SpaceX F9/Crew Dragon : Polaris Dawn : KSC LC-39A : NET Late August 2024

[Comga]

People were complaining about the "clueless" New York Times using the "tourist" label.

And the "Most Dismissive Award" for Clueless Media goes to the New York Times for the clickbait headline, "SpaceX Tourists Will Make Attempt at Spacewalk During Flight".

The characterization of Jared Isaacman and crew as tourists is less accurate here than for any previous commercial spaceflight. My own take is that Isaacman is so onboard with the future of spaceflight he has virtually partnered with SpaceX to help advance their capabilities. It's like a private commercial Gemini program. (snip)

I agree. The "tourist" label does not apply here at all.

Gillis and Menon, as SpaceX personnel, are space industry professionals (snip)
Isaacman and Poteet are aviation professionals who are both well qualified (snip)

I absolutely agree with these points.
So what's Manley's excuse for using the "tourist" label in the title?
He doesn't use it when discussing Polaris.

Now Bezos and Branson qualify as tourists, using their money (or ability to raise money and run with it) to get their "flights into space". 
We couldn't hope for a better volunteer than Issacman to pay for and personally test new crew space technology.

[whitelancer64]

• If it's just an upgraded IVA suit, it will probably become like an inflated balloon, or a car tyre, making it hard and very tiresome to move your arms and legs, and even your fingers.  Again, perfectly fine for its intended purpose, but you would not want to work for several hours in it.

On the Everyday Astronaut with Isaccman they say all the 4 members are going to use the suit with improved mobility and more capability on fingers movement so seems are not going to be inflated balloons.

Modifying the gloves to increase dexterity in the fingers is a direct engineering response to the suit being inflated like a balloon.... The ability to more easily move at the shoulder and elbow when the suit is pressurized will also be required for a spacewalk of any utility.

[Robotbeat]

• If it's just an upgraded IVA suit, it will probably become like an inflated balloon, or a car tyre, making it hard and very tiresome to move your arms and legs, and even your fingers.  Again, perfectly fine for its intended purpose, but you would not want to work for several hours in it.

On the Everyday Astronaut with Isaccman they say all the 4 members are going to use the suit with improved mobility and more capability on fingers movement so seems are not going to be inflated balloons.

Modifying the gloves to increase dexterity in the fingers is a direct engineering response to the suit being inflated like a balloon.... The ability to more easily move at the shoulder and elbow when the suit is pressurized will also be required for a spacewalk of any utility.

Huh?? Every EVA suit needs gloves with improved dexterity versus pure IVA suit designs.

And yea, they already mentioned improved joint mobility.

Actually listen to the interview. This is going to be an EVA suit that uses an umbilical instead of a backpack.

What is the point of this continued minimization? There’s no evidence that SpaceX isn’t serious about tackling the challenges of making an EVA suit.

[whitelancer64]

• If it's just an upgraded IVA suit, it will probably become like an inflated balloon, or a car tyre, making it hard and very tiresome to move your arms and legs, and even your fingers.  Again, perfectly fine for its intended purpose, but you would not want to work for several hours in it.

On the Everyday Astronaut with Isaccman they say all the 4 members are going to use the suit with improved mobility and more capability on fingers movement so seems are not going to be inflated balloons.

Modifying the gloves to increase dexterity in the fingers is a direct engineering response to the suit being inflated like a balloon.... The ability to more easily move at the shoulder and elbow when the suit is pressurized will also be required for a spacewalk of any utility.

Huh?? Every EVA suit needs gloves with improved dexterity versus pure IVA suit designs.

And yea, they already mentioned improved joint mobility.

Actually listen to the interview. This is going to be an EVA suit that uses an umbilical instead of a backpack.

What is the point of this continued minimization? There’s no evidence that SpaceX isn’t serious about tackling the challenges of making an EVA suit.

Modify your post to remove the "huh??" part. You repeat what I said after your "huh" so you obviously understand what I wrote.

You pretending to not understand what I've written is deliberately insulting.

I'm not minimizing anything. Calm down.

[Robotbeat]

People were complaining about the "clueless" New York Times using the "tourist" label.

And the "Most Dismissive Award" for Clueless Media goes to the New York Times for the clickbait headline, "SpaceX Tourists Will Make Attempt at Spacewalk During Flight".

The characterization of Jared Isaacman and crew as tourists is less accurate here than for any previous commercial spaceflight. My own take is that Isaacman is so onboard with the future of spaceflight he has virtually partnered with SpaceX to help advance their capabilities. It's like a private commercial Gemini program. (snip)

I agree. The "tourist" label does not apply here at all.

Gillis and Menon, as SpaceX personnel, are space industry professionals (snip)
Isaacman and Poteet are aviation professionals who are both well qualified (snip)

I absolutely agree with these points.
So what's Manley's excuse for using the "tourist" label in the title?
He doesn't use it when discussing Polaris.

Now Bezos and Branson qualify as tourists, using their money (or ability to raise money and run with it) to get their "flights into space". 
We couldn't hope for a better volunteer than Issacman to pay for and personally test new crew space technology.

I think it’s fine to draw a distinction between professional astronauts and folks like Jared, but…


“tourist” might be appropriate if spaceflight weren’t insanely dangerous. “Adventurer” I think is more fitting. (Adventurer doesn’t imply the mission is Jared’s day job.)

I mean, even though Branson isn’t doing anything really technical on his little jaunt, it’s hard to call anyone a tourist if what they’re doing has a super high chance of death and is functioning as a kind of early shakedown flight.

Both Jared and Branson can be characterized as adventurers, although Jared is definitely more actively involved in leading the mission. Doing a shakedown test of EVA capability and some of the other stuff they’re doing is legitimate work that professional astronauts might do.

[Robotbeat]

• If it's just an upgraded IVA suit, it will probably become like an inflated balloon, or a car tyre, making it hard and very tiresome to move your arms and legs, and even your fingers.  Again, perfectly fine for its intended purpose, but you would not want to work for several hours in it.

On the Everyday Astronaut with Isaccman they say all the 4 members are going to use the suit with improved mobility and more capability on fingers movement so seems are not going to be inflated balloons.

Modifying the gloves to increase dexterity in the fingers is a direct engineering response to the suit being inflated like a balloon.... The ability to more easily move at the shoulder and elbow when the suit is pressurized will also be required for a spacewalk of any utility.

Huh?? Every EVA suit needs gloves with improved dexterity versus pure IVA suit designs.

And yea, they already mentioned improved joint mobility.

Actually listen to the interview. This is going to be an EVA suit that uses an umbilical instead of a backpack.

What is the point of this continued minimization? There’s no evidence that SpaceX isn’t serious about tackling the challenges of making an EVA suit.

Modify your post to remove the "huh??" part. You repeat what I said after your "huh" so you obviously understand what I wrote.

You pretending to not understand what I've written is deliberately insulting.

I'm not minimizing anything. Calm down.

Okay, but you  responded to Ponja taking issue with tbellman’s implication that REAL EVA suits don’t inflate like a balloon. It sure sounds like you were agreeing with tbellman’s characterization. Were you?

[whitelancer64]

• If it's just an upgraded IVA suit, it will probably become like an inflated balloon, or a car tyre, making it hard and very tiresome to move your arms and legs, and even your fingers.  Again, perfectly fine for its intended purpose, but you would not want to work for several hours in it.

On the Everyday Astronaut with Isaccman they say all the 4 members are going to use the suit with improved mobility and more capability on fingers movement so seems are not going to be inflated balloons.

Modifying the gloves to increase dexterity in the fingers is a direct engineering response to the suit being inflated like a balloon.... The ability to more easily move at the shoulder and elbow when the suit is pressurized will also be required for a spacewalk of any utility.

Huh?? Every EVA suit needs gloves with improved dexterity versus pure IVA suit designs.

And yea, they already mentioned improved joint mobility.

Actually listen to the interview. This is going to be an EVA suit that uses an umbilical instead of a backpack.

What is the point of this continued minimization? There’s no evidence that SpaceX isn’t serious about tackling the challenges of making an EVA suit.

Modify your post to remove the "huh??" part. You repeat what I said after your "huh" so you obviously understand what I wrote.

You pretending to not understand what I've written is deliberately insulting.

I'm not minimizing anything. Calm down.

Okay, but you  responded to Ponja taking issue with tbellman’s implication that REAL EVA suits don’t inflate like a balloon. It sure sounds like you were agreeing with tbellman’s characterization. Were you?

Obviously not. Try reading what I wrote.

[Robotbeat]

Okay, so you disagree with tbellman’s point, like ThePonjaX does?

[whitelancer64]

Okay, so you disagree with tbellman’s point, like ThePonjaX does?

Maybe if you had read what I wrote instead of blindly jumping down my metaphorical throat, you would have figured that out sooner......

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Enough of that both of you. You both know better. More civility please.

Now to what I wanted to say about the mission likelihood of actually occurring in the Q4 2022 time frame that is identified. Inspiration 4 did not move at all at 6 moths out from the actual date of launch. So likely somewhere around April or May we may see an actual day and month NET specified. Or at least a month as well as whether it will be possible to do it in this year or not. There are a lot of logistic things that have to come together to pick a date. And so that work is likely yet to be finished although has identified so far a possible quarter and year.

Additionally. Isaacman is operating these missions like a business from the standpoint of an upfront expenditure that would generate a much greater return. The return being the induced donations in the name of the mission to his favorite charity. SpaceX also gains what it is after which is the early in space testing of EVA suits to iron them out into a reliable and capable suit for use in space and on planetary surfaces. SpaceX have other hardware to test such as the ISL terminal that connects to Starlink for broadband communications that could eventually give D2 24/7 broadband communication for its subsequent flights of crew and cargo missions.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

twitter.com/polarisprogram/status/1494055495266668544

Take a look at our first mission patch, summing up the key elements of the first mission of the Polaris Program — Polaris Dawn.

Edit to add:

https://twitter.com/polarisprogram/status/1494055502384451595

exploratio simul — "exploration together"

Thank you to Morgan Denman for your beautiful design work! ❤️🚀

Morgan is @NASAdesigner

[FutureSpaceTourist]

I'm curious -- does anyone know how this set of upcoming missions was conceived? Were they purely Isaacman's idea, or were they conceived from discussions between himself and SpaceX, or what?

Don’t think there’s been an explicit explanation of this. The impression I get from Isaacman’s interviews is that he personally wants to meaningfully advance crewed spaceflight. So my guess is that he went to SpaceX with that and they jointly conceived the Polaris program.

I’m really excited to see this happening. Still a long way to get people to Mars, but step by step the various hurdles are being tackled. SpaceX have a significant human spaceflight program that is not government funded 

[hektor]

Regarding the EVA, given the fact that the cabin will be depressurized and the hatch open, who is considered doing EVA ? All four astronauts or only the ones crossing the hatch threshold ?

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Regarding the EVA, given the fact that the cabin will be depressurized and the hatch open, who is considered doing EVA ? All four astronauts or only the ones crossing the hatch threshold ?

The latter. You’re not ‘extra vehicular’ (outside or beyond the vehicle) if you’re still in it. It was the same for Gemini spacewalks.

[steveleach]

Regarding the EVA, given the fact that the cabin will be depressurized and the hatch open, who is considered doing EVA ? All four astronauts or only the ones crossing the hatch threshold ?

The latter. You’re not ‘extra vehicular’ (outside or beyond the vehicle) if you’re still in it. It was the same for Gemini spacewalks.

I'm sure they'll be able to find a grey area in that somewhere. Will the crew who aren't scheduled for full EVA have an opportunity to stick their heads out of the hatch for a look around?

[Hamish.Student]

Regarding the EVA, given the fact that the cabin will be depressurized and the hatch open, who is considered doing EVA ? All four astronauts or only the ones crossing the hatch threshold ?

The latter. You’re not ‘extra vehicular’ (outside or beyond the vehicle) if you’re still in it. It was the same for Gemini spacewalks.

I'm sure they'll be able to find a grey area in that somewhere. Will the crew who aren't scheduled for full EVA have an opportunity to stick their heads out of the hatch for a look around?

 
 
No, it was stated in one of the interviews (I cant remember which sorry) that the other two will remain buckled in their seats, (My guess following) likely in the commander/pilot* seats to manage an emergency if there is one. 
 
*Not necessarily the commander and pilot themselves though. The 2 people EVAing have not been decided, and will be worked out during training based on merit.

[hektor]

So EVA is Gillis / Menon ?

[envy887]

So EVA is Gillis / Menon ?

Isaacman is almost certainly going to EVA. This mission is largely on his dime, and I can't imagine him not wanting to do that.

[Hamish.Student]

So EVA is Gillis / Menon ?

Isaacman is almost certainly going to EVA. This mission is largely on his dime, and I can't imagine him not wanting to do that.

 
 
Once again, in the interviews he said that they have not chosen who will EVA, and that will be decided based on merit during the training.

[Robotbeat]

Regarding the EVA, given the fact that the cabin will be depressurized and the hatch open, who is considered doing EVA ? All four astronauts or only the ones crossing the hatch threshold ?

The latter. You’re not ‘extra vehicular’ (outside or beyond the vehicle) if you’re still in it. It was the same for Gemini spacewalks.

I'm sure they'll be able to find a grey area in that somewhere. Will the crew who aren't scheduled for full EVA have an opportunity to stick their heads out of the hatch for a look around?

That in-between is called a “standup EVA” and it was done on at least one of the Apollo missions.