm so excited, and just hoping the weather holds. The best of luck to the entire team, and hoping everything goes smoothly and safely!

rrmm2• 6 years ago

u/UpperLevelWinds is apparently accepting bribes over on r/SpaceX

dgritsko• 6 years ago

The interior design of the capsule looks so futuristic and cool - closer to Star Trek than Soyuz.

ardy422• 6 years ago

The interior design of the capsule looks so futuristic and cool - closer to Star Trek than Soyuz.

Too bad they didn't skin the touchscreen interface to look like LCARS. /s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCARS

jedberg7• 6 years ago

Those space suits look so cool, don't they?

q3k• 6 years ago

I don't know, they look kitschy to me - as if someone designed them just to look 'cool' and futuristic instead of utilitarian, like a fashion statement.

Melting_Harps2• 6 years ago

Those space suits look so cool, don't they?

That was the aim:

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/spacex-crew-dragon-spaces...

The Dragon's interior was also built with that in mind, its less NASA and more Hollywood, throw Ripley and Earth Plushy into the mix and this how you do get regular people into Space [1].

1: http://www.collectspace.com/images/news-030219d-lg.jpg

f0xf1re• 6 years ago

A stark contrast to Soyuz, which has numerous unfinished, sharp edges exposed inside the crew compartment.

holler2• 6 years ago

Elon Musk is the greatest entrepreneur and coolest billionaire in our lifetime, change my mind!

jacquesm6• 6 years ago

Musk doesn't have much in terms of competition today but I have high hopes for the Collison brothers, they are on a similar trajectory (starting with payment systems), are both already billionaires and contrary to Musk are modest and when they say something it tends to be very well thought out.

I called Elon Musk many years before he was as important as he is today, let's see where Patrick and John end up in a decade or more.

dvh• 6 years ago

Bill Gates. Entrepreneur, billionaire, can jump over the chair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxaCOHT0pmI

holler2• 6 years ago

aha! So he IS a human afterall :p

bialpio• 6 years ago

Just want to make sure that s we're talking about the same person here - are you referring to the author of "pedo guy" tweet? I guess he's the best role model we have for now...

localhost2• 6 years ago

FYI the live stream is playing on YouTube right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aymrnzianf0

inetknght• 6 years ago

I don't understand. What is the difference between that video and this [0] one? They're both by NASA.

Then there's also the one by SpaceX [1] for those interested. I know that SpaceX usually has two webcasts going during launches; one for the public-friendly chatter and another for the go/nogo technical chatter

I always look for the SpaceX or NASA official links. Don't search for SpaceX on youtube, you'll drown in unofficial garbage from news companies

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjb9FdVdX5I

localhost2• 6 years ago

I have no idea why you have a different ID for your first link. But you'll see that the link I posted and your link are both on the official NASA channel.

alixanderwang• 6 years ago

Useful for me since I have the youtube app on my TV and can pull it up.

cbhl• 6 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if streaming to two different channels gives them some redundancy...

kilroy123• 6 years ago

I hope when they do launch all goes well.

grecy3• 6 years ago

So cool to hear "Dragon copies" over the radio.

For the first time, Dragon can talk back!

testplzignore• 6 years ago

Audio of Dragon comms: https://youtu.be/90X5NJleYJQ?t=152

spuz• 6 years ago

I wonder if they are using an already used Falcon 9 or a brand new one? Is there are statistical difference in the reliability of unused vs reused Falcon 9s?

grecy3• 6 years ago

It's new, as per NASA's requirements. They will attempt a landing on a drone ship to recover it.

nickff• 6 years ago

This is a brand new one, and I don't think there have been enough launches of similar (current version/block) new and used first stages to find a statistically significant difference.

jccooper3• 6 years ago

Thus far all SpaceX F9 launch failures have been on all-new vehicles. But those were both in the second stage, which are not and cannot be reused. The F9 first stage has basically been perfect on launch, save for two single engine-out incidents (one new, one on the reused fleet leader) which did not impact payload delivery.

Thus far the sample size is low, but to the extent you can measure it they're equal.

NiceWayToDoIT4• 6 years ago

Does anyone else feel super excited? I guess this was the feeling my parents had when they watched men landing on the Moon...

S_A_P3• 6 years ago

I'll admit I went and looked at SpaceX open positions...

DarmokJalad1701• 6 years ago

I do that every other month

lutorm3• 6 years ago

There are tons of software openings! If you're excited about space, go check out https://www.spacex.com/careers.

mempko2• 6 years ago

Today is a melancholy feeling. Happy to see SpaceX sending people to space, but sad a decade was lost.

EDIT: I spoke about that we had a regression, I meant that NASA lost a capability and just got it back.

randomsearch5• 6 years ago

Untrue

bpodgursky2• 6 years ago

I understand this sentiment, but if SpaceX pulls this off, it's going to be an order of magnitude cheaper and more sustainable than the incredibly awesome but one-off and flashy Apollo (or even shuttle) missions.

Crew Dragon is not visually BIGGER than a Saturn V, but it is in a lot of ways a firmer footstep into space than we've ever taken before. SpaceX's program isn't going to dry up as soon as the cold war is over, and we stop devoting 5% of GDP to beating the Soviets. This is for real.

logicx24• 6 years ago

There hasn't been a regression, but priorities changed. NASA is a government agency and is thus subject to politics. But make no mistake, we are ahead of where we were in the 1960's, both technologically and organizationally (i.e. a private company achieving spaceflight). This is unequivocally a step forward.

jccooper3• 6 years ago

This is actually a brand new capability for NASA: human spaceflight that isn't ruinously expensive.

paulsutter• 6 years ago

Our parents didn't have privately-owned reusable spaceflight.

Just wait till you see Starship.

randomsearch5• 6 years ago

Untrue, because:

60 years ago was 1960.

There were no space stations to dock with.

If your parents were American: no Americans had been in space.

But most importantly rockets were not reusable. That is why this has never been done before.

jacquesm6• 6 years ago

A decade? More than four decades. The shuttle was never really about anything else than near earth orbits, this is the first time in a very long time that we are just possibly looking to expand the envelope.

Melting_Harps2• 6 years ago

Does anyone else feel super excited? I guess this was the feeling my parents had when they watched men landing on the Moon...

Very! I couldn't sleep last night; I haven't had this feeling since i was at the Mars Desert Research Station, and Falcon Heavy launch before that!

Its kind of bitter sweet as I'd prefer to be at Hawthorne HQ or the Texas launch facility for this, though. The Cape would be even better, but still, I wanted to see this with the crew(s) so much.

throw7• 6 years ago

(looks like they scrubbed today's launch...)

I was never really excited about space shuttle launches when I was kid. After the challenger disaster (i was in middle school at the time and remember my science teacher in tears), I just didn't care about space at all.

But something happened watching those two falcon boosters land... i don't know, i got real emotional. Yes, I'm excited.

TrainedMonkey• 6 years ago

Here is pretty accurate in terms of spacecraft UI docking simulator: https://iss-sim.spacex.com/

Astronauts will be using similar for manual piloting demo before docking.

gpm6• 6 years ago

Note that docking is automatic by default, this is a simulation of the backup system.

_Microft7• 6 years ago

Guess what - there are speedruns already :D

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=iss+sim+speedru...

NiceWayToDoIT4• 6 years ago

I have tried and barely succeeded, I just hope those are not real controls. Those should be either automated or they should consult someone from gaming industry. Sorry to say UX controls are terrible (saying from gaming position).

zlsa• 6 years ago

The docking is automated by default. The manual controls are only to be used in case the automated docking doesn't work.

NikolaeVarius9• 6 years ago

It is automated and they are the real controls that are used in backup.

They are not designed so that your average person can just figure out orbital mechanics on the spot while approaching one of the most expensive objects ever created.

_Microft7• 6 years ago

If you want to try again: be careful with the controls; fix yaw, pitch and roll one after the other first (you might need minor adjustments to the other angles after fixing one, so keep monitoring them), then move laterally. Counting how many times you fired a thruster helps to stop the motion by firing the opposite thruster as many times as well.

Good luck!

jacobush• 6 years ago

It's slightly better than Elite on the Commodore 64

CuriousCosmic• 6 years ago

While I'd argue that the controls (at least for rotation, possibly also for translation) should be inverted, the controls are actually pretty decent.

Try running it again but focus on zeroing the pitch, roll, and yaw first before moving on to the x, y, z. Once you have rotation under control, zero in your X, Y positional offsets until you are lined up. Finally burn your Z and then slow as you approach, all the while keeping the X, Y, Pitch, Roll, Yaw as close to zero as possible.

The big issue is that fine grain translational motion is nigh impossible while dealing with any type of rotational motion. Once you kill the rotational motion, it's intuitive like using crane-game controls.

dmoy• 6 years ago

Counterpoint, I found it really easy to control, but I've also played a lot of KSP and am terrible at building balanced rockets, so my docking maneuvers always have imbalanced RCS thrusters (so correcting one axis knocks another one off).

Plus they start you at 200m out with no relative movement, so it's pretty easy to just zero out one axis at a time and go from there

tboerstad• 6 years ago

I'm watching the livestream now. Some of the UX the astronauts are using are large touch screens.

I hope they practiced on tablets

m4rtink3• 6 years ago

Safety critical functions have dedicated physical controls, the touch interface replaces just the hundreds of individual switches and buttons you would otherwise need for all the non critical stuff you need to control.

sidcool3• 6 years ago

Why is this called Demo-2?

khuey• 6 years ago

It's the second test flight (demo). The first was an uncrewed flight to the International Space Station last year.

jedberg7• 6 years ago

Demo 1 launched last year. It was an identical mission, docking with the ISS, but with no crew (only supplies).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Dragon_Demo-1

jccooper3• 6 years ago

Because it's the second demonstration flight before certification for regular rotation. Demo-1 was 13 months ago, flown without a crew.

jedberg7• 6 years ago

I watched the first Space Shuttle launch live, I watched Challenger live. I watched the last shuttle launch live. I was sad then, realizing that America was losing launch capability on that day.

I can't tell you how exited I am to watch America's return to launch capability.

Edit: Disappointed at the scrub, but I know a lot of these weather rules were put in place because of Challenger, so I understand. Looking forward to Saturday!

98Windows• 6 years ago

Sorry to hear you guys haven't had lunch for so long

corrupt_measure• 6 years ago

We need to bring down our national BMI.

minxomat• 6 years ago

America's return to lunch capability

Perfection.

jedberg7• 6 years ago

Damnit autocorrect!

james_pm• 6 years ago

Memories of the first few Space Shuttle launches. I was lucky enough to see STS-3 from Jetty Park when I was 12. Today I'll watch from home on YouTube with my own kids (16 and 17).

_Microft7• 6 years ago

ISS will be visible from Germany at 22:23 today, coming from north-west moving towards south-east and it will be followed by Crew Dragon and the Falcon 9 upper stage about 20 minutes later. It should pass almost straight over you in the south of Germany.

jedberg7• 6 years ago

Do you know where ISS will be when Crew Dragon actually docks?

_Microft7• 6 years ago

No idea, ISS is also moving very fast (> 7.5 km/s, that's more than 27000km/h), so even short delays will change the position massively.

_Microft7• 6 years ago

Docking is scheduled for 10:29 EDT (14:29 UTC) today (2020-05-31) at which time the ISS is predicted to be 1000km east of the Philippines, approximately 300km west of Guam.

skyfaller• 6 years ago

I have one question/concern: why is almost nobody wearing a mask? Of course there is no need for people videoconferencing from home to wear masks, but many of the people in the livestream seem to be physically present on site. The only people I saw with masks were the people in the black suits helping the astronauts into the capsule.

Masks seem like an inexpensive way to reduce risk, the CDC and WHO recommend them. Sure, there are other measures that can reduce transmission, but the lack of masks makes me concerned that other measures are not being taken, perhaps because both Elon Musk and Trump have been downplaying the risk of covid-19 and they are both present today.

blhack• 6 years ago

Man, seeing the guys cruising out there in the Teslas... Just think about how cool this scene is. Something that is in line with the vision of the future people used to have.

Very inspiring.

synaesthesisx• 6 years ago

This is easily the most exciting moment of 2020. I can't overstate the emotions running through my body right now - godspeed to the crew & cheers to a new era for human space exploration.

akeck• 6 years ago

Having seen the first shuttle launch and the Challenger and Columbia failures, I'm both excited and terrified.

jacquesm6• 6 years ago

It looks like the launch will be scrubbed due to the weather, lightning risk during propellant loading is too high.

edit: yep, launch scrubbed. Too bad! But better safe than sorry, especially today with a crewed vehicle. Does anybody know if the crew dragon comes with different weather restrictions for LOX loading?

elliekelly• 6 years ago

Can someone ELI5 why they sometimes need to have an “instantaneous launch window” that can’t be pushed even by a few minutes?

jacquesm6• 6 years ago

Physical constraints resulting in sub-optimal orbits increasing chance of mission failure or FAA rules limiting options for launch.

NikolaeVarius9• 6 years ago

Long list but one of the big ones:

ISS travels at 7.6 km/s. Thats a lot of kms in those few minutes

lutorm3• 6 years ago

It depends on the target orbit. For launches to the ISS, you have to launch at the correct instant because even a few minutes later means the ISS is so far ahead it will take much longer, and use more propellant, to rendezvous.

I think they could probably delay a few seconds without too much trouble, but I guess the extra complication of recalculating the rendezvous isn't worth it because most of the time a few seconds won't matter anyway.

derekp73• 6 years ago

To visualize one of the constraints (the orbit inclination) -- imagine holding up a hoop around a globe, with the hoop angled at 51.6 degrees. Now start spinning the globe until Florida intersects with the hoop. That is when it has to launch, to be going in the same direction as that hoop.

Spin the globe a bit further, and now you can see that Florida no longer intersects with that hoop. If you were to try to launch at that point, your trajectory would form another ring that intersects with the ISS's orbit, but at a different angle. So it would take quite a bit more propellant to change direction once in space.

Now, you also have to launch so that you intercept the ISS when it is at the proper position on that hoop. If, when you reach the hoop the ISS is half way around the world, you won't get to it. (Technically, you can spend some time at a lower orbit, then raise your orbit at the right time, or adjust the amount of time it takes to get to the right height, but again that messes with the timing of everything and fuel usage).

mauvehaus• 6 years ago

As I understand the timing, they scrubbed around T-15:00, and the first stage propellant loading started at T-35:00.

https://www.spacex.com/launches/

jacquesm6• 6 years ago

So is that lightning strike concern limited to the second stage?

dmurray2• 6 years ago

According to the stream, the crewed mission has stricter weather requirements for launch and further along the ascent path, in case of an abort. I didn't hear them mention stricter conditions for LOX loading.

tosh• 6 years ago

launch aborted :(

NiceWayToDoIT4• 6 years ago

launch abort ... pffffffffff

jgotti922• 6 years ago

canceled?

rvz• 6 years ago

Not really. Postponed for Saturday due to concerns about bad weather.

jgotti922• 6 years ago

Its a pitty, I just started watching live and see that the astronauts already have boarded. Yeah, its a pitty, but at least can watch the whole procedure again on Saturday.

camjohnson262• 6 years ago

Temporarily for weather, not for technical issues.

camjohnson262• 6 years ago

Rescheduled for 3:22pm ET on Saturday

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1265739654810091520?s=20

itsspring• 6 years ago

They finally announced it publicly: https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1265739654810091520

code4tee• 6 years ago

Good old Florida weather. Will try again Saturday.

SpaceX NASA returning human spaceflight to United States today (canceled)

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