NASA Selects Astronauts for First U.S. Commercial Space Flights
“I am pleased to announce that four American space pioneers have been selected to be the first astronauts to train to fly to space on commercial crew carriers, all part of our ambitious plan to return space launches to U.S. soil, create good-paying American jobs and advance our goal of sending humans farther into the solar system than ever before. These distinguished, veteran astronauts are blazing a new trail, a trail that will one day land them in the history books and Americans on the surface of Mars.”
Great resumes for these 4 astronauts, they’re all seasoned Shuttle and ISS veterans.
Interesting to note about Sunita Williams, she will get to have the rare experience of flying to space in 3 different spacecraft: Shuttle, Soyuz, and a CCrew vehicle.
Fun trivia facts, Wally A. Schirra was the first to do this, he flew in Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. John W. Young flew in Gemini, Apollo, and on the Shuttle. I’m not aware of anyone else who has accomplished a similar feat, though there may be some cosmonauts who have flown on 3 different types of Soyuz.
Gus Grissom would have been the first…. 🙁
Most all my memories of that are from life magazine. Almost 50 years later and little progress on making rockets better.
Well, Grissom, White and Chaffee weren’t killed by a rocket.
I suspect he was speaking more generally of space travel.
IIRC there is a number of Astronaut & Cosmonauts that had flown up in both the Space Shuttle & the Soyuz. So there will be a lot of people who will go up in 4 different vehicles when commercial Crew starts flying.
You could argue that Neil Armstrong -flew- in three different spacecraft: X-15, Gemini, and Apollo, though technically he didn’t fly -to- space in the X-15 since his maximum altitude as about 39 miles, putting him short of the 50 mile limit used as the definition for a space flight in X-15.
`Another early spacecraft not often included is the X-15. It flew above 100 km twice in 1963 piloted by Joe Walker. Neil Armstrong and Joe Engle also piloted it, but not above 100 km.
And Ms Williams may also have the chance to fly to space aboard the ORION crew vehicle. John Glenn had the distinct honor of flying aboard the SPACE SHUTTLE and the MERCURY capsule
What lucky and blessed folks they are.
I love his timing! Just days after the SpaceX disaster. It’s Bolden’s way of saying, “90% chance of survival is more than enough for my astronauts!”
I sincerely doubt that NASA would accept those odds. Not that they have to, the Falcon 9 currently has a 95% success rate, and more importantly, the Dragon has a LAS.
Sure didn’t have a problem with it during shuttle, and with next to no flight rate, they plan to put astronauts at great risk with SLS.
I saw an article where the title went something like this.
The spaceX failure isn’t going to stop these guys from going into space.
Trying to play hero card.
We have to keep space dangerous for nasa to have a reason to exist.
NACA
The only person I see saying anything about heroes is you. Perhaps you have inside NASA knowledge that you like to share with others.
What does this mean for the schedule to Man rate the Falcon 9 launch vehicle? I can’t believe this won’t have some adverse impact.
That will depend on the results of the investigation, which is another way of saying depends on what is determined to be the issue or fault.
If I’m guessing- and that’s what we do here, after all- I’d say it’s something simple. But as time goes by with no indication the likelihood of something more deeply hidden rises.
Well they’re not the only ones as so far, SpacceX have lost zero customers including the DoD from their little incident.
Cheers
Couple of basic questions — what sort of training will these vets receive — training as passengers or as pilots? And, will all 4 get training on both vehicles, or 2 on each?
All 4 will initially train on both, and then be assigned a specific vehicle later on. NASA’s goal is that they be able to operate the spacecraft, whether as pilot or commander or in the event of an emergency.
Which leads to the next question: Has SpaceX or Boeing announced astronaut selections? SpaceX does have plans for a piloted test flight. From what you wrote, the NASA astronauts are, potentially, passengers, not crew. Both facts imply SpaceX and/or Boeing may have their own pilots. For planned flights in 2017, now would be a good time to start selecting and training them.
Good question. Not yet. I’ve been expecting them to do so for some time now. I would guess that SpaceX will announce its astronaut corps when they finally unveil their spacesuits, but I don’t have a guess for Boeing.
Life boat? Even if two Soyuz remained as rescue services that would still leave an odd man out. Assuming 4 went up in one of ours and the Russians filled their 3 slots.
Yeah, the Commercial Crew spacecraft will need to provide a critical function as lifeboat on the ISS.
I was thinking about that question too; however I guess it all depends on how long the vehicle is staying. I recall NASA wanting a on-station life (180 days, I think), so the question kinda morphs into this — will the run be a drop off and pick up (which SpaceX/Boeing could provide a taxi driver), or a prolonged stay where SpX/Bng will just be providing the taxi? Or both, depending on need?
I think there are other possibilities. For example, a SpaceX pilot going up in one Dragon, visiting ISS for a few days, and then going down in another Dragon which has been docked with ISS for six months. I think this is very much up in the air.
So you think SpaceX should pretend Dragons need pilots like NASA does.
Cargo Dragon flies just fine.
No astronaut needed
I’m agnostic on the subject of a pilot for the Dragon. I’m simply saying that there might be one. A person in the loop can improve reliability, even if the automatic systems are very good.
It also looks like the SpaceX plan calls for a test flight with someone on board, before flying NASA astronauts. That implies a SpaceX astronaut, whether that person is called a pilot, flight engineer or what.
For an unmanned mission, if the communication system fails, then the mission is forfeit. For manned missions, some more contingency planning is in order, and that means training some of the crew to fly. Yes astronauts can be passengers most of the time, but they shouldn’t be helpless passengers.
Will these spaceships have a million switches so you even can fly it manually. Or will they be dependent on their LCD screen/computers working. With all the radiation around maybe computers only is not a great idea.
Didn’t the Apollo 13 guys line apollo/lem up by eye cross their fingers and fire the rockets.
That was my thinking too, George. Those tin cans are probably better automated.
Remember how the Mercury 7 bitched that they couldn’t ‘fly’ the capsules?
And what if there’s a system failure? I guess that doesn’t happen in your world.
Will these systems have manual switches to “drive” the capsule or not?
Or is the pilot a software engineer to debug the system???
Given your overuse of question marks, I’m going to assume that you think it’s the latter.
When SpaceX did their big Dragon V2 unveil, there was a (likely a showcase or prototype) control board in it. It did have manual buttons for critical functions. I would expect that the control board looks very different by now, but I recall it was mentioned that there would definitely be manual controls for critical systems in the event the digital screens / controls failed.
This image is upside down, but you can see the center portion of the console is manual switches and buttons.
http://cdn.arstechnica.net/…
It’s ironic to note how NASA did this – like a Shuttle mission; they announced the “crew” – but they’re really just the passengers. Its too bad SpaceX and Boeing were not included as well; in the commercial crew era, NASA need to rethink how they make these announcements. Of course they could have announce them as ISS astronauts but they focused on the transportation aspect.
That’s kind of strange. They can’t let go.
Nope. It’s only strange if you somehow think that these astronauts will be employed by SpaceX or Boeing.
I have no problem with them announcing the crew. Why should SpaceX and Boeing be included? These 4 aren’t their astronauts. Also these first 4 will probably be involved with the test flights so technically they will not be ISS crew.
It depends on how they plan to fly the missions, but it seems possible that SpaceX and Boeing will be providing the pilots and the NASA astronauts will be passengers (or, perhaps, mission or payoad engineers.) In that case, a joint NASA/SpaceX/Boeing announcement of all the selections might have been more appropriate.
Correct – that is exactly the plan – these astronauts will just be passengers only taking command of the automated systems don’t work and the commercial pilots are unable to fly the mission (hard to see how that will happen). It would actually be more appropriate for Boeing or SpaceX to announce their crews – every airline announces who the captain and co-pilot are at the start of a flight – I’ve never heard them list all the passengers; it’s a strange new world!
Under the rental car model that NASA will use there will be no commercial pilots after the test flight.
Well on the test flights there will be SpaceX and Boeing crewmembers but beyond that it will be a different story. NASA has decided to go with the “rental car model” vs. the “taxi model.” That means that on trips to the ISS it will only be NASA astronauts aboard.
Also they aren’t announcing the crew of SpX-1 or Boe-1. I would agree that there should be a joint announcement then. They are announcing the first 4 astronauts that will be training on those systems.
Yes, the terminology could be clearer, as could the understanding behind it. When NASA oversaw contractors to prepare government owned orbiters for a flight, the astronauts in the main cockpit could be seen as “drivers”. I employ someone to checkout my car, my property, and I drive it.
Now as a “taxi service” the question is who is driving the non-government property? A “taxi” is driven by the owner providing the service, not the passengers. If a NASA astronaut were to do more than just respond to emergencies, the better term would be a “rental service”.
In a “rental service” it’s still not your property, but you are doing the driving. Albeit, a “taxi service” could still have a SpaceX or Boeing “driver”, without an actual extra person, where “automation” is the “driver”.
The SpaceX/Boeing drivers of the taxi service are on the GROUND.
All that astronaut pilot stuff is a bunch or S@$&
Danny DeVito
NASA’s announcement is entirely appropriate, especially as it’s not known who is going to fly which missions and thus which craft. Moreover, these aren’t SpaceX or Boeing astronauts. Those companies, if and when they have their own astronauts, can make their announcements.