I thought the F9 was about 4G. Something the average person could handle right off the street.
Another possibility is disposing of high-level radioactive waste.Yucca Mountain was the U.S. government's plan to deal with it by burying it, until it was killed when Harry Reid came to power because it was in his state. Yucca Mountain was supposed to handle 70,000 metric tons of waste. It has already cost $21 billion and it was projected the total lifecycle cost would be $90 billion. That's more than $1.2 million per ton. So at $10 million for 15 tons to LEO you can get that waste to LEO for less than it would have cost to bury in Yucca Mountain. Cut the launch costs some more and you can send it to the Moon, or to a Lagrangian Point. You'd want it sealed in a container that would survive re-entry intact and not break open, so that would also increase the mass required. But any safety issues with the launch would be balanced by not having a continuing safety issue for thousands of years if it were buried somewhere.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository
All of the training which used to be "required" for spaceflight won't truly be needed once Dragon has been proven relatively safe. Certainly it will be a bit more than the "safety lecture" given on every commercial airliner flight. But, consider the fact that there will be no need to "weed out" candidates (as long as they have the cash), which was the *real* reason that government run space programs have historically been very picky about selecting astronaut candidates. Note the types of "passengers" who have already flown on Soyuz and even on the space shuttle. Considering quite the odd assortment of "payload specialists" that the shuttle flew (e.g. Senator Jake Garn and then 77 year old Senator John Glenn), this seems to demonstratively prove that reasonably healthy adults can and *do* survive flights to LEO and back.
It takes several day to weeks for someone to get minimum training in being a "passenger" on high performance jet aircraft, (minimum I've seen is two days (about 6 hours each day) PRIOR to getting into the aircraft and that's a "don't touch anything" ride) which includes tests and training to learn how to handle G-forces, pressurization/de-pressurization, and safety training as well as life-support, and suit fittings. No you are not going to "show-up" with a certificate from your doctor and board the spaceship for a long, long time.
With tethers you can get quite a large radius, the problem being how to travel between the center and the rotating modules.
Quote from: RanulfC on 01/27/2014 09:37 pmIt takes several day to weeks for someone to get minimum training in being a "passenger" on high performance jet aircraft, (minimum I've seen is two days (about 6 hours each day) PRIOR to getting into the aircraft and that's a "don't touch anything" ride) which includes tests and training to learn how to handle G-forces, pressurization/de-pressurization, and safety training as well as life-support, and suit fittings. No you are not going to "show-up" with a certificate from your doctor and board the spaceship for a long, long time.I think that once spaceflight is more routine, anyone will be able to go. Health concerns will be a lot lower as well. I sure hope they will let me go (have a stent, but am otherwise fit) once prices come down (still hoping it will happen in my lifetime).The months of training now are IMHO largely unnecessary in a more commercial (non ISS) setting.It could come down to a few of days, which seems more in line with other commercial settings. No one had to go through elaborate training or health checks prior to boarding the Concorde. Even a flight on the SS2 will only require a few (2?) days of prior training and I think it is only a small step from that to an orbital trip.I also remember a time when you could book a hypersonic joy ride (some including a steep climb to 30 km) on a Russian Mig 29 shortly after the collapse of the USSR. No prior training required and no questions asked.
Something being offered in Russia right after the collapse of the USSR are pretty meaningless to the standards of developed countries. Take the Chernobyl reactor as a simple example. That reactor as it was constructed wouldn't be allowed to operate in North America, East Europe, Japan and a few more countries ever. It lacked the most essential safety feature, the equivalent would be a fighter jet without an ejection seat and a few more avoidable risk factors. And the biggest reason F15/F16 pilots were told not to dogfight a Mig 29 unless they absolutely had to was exactly because it was lighter for not having many of the robust features their NATO equivalents had (giving it a better thrust to weight leading to better agility).There's a clear track record of little respect for human life in the USSR times. All the way from every soldier is 100% expendable to the way they treated their own population. This has changed today BTW (to some extent).Sorry for the off topic, but the argument presented screams the need for a clarification.
How is the "helping" your argument since every single one of those "passengers" trained for months prior to going up? No one gets away with "short" training time because the environment is very dangerous and the slightest "accident" can lead to a lot of death in very nasty ways. Having Dragon "proven-safe" is not going to change this much, if at all. The majority of the training recieved is what to do in case the worst happens. (And 99% of the "Passengers" training is to get OUT of the way of the people who actually know what they are doing so they can do it)It takes several day to weeks for someone to get minimum training in being a "passenger" on high performance jet aircraft, (minimum I've seen is two days (about 6 hours each day) PRIOR to getting into the aircraft and that's a "don't touch anything" ride) which includes tests and training to learn how to handle G-forces, pressurization/de-pressurization, and safety training as well as life-support, and suit fittings. No you are not going to "show-up" with a certificate from your doctor and board the spaceship for a long, long time.
I think that once spaceflight is more routine, anyone will be able to go. Health concerns will be a lot lower as well. I sure hope they will let me go (have a stent, but am otherwise fit) once prices come down (still hoping it will happen in my lifetime).The months of training now are IMHO largely unnecessary in a more commercial (non ISS) setting.It could come down to a few of days, which seems more in line with other commercial settings. No one had to go through elaborate training or health checks prior to boarding the Concorde. Even a flight on the SS2 will only require a few (2?) days of prior training and I think it is only a small step from that to an orbital trip.I also remember a time when you could book a hypersonic joy ride (some including a steep climb to 30 km) on a Russian Mig 29 shortly after the collapse of the USSR. No prior training required and no questions asked.
Quite a number of people flew on the space shuttle as "payload specialists" and "mission specialists" with no training on how to fly the vehicle.The Russian requirement that everyone be able to fly the Soyuz isn't a law of nature.
Please don't mistake organizational inertia ("it's *always* been done this way") with reality. For project Mercury, it made sense to pull candidates from the ranks of test pilots. But we are several generations of spacecraft removed from that original starting point. Passengers on a commercial spacecraft will not have to be trained to take the controls.
Yes, commercial spacecraft passengers *might* train for contingencies like egress from the spacecraft in case of a water landing.
But even that is not written in stone. In the history of commercial air travel, there have been cases where passengers had to leave an aircraft after a water ditching, but passengers still don't train for that scenario. All commercial aircraft passengers need to do for training for that scenario is listen to a brief "safety lecture" which includes "your seat cushion may be used as a floatation device".
And finally, from a regulatory point of view commercial launch providers do not, and will not, have to answer to NASA. So, it matters little what NASA has "required" in the past for their government run spacecraft.
Supersonic joy ride actually
However if it was ever "no prior training" and "no questions" it was only for a short time and is no longer that way because NOW all those joy rides have to deal with insurance and they require training. (I pretty guarantee it was never "no-training" even though they may have not cared if you had "prior" training because people who deal with high performance aircraft in hazerdouze situations and a zoom climb qualified do NOT want someone who has never been given a rigerious and intensive "shooling" around them when they are doing it. Such people tend to make such situations VERY much worse by making simple mistakes because they don't know any better. Short of strapping someone arms and legs so that they can't move, then you MUST train the person in certain minimum safety and operations procedures before they ever climb into the aircraft. If you don't you will find yourself in a flat spin at 30Km with no control because your "passenger" didn't know any better than to pull the "red-handle" to adjust his seat. And managed to blow himself and every bit of control you had out of the airplane
SS2 will require two (2) WEEKS of "training" we've been told by VG, most of which will be a "vacation" really and about 4 days of actual "training" one of which will be microgravity training aboard the WK2 after it drops an SS2 mission. Branson is hoping to get away with minimum training time but there are no indications that the FAA or anyone else is going to let him get away without altitude training and emergency training. Like I said about 4 days.
Agreed but those payload specialists still tooks months of training learning how and what to do during an emergancy and what not to do and specifically how to live and operate as part of a crew in a hostile environment. Even if you're not "flight-crew" the training tends to be intensive if not as long.
Ahhh, no putting words in my mouth I NEVER made that point thank you. However far we are removed from Mercury though passengers STILL will have to undergo training in various aspects that make space flight DIFFERENT than other forms of transportation.
Spacecraft are not aircraft and they are not going to be any time in the near future. Where as people do not have to "train" to leave an aircraft in a water ditching scenerio people who fly in spacecraft do because it it a very different environment and conditions than those faced by airline passengers. We are a very long way off from the point where being a spacecraft passenger is anything like being an airline passenger. The sooner people understand that simple fact of life the sooner people will gain the true persepective on how space tourism and passenger operations will be.
NASA HAS regulations and the FAA is leaning towards adopting most of them for application to commercial launch providers for passenger safety.
Not all of them or course but the idea of sending someone up in a spacecraft that has never "practiced" even simple procedures is pretty ridiculous.
Think about it for a moment. Rent a nice "spacesuit" costume, sit in your car and then have someone time you doing an "escape" drill and check your time compared to not wearing the suit. Then try getting out of a chair on you back in the same exercise. Go up and down a ladder in the suit, if you can afford it dive into a pool and try and stay afloat while inflating a life vest. (They don't always automatically work)
Now imagine having to execute those same tasks in microgravity? In a cramped spacecraft where one careless kick or sweep of the arm could effect the spacecraft controls, knock loose a vital piece of equipment or worse yet put someone ELSE in danger?
This has nothing to do with "organizational inertia" or "outdated" rules set in stone and everything to do with the fact that the "Passengers" will in fact be dealing with very "non-standard" conditions and situations that they NEED to be trained in, aware of, and able to cope with in a way that no passenger on an airliner, ship, train, or car has had to do. This isn't about jumping into the "pilots" seat as a passenger and saving the day it is about being able to NOT get in the way of the people who are trying to save the day while also being prepared and able to do exactly what YOU need to do, when you need to do it to save your own life in an emergency.
