CCDev-2 Finalists

[Ronsmytheiii]

Concerning excess seating on the Commercial crew vehicles, would it be possible for short duration crews to accompany a handover to do complex EVA tasks?  For example, the 3- person expedition crew launches on a capsule with two EV crew members and two commercial astronauts acting as commander/pilot of the spacecraft. There would then be a joint mission, as the five person USOS astronauts plus the existing crew would give a surge of capacity for intense EV/robo activities that might be needed and the EV crew would be trained for specific EV tasks. Then when the old crew leaves, the commercial astronauts and EV crew would then leave in the spacecraft.  Obviously this would probably not happen too often, but it would be a way to fill up the seats.

To think of it simply, think of the way crew were rotated by shuttle on station before Columbia, except the pilot/commander would be commercial.

[pathfinder_01]

Concerning excess seating on the Commercial crew vehicles, would it be possible for short duration crews to accompany a handover to do complex EVA tasks?  For example, the 3- person expedition crew launches on a capsule with two EV crew members and two commercial astronauts acting as commander/pilot of the spacecraft. There would then be a joint mission, as the five person USOS astronauts plus the existing crew would give a surge of capacity for intense EV/robo activities that might be needed and the EV crew would be trained for specific EV tasks. Then when the old crew leaves, the commercial astronauts and EV crew would then leave in the spacecraft.  Obviously this would probably not happen too often, but it would be a way to fill up the seats.

Most commerial craft have a crew of 7 and I think most are aiming for one person operation.

So you could have 3 ISS crew, and 3 EVA crew or 4 ISS crew and 2 EVA crew plus the pilot. In addition NASA might use the rental model in which the whole crew would be NASA crew(no company supllied pilot).

[psloss]

NASA media advisory:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/apr/HQ_M11-073_CCDev.html

Teleconference at 4:30 pm Eastern.

[Chris Bergin]

Heh, we've got mod alerts for a sep thread and no need for a sep thread.

Going with a sep thread, as there's already one up:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=24849.0