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Exploration

Astronauts Practice Launching in Orion

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
September 27, 2013
Filed under

Astronauts Practice Launching in NASA’s New Orion Spacecraft, NASA
“Astronauts Rick Linnehan and Mike Foreman try out a prototype display and control system inside an Orion spacecraft mockup at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston during the first ascent and abort simulations for the program.
For the first time, NASA astronauts are practicing a launch into space aboard the agency’s Orion spacecraft, and provided feedback on the new capsule’s cockpit design.”

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22 responses to “Astronauts Practice Launching in Orion”

  1. Vladislaw says:
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    and in 2023 they can stop practicing and go on a real crewed launch….

  2. Andrew Gasser says:
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    This is laughable.

  3. Littrow says:
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    I sure hope that after 8 or 9 years of development that they have had astronaut input to the cockpit design before now.

    Comparing this photo and PR language to the progress demonstrated on the Boeing CSTand Space X Dragon, the slow progress NASA is showingisis indeed pathetic.

  4. DTARS says:
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    This Sunday at 9 o’clock pacific time Spacex is going to attempt to put and end to this expensive imaginary space program by demonstrating real rocket science. If they even partly succeed in controling their first stage to a soft landing, our future will be forever changed.

    At any moment in time each and everyone of us can change the future. If we all truly took that to heart we could end ripoffs like Orion and SLS.

    Be like Elon

    Let’s change the future!

    • PsiSquared says:
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      Please explain how others aren’t pursuing “real rocket science”? Other programs might be slow, bloated, and misguided, but that doesn’t mean that the engineers and scientists in said programs aren’t doing good work and aren’t doing “real rocket science”. Your comment is a cheap swipe at real scientists and engineers that actually work in the field.

      If you want a target, target the politicians and other bureaucrats that make the decisions. Don’t take cheap shots and use such low brow tactics to smear hard working people trying to do their jobs as best as possible.

      It would be wise to also consider where some of SpaceX’s employees have come from.

      • DTARS says:
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        In my comment You can clearly see that I attack the program not those doing the work. But I agree that it implies a Negitive about the engineers that is not intended.
        I know very little about the rocket science that is being done to attempt to get this giant rocket to fly. What new things are being done to make this rocket fly better saferr or cheaper.

        I am currently helping build a factory. I have little idea if the product it will produce is for the greater good or not. That is beyond my control. I just do my job.

        In my comment what I mean by real rocket science is when engineers are working to make roc kets better.

        I recall the Gemmi program each flight was a stepping stone of growth. It was exciting to watch.

        I get angry about things like studying the effects of gravity on astronauts instead of build spaceships with g

    • Rocky J says:
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      DTARS, I agree with you. PsiSquared incorrectly read into your comment but he is correct that it is the internal and external (politics) management of NASA and not so much the engineers that double and triple the cost of SLS and MPCV. Here’s my guess for Orion. It will fly for a decade but Lockheed-Martin will develop a commercial system that costs much less and it will replace Orion for NASA and also be sold for private spaceflights. Like I’ve commented before, SLS won’t last past its 3rd flight.

  5. Michael Spencer says:
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    Are there any smart people here who can provide some insight into the slow pace of Orion and SLS? It’s bigger and badder than what Elon is doing (isn’t it?) but it’s taking a LOT longer. Why?

    • SouthwestExGOP says:
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      There have been several good books written about this, and I am working on one that I hope will be listed with them one day.

      The essential problem with large groups is the inevitable “nanomanagement” which is worse than micromanagment. The reason is that managers “cannot tolerate mistakes”, they feel that they must view every piece of paper, approve every (even insignificant) purchase – to avoid embarrassment. Here the government is no different than a large, established company. SpaceX has the advantage of not needing to satisfy shareholders and having a single leader with a clear vision.

      At NASA every decision must be approved by a hierarchical set of boards and panels. At every level they feel that they must scrub everything hard to make sure no mistakes are made. Managers all have deputies – none of which have any authority. Etc.

      • Skinny_Lu says:
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        Pretty good start… keep going!

        How about
        1) SpaceX taking a pair of metal shears and trimming the ends of a nozzle that had delaminated, at the pad, then launched the rocket.
        2) An engine valve malfunctions and scrubs a test. They replace the “one” valve, do a minimal test and proceed to launch the rocket.

        Case 1) NASA would have held weeks of meetings and Powerpoint presentations by contractors and NASA. Engineering Boards would debate the risks and mitigation strategies and take votes. Everyone has a votet. Safety guy never wants to launch… With tens, if not hundreds, of engineers and managers tied in via teleconference from Marshall and Johnson, No decision yet…

        Case 2) NASA would have rolled rocket back to the VAB, replaced all nine valves in all engines. Roll back up to the pad and static fire the engines… More reviews and then maybe launch in a month or two.

        In Space X, the engineering team only has to convince Mr Musk. If he agrees, it’s done.

        This is the biggest advantage Space X has over NASA.

        Now, ULA is a whole different situation. Need a new thread to discuss.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        In a word, if I understand your point: “management”? Sounds like our local school board.

  6. John Kavanagh says:
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    This is how far $8 billion and 7 years worth of CEV/MPCV human exploration development has taken us. NASA awarded the Orion prime contract to Lockheed Martin in August 2006.

  7. Skinny_Lu says:
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    Oh yeah! Making some progress! I believe they are about a distant third in the Race to Space. Space X & ULA/Boeing capsules will be flying long before Orion/SLS.

    So, my advice for those of you prospective astronauts out there. Apply for work at Space X or Boeing. You will be flying long before NASA civil servant astronauts.

  8. Brian_M2525 says:
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    Michael Spencer asked:
    “Are there any smart people here who can provide some insight into the slow pace of Orion and SLS? It’s bigger and badder than what Elon is doing (isn’t it?) but it’s taking a LOT longer. Why?”

    It is not quite as simple as CharlesHouston makes it out. You have to go back decades to understand how the NASA human space flight capability was first built in the Apollo era and subsequently dismantled during the Shuttle era.

    Prior to Apollo the NACA model had NASA building the prototype spacecraft in-house. Once the NACA/NASA engineers felt they knew how it could best be done through first hand experience, they would turn over responsibility to a prime contractor that would build a large number of flight hardware units to the NASA specs.

    During Apollo and well into the Shuttle era NASA human space flight maintained a series of technical organizations and laboratories in order to research and develop major systems before turning them over to a prime contractor for full scale assembly. NASA continued to serve as the integrating contractor.

    About 1983 some misguided NASA managers got the smart idea that since they were now in the era of space operations they could save a lot of money by eliminating the technical skills of the NASA people and turning over operation to an operations contractor who would operate Shuttle like an airline. This became the STSOC contract and eventually the USA company.

    STSOC and USA were great for many of the top NASA managers because they created their own golden parachutes-they would achieve a high NASA position, then retire from the civil service to go onto much higher salaries in STSOC and USA. It successfully eliminated most of the NASA technical expertise since those people now became contract monitors. It successfully eliminated most of the NASA technical labs capable of designing and building hardware. There were only one or two organizations that maintained their independence, such as the EVA office.

    STSOC became a monopoly managing not an airline but a complex technical system that curiously never got any cheaper to operate. The NASA operations organization, flight crew ops (astronauts) and mission ops (flight directors) were repeatedly pressured to turn over their functions to STSOC but it never happened. In fact in the case of mission ops, they operated for 20 years in parallel with STSOC with both NASA and contractors performing the same jobs. Also not a way to save money. But STSOC had been successful at shutting down much of the NASA systems engineering and integration between about 1986 and 2000.

    Curiously even though the technical organizations and engineering within NASA were largely shut down, some of the hardware fabrication labs managed to stay intact for about another 10 years until about 1995. So when it became imperative to build some systems for NASA/Mir some of that last remaining capability was used.

    Curiously also, when the Spacehab commercial contractor -they owned their own Shuttle flight modules and integration facilities – got going in the 1990s, suddenly it became much less expensive and much less time consuming to fly payloads on Shuttle.

    Also in the 1990s the ISS Program managed to develop an independent mindset and an organization that was big, convoluted, had little real hardware capability, and lots of the oversight and insight reviews that CharlesHouston speaks of. ISS Program hardware was designed by the Apollo era engineers who lasted into the 1980s. Most of the recent “US” hardware was turned over to the international partners to build since NASA had little capability to design or build anything.

    Then came Constellation, Orion and MPCV. NASA had few people left who had any experience designing or developing anything but they had lots of experience with these big oversight panels and boards. So Constellation and Orion staffed up, never established the technical acumen or responsibilities and made some really horrendous design decisions like making the Orion as large and as heavy as it is (while simultaneously coming up with a booster called Ares 1 that did not have the capability to launch the Orion they were planning). They have been in a tailspin ever since.

    Orion figured out over the last several years that they were going to have trouble with Orion development and so turned over much of the design and manufacturing to ESA (as had previously been done with the Logistics Modules, Nodes, and Cupola of ISS). In the last year or two they deferred development of some of the more complex systems, like the ECLS, to future years. So what flies in another year or two is basically a shell to prove that the Apollo heat shield design still works 40 years later. Not a huge achievement especially after spending $10 billion and 10 years and its a kluge since it does not use either a real booster, real service module, or most of the real systems that will be required for people. Its more like a flighjt of an Apollo boilerplate on a Saturn 1 rocket, that happened around 1964. Real Apollos did not fly until a couple years later. Manned Apollos did not fly til a couple years after that.

    The smartest thing NASA is doing is supporting Boeing’s CST, Space-X’s Dragon and SN’s Dream Chaser. With luck all three of these will turn out great and Orion will no longer even be required. The biggest mistake NASA might make is going sole source with any one of these, and cutting off funding for the others in which case we’ll be back to a monopoly situation and prices will not stay low and organizations will not remain efficient.

    In the meantime, someone needs to figure out how to modify and manipulate NASA to become a functioning organization providing something of usefulness once again. My recommendation would be to reestablish the old NACA model in which NASA provides research skills. The dismal failure of the NASA leadership has been their failure to come to grips with this problem.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Yikes. Ask, and ye shall receive…

      Nice run-down, some of which I knew already. I think what you are saying (forgive me if I mischaracterize your thoughts) is that NASA is structurally incapable of large-scale innovation anymore, largely due to fear of failure, and that key decisions in the past made them so.

      Gotta be grim, for some, to work there.

      • Brian_M2525 says:
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        Actually I think that some of the NASA people would be capable of innovation and development, probably equal to Space-X, Dragon or Sierra Nevada. The key is they need to either be some of the very new people not previously tainted by the negative experiences of later Shuttle (STSOC and USA era) or ISS and dramatically limit the people they select to assist to only those with just the appropriate education or experience. You could also use people with past successful experience, but now you are going back in time to reach back to the early Shuttle, Spacehab, or NASA-Mir eras.

        What gets NASA into trouble is their appointing senior level people with little or no genuine DDT&E, integration or other experience and especially those coming out of the operations debating societies and they immediately try to build an infrastructure of boards and panels that make it appear they are commanding tremendous capability but which in reality offer no useful support at all.

    • SouthwestExGOP says:
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      Brian_M2525 shows why my decision to write a shorter reply was a good one!! He has some good ideas but this format is far too restricted to fully answer a big question. Those people who are curious can read several good analyses.

      In the meantime Brian_m2525 applies historical lessons in far too casual a manner. He left out Hubble Space Telescope and Spacelab and ISS and a number of programs where NASA did design a lot of hardware. Labs that were shut down, people that were lost, could be replaced.

      True that too many political decisions were made – we should have never “bought” a Zarya from Russia for instance. We should have not depended so much on Soyuz to transport crew members.

  9. Paul451 says:
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    Silly question: Why seats? Is there any flight mode where the g-forces are in a direction that makes seats sensible? During launch and reentry the g-forces are towards the rear, so they are lying on their backs. During most other manoeuvres there’s no preferred direction that makes it specifically necessary to have extra support in the direction of the seat (that is, the part of the seat supporting their ass/thighs.)

    So why have seats instead of, say, flat “beds”? Just a padded wall. Strap in with a 5-point during launch/reentry, ignore in free-fall. Hell of a lot less awkward (which seems important for emergencies), and less stuff poking into the cabin space getting in everyone’s way (and having to be engineered to fold up and still be strong when in use and still be light.)

    [This isn’t a dig at Orion, every historical capsule has done it, every proposed crew capsule (Orion/Dragon/CST-100) is doing it in the mock-ups. The only one it makes sense for is Dream Chaser (and the Shuttle). I assume there is a reason why they all do it?]

    • Skinny_Lu says:
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      Good question. I would think “reclined” seats would closest resemble the human body in a neutral, floating condition… Laying down flat is not great for the spine, at least for some people…

      Maybe seats are a presumed requirement, since before rockets, we built airplanes, and cars before that. We like to sit.

      Maybe the accommodations will evolve into “seat number chairs”, user-select recline angle and comfort temperature. (?)

    • Brian_M2525 says:
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      Apollo seats were more like slings with a frame around the outside and hinged at the base of the spine and knees. They could be made into the seated position, laid flat, or removed entirely, folded and stowed. Usually they kept the two side seats folded flat or slightly into a seated position and removed and stowed the center seat. They were mounted on shock absorbers for shock attenuation during landing impact. There was adequate room under the Apollo seats for another crew of 3 and so the Apollo CM could carry 5 or 6 in a contingency which was almost done on a Skylab mission when thrusters developed a leak.

      I was once told that Apollo seats were unusable on Orion-I never understood why nor did the engineers who managed the seat programs during Apollo who were told their services (one still works for NASA and the other is retired but available for consultation) were not needed.

      So they reinvented seats for Orion.

    • DTARS says:
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      In any 50 movies they had seats, flash Gordon and all the rest. Do not start with your bright practical ideas again, we have spent 100s of thousands of dollars testing SEATS!!!!

    • SouthwestExGOP says:
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      Remember that for every hour in space the crew spends multiple hours simulating, training, developing, etc. The seats are sort of more for use on the ground – in space the crew could just strap into a frame that keeps them in close proximity to the switches, etc that they use.

      The Shuttle Aft Flight Deck was used to fly the Shuttle during rendezvous, etc but it never had seats that faced out those upper windows. The crews must have developed some painful cricks in their necks while simulating a rendezvous!