News Here be Dragons: SpaceX reveals manned Dragon design

PhantomCruiser

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I imagine someone is already working on it. :crystalball:

---------- Post added at 08:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:09 AM ----------

This console is also going to be cheap -- it's just 4 standard (touch?)screens in vertical.

Well, you figure my phone is far more capable then the AGC was, so it doesn't take a whole lot of computing power to go to LEO or even the moon (that's an over-simplification, but I hope you get my drift).

What is important would be how robust the system is, triple redundancy, shielded (y/n? I'd hope yes) etc. So yes, 4 computers w/ integrated touch screen monitors (hopefully with Gorilla glass or something too) should be OK. But then while I know it could be done, that's not important. What is important is that it can be proven to work, in all environments.

But yeah, that's a pretty slick looking interior. Kind of want to build a simpit now...
 

Urwumpe

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Well, you figure my phone is far more capable then the AGC was, so it doesn't take a whole lot of computing power to go to LEO or even the moon (that's an over-simplification, but I hope you get my drift).

Most of the computing power will also be for stuff that the AGC didn't do. For example also providing a user interface. Or automation.

Also, your smartphone has more processing power - it would would be badly suited for controlling a spacecraft, since it is not really real-time capable. But combine your smartphone with some Arduino magic for about $1000, and you could have a guidance system that you could use for nuking the tyrant in the country next door - at least in 8 of 10 launches.

Of course, what makes spaceflight hardware really expensive compared to cheap hobby or consumer hardware are the much higher demands on quality and robustness and the low quantity in which you produce such stuff. And you need such traits. If such a touch screen fails gradually because of radiation, its annoying but tolerable. If your CPU fails because a single transistor was damaged, its a critical situation even if you have 4 other CPUs left.
 

Kyle

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Uh, the LAS is built in, right? Then I would guess they have grid fins like the Soyuz?

Also, they not only have unmanned orbital tests but also an LAS test scheduled, right? So that will all happen at some point in 18 months+

The pad abort test from Cape Canaveral will happen this summer, the in-flight abort test will happen from Vandenberg AFB later this year.
 

francisdrake

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The fins on the trunk look like stabilizing fins during an abort to me. They will be useful in the first few minutes of the flight only. A LAS burn would just last a few seconds at full thrust of the Super Draco engines. In case of a LAS-engine failure the fins would help stabilizing the vessel, so it will not tumble.
 

mojoey

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I'm sure (even at the most ambitious level) there will be some lengthy turnaround time involved. Even commercial aircraft have a decent inspection between flights. It typically took me about 45 minutes to an hour to do a turnaround inspection on an SH-60. A daily inspection took maybe 4-5 hours, depending on what I found.

I'd want some pretty serious NDI before I got into something like this prior to re-use.

That PMCS time tho.
 

Hlynkacg

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Not absolutely clear on the timeline but if you were a Swamp-fox in the late 90s early 00s we might have some friends in common. I was a Saberhawk (Det 3, Sembawang Si) from 04 - 06 before I got tapped for the NSW mission.

As for the rest I feel that "Safety" in space flight is vastly overvalued and that this leads to a belief that the "Shuttle-model" of reusability is the only model.

But that's really a topic for another thread.

Fact remains that I always found it amusing that a DTA for a H-60 or AH-1 was something like 300 cards and took 2 hours (not counting paperwork) where as the DTA for a FA-18E was 100 cards long and took less than 30 min.

From a strict performance / tolerance comparison you'd expect those numbers to be reversed.
 

Urwumpe

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As for the rest I feel that "Safety" in space flight is vastly overvalued and that this leads to a belief that the "Shuttle-model" of reusability is the only model.

How would you feel about an airline, that looses 2% of its passengers? Does that look some kind of professional to you?

Sorry, but I can only assure you "Safety" can never be hung high enough in a business, where maximum safety only means that maybe only 1 out of 100 dies.

For comparison: Even BASE jumping is safer than spaceflight (1 fatal in about 2000 jumps). And all of this looks like some boring kind of suicide compared to ski flying.
 
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Hlynkacg

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How would you feel about an airline, that looses 2% of its passengers? Does that look some kind of professional to you?

Sorry, but I can only assure you "Safety" can never be hung high enough in a business, where maximum safety only means that maybe only 1 out of 100 dies.

In regards to your first question, it's on the passengers to accept or reject that risk. Looking professional is irrelevant.

As for the second, I disagree with your core premise. Safety IS NOT the first priority because the "Safe" thing to do is to to not go to space.

As such we need to weigh mission objectives against cost, and the level of risk that the participants are willing to undertake. I find your assumption that the astronauts and engineers involved in a given program are children, incapable of making their own risk decisions, to be kind of insulting.
 

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Thats nonsense. Some kind of risk has to be taken. But not every risk.

Well no :censored:, that's why it's important to "weigh mission objectives against cost, and the level of risk that the participants are willing to undertake."

You degrade astronauts to cannonfodder.

And you consider them children, incapable of making their on choices on the matter.

Which is more insulting?
 
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Urwumpe

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And you consider them children, incapable of making their on choices on the matter.

You are the only person who accuses me of treating adults like children, if I don't want to let them die because of sloppy work on the ground.

Also, how capable are astronauts in that matter anyway, if you want them to make "adult" choices? Any ground crew and pad rat promises the crew that it enters a spacecraft in the best possible state. Yes, astronauts can still die. But you promise to have done everything possible to prevent accidents that are preventable and have a clear conscience about letting the astronauts fly. Thats the deal. Not "Maybe you might die because we had economic pressure to reduce checks". Not "Everything will be fine, but if you die in space, we will make a memorial for you."

You are actually only lying to yourself there. You assume a level of control of a situation, that is only controllable if everybody does his job properly. Start talking about "Spaceflight is risky business and we have have faith that our spacecraft will work even if we don't check everything properly...but if it does not, well, that happens" - and you can be sure, that it will happen. Because if you don't care for the risks, you will underestimate them and maybe not even be aware that such risks exist.

See NASA in that example. What went wrong with the Space Shuttle happened because people on the ground allowed things to happen. Dangers had been ignored because "its an acceptable risk." And the second time, astronauts died, the program was over. So much to acceptable.
 
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Donamy

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ISProgram

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The fins on the trunk look like stabilizing fins during an abort to me.
Wait, what? Doesn't the trunk stay on the F9 during a abort? Why carry that extra mass just for stabilization? I honestly thought it had some heat rejection purpose, like radiators...

Also, NASA has taken note...

I understudy that a lot of technical requirements and capability modeled its design, but Dragon V2 looks like a toy rocket. :lol:
 

Urwumpe

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I understudy that a lot of technical requirements and capability modeled its design, but Dragon V2 looks like a toy rocket. :lol:

Everything looks like a toy in its initial iteration. And then it grows up. :lol:
 

Hlynkacg

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Also, how capable are astronauts in that matter anyway, if you want them to make "adult" choices? Any ground crew and pad rat promises the crew that it enters a spacecraft in the best possible state.

And any competent crew-member will know what "best possible state" state actually means. Case in point STS, if the risks hadn't been deemed acceptable they would not have been accepted. The whole program functioned exactly as designed, failures included. Assuming that the STS's accident rate represents the upper boundary of "acceptable" risk, a 2% chance of death each flight is "safe enough".

Do you think that astronauts don't know this?

Are you under the impression that they are not volunteers?

This is why I accuse you of treating adults as children.
 

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Wait, what? Doesn't the trunk stay on the F9 during a abort? Why carry that extra mass just for stabilization? I honestly thought it had some heat rejection purpose, like radiators...

Also, NASA has taken note...

I understudy that a lot of technical requirements and capability modeled its design, but Dragon V2 looks like a toy rocket. :lol:

They serve a dual purpose.
 

ISProgram

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Well, spaceflight is complicated like that...

Some kind of risk has to be taken. It's spaceflight, for crying out loud. of course there will be risk. Planes have risk. Cars have risk. Even eating BACON puts you at risk for something.

Risk is in every decision we make. I just took a risk posting this.

As for that safety thing, that's :censored: , because you strapped them to a rocket. Safety, for that matter, is also relative, just like risk. It's not safe to be in a car, a plane, or a rocket, since these all fail and people get killed. However, people would say a car is safer than a plane or a rocket, despite the fact that cars crash every day, and planes far less,and rockets even less.

Safety is only something measurable by the perceived. People thought STS was safe before STS-51-L, and NASA risked that SRB blowout problem because nothing bad happened. People say it wasn't safe because it didn't have a LAS.
 

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Do you think that astronauts don't know this?

I think they know this all much better than you do. They know that their work is already risky enough by nature, no need to make this artificially more risky.

Are you under the impression that they are not volunteers?

:rofl:

Do you think this here is Kerbal Space Program?

What do you think are they volunteering for? a quick death by incompetence? Or going into space, with all its risks, doing things, that are automatically more risky than staying at home, with technology made by the lowest bidder - but at least not more risks than already that?

Or do you think that Spaceflight is some kind of romantic adventure, that has to be sanctified with the blood of astronauts from time to time?
 

ISProgram

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They serve a dual purpose.

That makes sense, though I still don't understand how the trunk will help in a abort if it's left behind on the F9. If it's not, what's the worth of carrying that mass tractor-style, with the Dragon capsule. It means you must have more powerful SuperDracos, and a sturdier trunk umbilical, since the trunk is now a SM (it seems to have tanks)...
 

Andy44

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Can we knock off the rehashed safety argument again and focus on the vehicle itself? This is becoming tedious.

I also agree that the cockpit looks like a mockup. I am sure that once the thing is outfitted for spaceflight it will be full of equipment. Those seats look so flimsy to me.

And one of the reasons a spaceship cockpit has lots of buttons and switches is so that when you're in a hurry to switch something and scared out of your wits you don't waste time scrolling through menus on a touch screen.
 
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