Any chance spacex could sell seats to space tourists for dm1? Like x million per seat?
I mean not everyone can afford a ride on a certified spacecraft. It seems like such a waste to send this test vehicle empty. They have tested the hell out of all the components already. Did they launch a space shuttle with no people on board first time? I don’t think so. When did everyone become so cautious.
Shuttle could've launched without crew if they had wanted it to. The Russians managed it just fine with less funding and generally less sophisticated computer technology.The safety culture changed. And honestly, I think it makes sense to do uncrewed flights. Particularly if you're reusable.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 07/17/2018 02:02 amShuttle could've launched without crew if they had wanted it to. The Russians managed it just fine with less funding and generally less sophisticated computer technology.The safety culture changed. And honestly, I think it makes sense to do uncrewed flights. Particularly if you're reusable.I seem to remember that the Shuttle landing gear control was not connected to the flight computers so that It would require people on board for deployment during landing. Maybe my memory is faulty, but I think this was the case.
Quote from: Eric Hedman on 07/17/2018 02:41 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 07/17/2018 02:02 amShuttle could've launched without crew if they had wanted it to. The Russians managed it just fine with less funding and generally less sophisticated computer technology.The safety culture changed. And honestly, I think it makes sense to do uncrewed flights. Particularly if you're reusable.I seem to remember that the Shuttle landing gear control was not connected to the flight computers so that It would require people on board for deployment during landing. Maybe my memory is faulty, but I think this was the case.I believe the point was the shuttle could have been designed to operate without crew. Of course, that would have been more expensive and it didn't seem important at the time.
Quote from: RonM on 07/17/2018 02:53 amQuote from: Eric Hedman on 07/17/2018 02:41 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 07/17/2018 02:02 amShuttle could've launched without crew if they had wanted it to. The Russians managed it just fine with less funding and generally less sophisticated computer technology.The safety culture changed. And honestly, I think it makes sense to do uncrewed flights. Particularly if you're reusable.I seem to remember that the Shuttle landing gear control was not connected to the flight computers so that It would require people on board for deployment during landing. Maybe my memory is faulty, but I think this was the case.I believe the point was the shuttle could have been designed to operate without crew. Of course, that would have been more expensive and it didn't seem important at the time.I actually doubt it'd be significantly more expensive at all. In fact, the initial flight would've been cheaper if it had been uncrewed, and they could've spared all the mods needed to put ejection seats for the first couple flights.Shuttle was fly by wire, and except for final approach was basically computer controlled the whole time. A relay to trigger wheel-down would've been actually trivial.In fact, I believe they even installed the equipment necessary to do this on later flights but never used it. (There's a Wayne Hale blog post about this, I think.)I think it was largely internal politics that prevented the ability to launch a full mission without crew.tl;dr: It totally makes sense to test fly uncrewed at first.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 07/17/2018 04:14 amQuote from: RonM on 07/17/2018 02:53 amQuote from: Eric Hedman on 07/17/2018 02:41 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 07/17/2018 02:02 amShuttle could've launched without crew if they had wanted it to. The Russians managed it just fine with less funding and generally less sophisticated computer technology.The safety culture changed. And honestly, I think it makes sense to do uncrewed flights. Particularly if you're reusable.I seem to remember that the Shuttle landing gear control was not connected to the flight computers so that It would require people on board for deployment during landing. Maybe my memory is faulty, but I think this was the case.I believe the point was the shuttle could have been designed to operate without crew. Of course, that would have been more expensive and it didn't seem important at the time.I actually doubt it'd be significantly more expensive at all. In fact, the initial flight would've been cheaper if it had been uncrewed, and they could've spared all the mods needed to put ejection seats for the first couple flights.Shuttle was fly by wire, and except for final approach was basically computer controlled the whole time. A relay to trigger wheel-down would've been actually trivial.In fact, I believe they even installed the equipment necessary to do this on later flights but never used it. (There's a Wayne Hale blog post about this, I think.)I think it was largely internal politics that prevented the ability to launch a full mission without crew.tl;dr: It totally makes sense to test fly uncrewed at first.I have the same memories about shuttle. It was essentially all there.I’m just happy that after 7 years we are finally this close to US human space flight.
Any guess on when this will launch? Thread title is NET August but it doesn't seem plausible to launch in <30 days.Maybe we'll find out more on August 3rd when crew assignments are announced?
Quote from: Geron on 07/17/2018 01:32 amI mean not everyone can afford a ride on a certified spacecraft. It seems like such a waste to send this test vehicle empty. They have tested the hell out of all the components already. Did they launch a space shuttle with no people on board first time? I don’t think so. When did everyone become so cautious.It's not a waste, it's a testbed. And people got a lot more cautious after the loss of two orbiters and their crew. Risk is part of spaceflight and it always will be but it has to be managed and proportionate risk. The risk of sending up paying passengers on an otherwise untested spacecraft, just to make a bit more money is not a risk worth taking at all.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2018/08/02/nasas-commercial-crew-program-target-test-flight-dates-3/Targeted Test Flight Dates:Boeing Orbital Flight Test (uncrewed): late 2018 / early 2019Boeing Crew Flight Test (crewed): mid-2019SpaceX Demo-1 (uncrewed): November 2018SpaceX Demo-2 (crewed): April 2019
