SpaceX Falcon 9/Dragon COTS Demo (C2+) GENERAL DISCUSSION

[Robotbeat]

This argument seems kinda moot.  There is a large new thread in L2 about the procedures from rendezvous, berthing and opening the hatch.  There is a lot of stuff the Dragon has to do before berthing, and I'm assuming that if they slip up on any of that, they won't be going to the station.  So Dragon won't berth until it's proven it can perform all of it's required safety maneuvers.

Exactly.

[alexw]

Were ATV or HTV "well proven" on their first flights? It's the same situation for Dragon.

No, they were built by well proven organizations

     True, but it does not follow that the products of those well-proven organizations were initially well-proven -- see Ariane 501, 502.
            -Alex

[Jim]

Were ATV or HTV "well proven" on their first flights? It's the same situation for Dragon.

No, they were built by well proven organizations

     True, but it does not follow that the products of those well-proven organizations were initially well-proven -- see Ariane 501, 502.
            -Alex

Arianespace didn't build HTV or ATV.

[alexw]

Were ATV or HTV "well proven" on their first flights? It's the same situation for Dragon.

No, they were built by well proven organizations

     True, but it does not follow that the products of those well-proven organizations were initially well-proven -- see Ariane 501, 502.

Arianespace didn't build HTV or ATV.

   Arianespace operates and markets Ariane V, but the prime contractor is EADS Astrium -- same as ATV, no?
                      -Alex

[tigerade]

Enough with the doom and gloom.  A launch failure would be bad, and dissapointing.  but it would not be the end of spaceflight or SpaceX.  They would just finish whatever COTS objectives they are lacking in the next flight.

[Jim]

If this mission fails you will be watching the end of American spaceflight along with it. That much I can assure you of.

Far from true.

[WHAP]

But you should know something:

If this mission fails you will be watching the end of American spaceflight along with it. That much I can assure you of.

What prompts you to make such a bold assertion?

[mr. mark]

Any news on how the CEIT went? Since this is an actually updates page maybe an update on an actual test would be good. After the CEIT test, I guess the next milestones would be the April 16th press conference as well as the go/ no go for April 30th and the test fire a few days before launch.

[Jim]

Any news on how the CEIT went? Since this is an actually updates page maybe an update on an actual test would be good.

 It is a subjective test.  They "always" go good since there is no real criteria.  Just look for sharp edges, add velcro, take pictures, ask questions, look at how things are stowed, do fit checks of hardware, etc.

[FinalFrontier]

But you should know something:

If this mission fails you will be watching the end of American spaceflight along with it. That much I can assure you of.

What prompts you to make such a bold assertion?

I'll answer my critics.

Think of it from a political perspective.

As things stand right now, government based spaceflight does not have a bright future politically. This mainly due to across the board cuts that are expected in the next few years, as well as the fact that the whole concept of using taxpayer dollars to go into space when we (to quote the antispaceflight crowd's argument) "have too many problems here at home" is actually setting in.
Put another way, the idea of government space exploration, as we have been doing it up until now, is becoming largely unpopular. I personally don't see a future for it beyond ISS if current political trends continue, there will simple not be enough people left on the hill willing to fight for NASA or for the funding necessary.

So this leaves us with commercial vendors, being paid by the government to go fly, that develop the LV's on their own (et al, spacex, ula, ect.)

But in terms of exploration, are they going to fly missions to ISS if we don't pay them to? What happens when ISS is gone? What if thats the end (as far as large NASA programs are concerned) and the nearest commercial follow on (perhaps a bigelow station of some sort?) is years and years away? There is no incentive there for you to fly things like dragon, cst 100, orion, DC, ect at that point.

But that is only part of my point.

Basically what we have done by moving away from NASA run LV programs (with SLS being the remaining exception, for now) is put our eggs in the private sector.

So what happens if the first, long overdue, commercial flight to station is a total failure? Look at the political winds in washington. There is a tremendous amount of dislike towards all government programs right now and there are anti-spaceflight lawmakers on both sides of the isle that want nothing more than to be done with the entire ball of wax. If this mission was to fail there is a distinct possibility that they will in fact just end the whole thing.

Examples:
1. All commercial programs are defunded, then SLS defunded, NASA goes to research only.
2. ISS handed off/downsized/de-orbited as soon as possible/ect. excuse: not enough funding+commercial proved they couldn't do it ect.
3. Or 3rd option: all programs downsized but not cut, but downsized to the point of no longer being of value.

So here is the argument I am making. If this launch fails, from a political standpoint, this will be a very bad thing. Anyone and everyone opposed to commercial (which includes most of the pro SLS lawmakers) as well as the anti spaceflight crowed will use that as a political football, and the end result will either mean a drastic cutback in any federally funded or backed program (like the commercial programs and ISS) or total removal. That it or it will be used as justification to cut the commercial programs to nothing and leave only SLS (which will be of little or no use to ISS) which is basically a non-starter.

Now commercial companies will continue to launch things they have a business case for (such as satellites and perhaps a dragon lab or two) but  of course without ISS no missions to ISS, and largely no reason to go forward with HSF capacity so that will drop). But the idea of exploration will basically disappear. There won't be a beo program, there won't be an ISS all of that will be gone, and private companies are not going to fly space stations for the sake of exploration (the only reason bigelow wants to is for private reasons and its limited in scope, it also remains to be seen if it will ever actually happen).  They are also not going to go BEO without a business reason to do so (for which none exists).

So to put it bluntly, no it won't mean the end of ALL american spaceflight,  obviously we will still be launching satellites and other things, but it will mean a drastic cutback in exploration/HSF/ect or a total loss there of.


Call me cynical, tell me I am being a fool I don't really care. I have seen this sort of thing before, it only takes one major failure at a critical moment and then all the politicians jump it and throw the entire concept out. They already tried once, (and imo I doubt SLS lasts another 5 years but I digress), if this mission fails they will try again.

Anyway short version is that I think a failure now would result in so much negative politics that we lose most of our exploration programs ect ect. My 2 cents.


Despite all of that however, I highly doubt that it will fail. In fact I think it will be 100% successful.

But I don't like people who seem to think that if it did fail we would somehow be better off (because then things like SLS would get more funding or something). If memory serves the reason I wrote that was in response to someone who I perceived was suggesting exactly that (as he has in the past) but again I digress, my point is you better hope this doesn't fail because if it does not only will we not be somehow "better off" we will lose alot more along with it/

[mr. mark]

Thanks Jim, I know it's not the most exciting test but, it is part of the process and it is good to know. Thanks for the info. Looking forward to the go/ no go about a week from now along with the April 16th press conference.   

[mr. mark]

Wouldn't this back and forth be better located on the Space Policy board? This does not look like COTS 2 updates to me.

[docmordrid]

Me either 

[FinalFrontier]

Wouldn't this back and forth be better located on the Space Policy board? This does not look like COTS 2 updates to me.

Its weird. I am relatively sure this was on the spacex discussion thread or somewhere else before, and it got moved here (not sure why).

Probably would be good to move it back there or spacepolicy or something, because it doesn't belong here.

[Chris Bergin]

People simply not respecting what the threads are about. Locked. Will work out what to do, not that some people listen.

[Chris Bergin]

This threa has now been transformed into a discussion thread.

A specific update thread has been recreated for pre-launch updates:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28586.0

[Jim]

Thanks Jim, I know it's not the most exciting test but, it is part of the process and it is good to know. Thanks for the info. Looking forward to the go/ no go about a week from now along with the April 16th press conference.   

I am saying I know the actual outcome.  CEITs are just events that happen, they done generate news, just PR shots of astronauts.   Look back at all the info on the shuttle ones and you won't see any meat about them.  Just that it is planned and it happened.

[Norm38]

So here is the argument I am making. If this launch fails, from a political standpoint, this will be a very bad thing. Anyone and everyone opposed to commercial (which includes most of the pro SLS lawmakers) as well as the anti spaceflight crowed will use that as a political football, and the end result will either mean a drastic cutback in any federally funded or backed program (like the commercial programs and ISS) or total removal. That it or it will be used as justification to cut the commercial programs to nothing and leave only SLS (which will be of little or no use to ISS) which is basically a non-starter.

Don't you just love how a $30 million F/A 18 can crash into an apartment block for no good reason without a single mention of grounding the fleet for 3 years or a massive cut in Pentagon funding?
But if SpaceX has a single malfunction on this flight, that's it, no more human spaceflight?

Congress is irrational and scientifically illiterate.  It's clear where their priorities lie, clear they have no desire to invest in the future.  So our only path forward is for commercial spaceflight to suceed and operate independent of NASA.

And we really need to start treating spaceflight accidents EXACTLY like military and commercial aerospace accidents - that is, that they are expected and do not terminate entire programs.  With the Shuttles gone, I don't want to ever, ever again have to suffer a political 3 year shutdown because of an accident when no other industry operates that way.

[go4mars]

So this leaves us with commercial vendors, being paid by the government to go fly, that develop the LV's on their own (et al, spacex, ula, ect.)

Basically what we have done by moving away from NASA run LV programs (with SLS being the remaining exception, for now) is put our eggs in the private sector.

So what happens if the first, long overdue, commercial flight to station is a total failure? ...If this mission was to fail there is a distinct possibility that they will in fact just end the whole thing.

So here is the argument I am making. If this launch fails, from a political standpoint, this will be a very bad thing.  ...be used as justification to cut the commercial programs to nothing and leave only SLS (which will be of little or no use to ISS) which is basically a non-starter.

Now commercial companies will continue to launch things they have a business case for (such as satellites and perhaps a dragon lab or two) but  of course without ISS no missions to ISS, and largely no reason to go forward with HSF capacity so that will drop). But the idea of exploration will basically disappear. There won't be a beo program, there won't be an ISS all of that will be gone, and private companies are not going to fly space stations for the sake of exploration
Anyway short version is that I think a failure now would result in so much negative politics that we lose most of our exploration programs

So you think if this test launch goes awry, even in a small way, that the ISS will get de-orbited sooner, all commercial contracts for resupply will be cancelled ASAP, and SLS cancelled within 5 years?     

I suppose that has a non-zero chance of happenning. 

I think a more likely scenario, if something should go wrong, is that yes; some politicians would flap their wings and hiss and spit.  But at the end of the day,    ISS won't be promptly discarded.  If that is true, then it comes back to wondering which is better (politically and economically): scraping the commercial crew development programs, or forking over significant $ to Russia?  "eggs in one basket" is defined better by SLS/Orion than by multiple relatively inexpensive providers. 

If NASA budgets get axed significantly, it will have more to do with dollars and the economy than the result of a test launch.  Significantly, philanthrocapitalism, and interest in both space tourism and sub-orbital transport would cushion such a blow to space flight.  Though clearly space geeks would increase their beer intake for a few weeks if the situation unfolds as you outline. 

[Jim]

Don't you just love how a $30 million F/A 18 can crash into an apartment block for no good reason without a single mention of grounding the fleet for 3 years or a massive cut in Pentagon funding?
But if SpaceX has a single malfunction on this flight,
And we really need to start treating spaceflight accidents EXACTLY....

Wrong analogy.   It was not the 3rd flight of the F/A-18.