I see nothing in this ad to hint at flying non professionals. In fact the word "astronauts" keeps coming up. What I find disturbing about this video and the stills is that it is like attending an auto show where various manufacturers show off "concept cars". These cars are promotional gimmicks to excite the public and will never be built any time soon. As I viewed the video and pics I am reminded of the extreme Gs encountered during lift off and re-entry and I not sure those plastic lawn chairs attached with polished stainless steel rods are up to the challenge. They don't seem to provide the support needed for for a human body during extreme G loading. Also the forces exerted during emergency escape will be even more violent then the "standard liftoff" and again the human body needs full support which I don't see provided by this interior. Of course I could be totally out of my mind - not knowing what I am talking about. I do know that while training with the Navy many years ago in ejection seat training you were instructed to keep the rear of your thighs on the "seat" so they moved immediately with the seat. In other words no space between the seat and the thighs. Failure to do so could result in fractures or broken thighs.
There is indeed a world of difference b/w a short suborbital punt and an actual orbital insertion. About 5 km/s typically. It's the difference, if I may use a tennis analogy, not unlike a soft lob vs a forehand smash serve. One key bit we are missing here is what will the crew be wearing at launch ( contrast these extreme cases ) :
- will they be clothed in full balls-to-the-wall hard vacuum suits providing at least minimal/temporary independent life sustenance ? If so then I'd like to see how seven people will fit inside on the couches as displayed.
- will it be merely serviceable protective clothing, but interior rating only, with the clear hope of the Dragon shell remaining sealed/intact ?
For nominal orbital ascent then sustained 3g is the figure of merit. If one can cope with launch to first stage cut-off then you've done the hardest bit. Provided the thrust is directed perpendicular to a prone couch then a surprisingly small amount of conforming padding is OK. By conforming I imply with respect to the specific astronaut and their attire on the day.
Now in the instance of the "unexpected but expected to be recoverable" eg. a pad abort, then short bursts of activity northward of 7g will be the challenge. Again that will be acting perpendicular to a prone couch. You could snap a poorly braced long bone and I would like my spleen out before I get onboard. Consider the trauma risk comparable to a ~ 200+ km/h downing from off a motorbike to tarmac. Last time I looked that was a young person's game. Even the expert/experienced competition riders get rather knocked about and if it wasn't for racing circuit design and facilities then mortality/morbidity would be rather higher than it is. Most recent tragedies are related to getting on the bike at all eg. in the rain and/or at the Isle of Man.
If/when it is all askew ie. some who-knows-what-event then all bets are off. Unless you want to ascend inside of some deeply padded marshmallow then limb snapping and organ ripping awaits. The problem will be rotation about Dragon's centre of mass and how much of that, if any, can be nulled out either by the abort/escape method itself and/or deliberate pilot control ( as advertised ) on subsequent descent.
As for ejection seats, the early ones especially, I think most surviving pilots remained permanently shorter thereafter. Not infrequently a career ending event on various grounds in any case.
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) I believe the current seats are described as 'tan leather' ..... and the phrase 'up to seven' is used.
( edit ) On reflection my prior analysis on spleens etc was limited to average comments and not sufficiently informed by detailed third derivative data. That's definitely where the money is and there is a sensitive & conflicting dependence upon two needs :
- to escape the proximity of extremely high velocity shrapnel ASAP, versus
- keeping the peak jerk low enough to not rip your guts up.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
I am once again reminded of Apollo 13, where it was not a non-spec part but an improperly speced subsystem (the thermostat and the relay it controlled) that caused the failure.
Actually thought that one was spec changed after the part was built and installed.
My understanding of Lovell's explanation in Lost Moon was that the relay controlled by the thermostat was designed to handle the voltage of the on-board power supply, but that for ground testing they fed it much higher voltage from the ground supply, so that the first time it tried to open the circuit, the relay contacts welded themselves together and the power just kept flowing. This was compounded by the thermometer for the human watching it only being speced to read as high as the temperature at which the thermostat was set, so no one was able to see that the actual temperature was much higher. This is what allowed the cryo-stir wires in the O2 tank to overheat and damage their insulation.
IIRC, the damaged relay was eventually discovered and replaced (the entire module of H2 and O2 tanks being pulled from their original spacecraft and eventually reinstalled into Odyssey), but no one thought to check for downstream damage it may have caused.
I have to believe that this is all conjecture based on records of the thermostat/relay being replaced, since the actual O2 tank was not available to examine after the fact. (Well, I suppose they could have re-enacted the whole too-much-power thing with another set of tanks to confirm the theory.)
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
Now in the instance of the "unexpected but expected to be recoverable" eg. a pad abort, then short bursts of activity northward of 7g will be the challenge. Again that will be acting perpendicular to a prone couch. You could snap a poorly braced long bone and I would like my spleen out before I get onboard.
( edit ) On reflection my prior analysis on spleens etc was limited to average comments and not sufficiently informed by detailed third derivative data. That's definitely where the money is and there is a sensitive & conflicting dependence upon two needs :
- to escape the proximity of extremely high velocity shrapnel ASAP, versus
- keeping the peak jerk low enough to not rip your guts up.
I am reminded of a passage in the very humorous Star Trek novel How much for just the planet? I will try to remember to look it up later.
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
Now in the instance of the "unexpected but expected to be recoverable" eg. a pad abort, then short bursts of activity northward of 7g will be the challenge.
- keeping the peak jerk low enough to not rip your guts up.
Aha, perhaps you may wish to factor in the comment from SpaceX regarding peak loadings from their escape system (as published on that web page I pointed to).
SpaceX wrote:
Crew Dragon features an advanced emergency escape system (which was tested earlier this year) to swiftly carry astronauts to safety if something were to go wrong, experiencing about the same G-forces as a ride at Disneyland.
I hazard a guess they are talking about something like 3G. One hopes they did not forget the jerk.
The astronauts concurred with the decision to delete originally planned protective seating from Apollo's lunar lander. The general thinking was that it was pointless to improve astronaut survival of an impact in which the system would be damaged beyond capability of return flight. At least that is the story I think I remember.
Aha, perhaps you may wish to factor in the comment from SpaceX regarding peak loadings from their escape system (as published on that web page I pointed to).
SpaceX wrote:
Crew Dragon features an advanced emergency escape system (which was tested earlier this year) to swiftly carry astronauts to safety if something were to go wrong, experiencing about the same G-forces as a ride at Disneyland.
Yeah I had read the "about the same" comment. That's not enough info, for me at least. Human innards separate from one another when they move apart relatively too quickly. In context that translates to how quickly does the acceleration change, and how long that is sustained. Different organs are tethered within differently*. I could restate this in the language of tides ( but I won't ). The age factor is crucial because connective tissue 'withers' thus and tissues become more frail. I have seen a senior who did rupture their spleen after an otherwise fairly benign traffic shunt.
Quote:
The astronauts concurred with the decision to delete originally planned protective seating from Apollo's lunar lander. The general thinking was that it was pointless to improve astronaut survival of an impact in which the system would be damaged beyond capability of return flight. At least that is the story I think I remember.
Ah those were the days of The Right Stuff indeed. IIRC most Apollo astronauts had honestly rated their return chances as about even or below. But they went anyway. Mind you more than a few were combat veteran fighter pilots eg. Neil Armstrong flew forty-something times over North Korea. Others were ( also ) test pilots and so were shy of underestimating risk. Of course it makes better sense to shift resources saved from not installing an after-incident mitigation feature of dubious benefit to a pre-incident mitigation feature that helps avert the deeper poop.
Cheers, Mike.
* The ideal jerk-proof astronaut would be a homogeneous bowl of mush, however they are generally crap at decision making and other desired tasks. Hmmmm ...... now there's more than a few CEOs that instantly come to mind that could fit the role here. Let's elevate that epiphany to :
The Hewson Jerk Principle : use a jerk to become jerk proof
( edit ) Chant & repeat after me :
"More CEOs to deep space, when do we want it .... now !"
"More CEOs to deep space, when do we want it .... now !"
"More CEOs to deep space, when do we want it .... now !"
.... :-)
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Crew Dragon features an advanced emergency escape system (which was tested earlier this year) to swiftly carry astronauts to safety if something were to go wrong, experiencing about the same G-forces as a ride at Disneyland.
Hmm. I wonder. There was a ride at Disney Epcot several years ago called "Mission: Space" - a ride that has caused previous concerns because of its intensity . "It simulated what an astronaut might experience aboard a spacecraft on a mission to Mars, from the higher g-force of liftoff to the speculative hypersleep." A couple of adults and a 4 year old died on that ride because they did not meet the required set conditions: "For safety, you should be in good health and free from high blood pressure, heart, back or neck problems, motion sickness, or other conditions that could be aggravated by this adventure." I believe the ride actually employed "centrifugal motion simulators" and they had to be dialed back to ensure a "most wonderful place in the world experience". SpaceX's comparison to Disneyland might not be ideal.
I saw the video that someone posted of the escape capsule sequence and it did not appear to be a "walk in the park".
"For safety, you should be in good health and free from high blood pressure, heart, back or neck problems, motion sickness, or other conditions that could be aggravated by this adventure."
That is : you should be a successfully trained astronaut .... recalling that about one half of such training is detecting and then sending the failed candidates home.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Now here's a find that my daughter has alerted me of : Project Apollo Archive that has just appeared on the web. What an exciting time it was to be 8 years old and following this. It's in the public domain and they are unprocessed/raw images. Specially made Hasselblads + special Kodak films. It has snaps like this of Apollo 9 in low earth orbit with an EVA :
.... not a job for those with vertigo. So who ( & where ) is holding the camera ? Send answers scribbled on the back of a $100 note please ... :-)
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) After Apollo 11, for me the coolest mission was 15 to the Hadley Rille. Long surface time, alot of EVA time, alot of rover travel and much proof of the common debris origin of Earth and Moon after an ancient Big Splat. It is also of note that while the camera aperture is clearly marked with a grid/overlay, the dimensions of all the craft and equipment etc were also known to high degree in order to accurately scale all the natural features when in the same shot.
( edit ) Bonus marks if you can identify any of the surface attachments etc of either craft eg. which must be the roll thrusters vs which are yaw/pitch ? Exactly how many degrees of freedom could a pilot control, and how did he go about that ?
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
It has snaps like this of Apollo 9 in low earth orbit with an EVA :
( edit ) Bonus marks if you can identify any of the surface attachments etc of either craft eg. which must be the roll thrusters vs which are yaw/pitch ? Exactly how many degrees of freedom could a pilot control, and how did he go about that ?
Pretty neat pictures. I wonder what else they have not shown us?
I see a "block" of thrusters consisting of opposing "pairs" up and behind the astronaut at about 1130. Of the thrusters in the cluster the left most and its opposing nozzle would be for roll clockwise/counterclockwise while the others could pitch the nose up/down or slow it for docking if the nozzles on the cluster positioned on the other side of the module (not shown) fired also. Hmm I wonder if they had a "spin dry" setting. All that money, and nice sunny day and no screen doors. Too bad.
I believe they had control over roll, pitch and yaw so that would be 3 degrees of freedom, except when two gimbals rotate around the same axis. Then it looses one degree. I think.
RE: I see nothing in this
)
There is indeed a world of difference b/w a short suborbital punt and an actual orbital insertion. About 5 km/s typically. It's the difference, if I may use a tennis analogy, not unlike a soft lob vs a forehand smash serve. One key bit we are missing here is what will the crew be wearing at launch ( contrast these extreme cases ) :
- will they be clothed in full balls-to-the-wall hard vacuum suits providing at least minimal/temporary independent life sustenance ? If so then I'd like to see how seven people will fit inside on the couches as displayed.
- will it be merely serviceable protective clothing, but interior rating only, with the clear hope of the Dragon shell remaining sealed/intact ?
For nominal orbital ascent then sustained 3g is the figure of merit. If one can cope with launch to first stage cut-off then you've done the hardest bit. Provided the thrust is directed perpendicular to a prone couch then a surprisingly small amount of conforming padding is OK. By conforming I imply with respect to the specific astronaut and their attire on the day.
Now in the instance of the "unexpected but expected to be recoverable" eg. a pad abort, then short bursts of activity northward of 7g will be the challenge. Again that will be acting perpendicular to a prone couch. You could snap a poorly braced long bone and I would like my spleen out before I get onboard. Consider the trauma risk comparable to a ~ 200+ km/h downing from off a motorbike to tarmac. Last time I looked that was a young person's game. Even the expert/experienced competition riders get rather knocked about and if it wasn't for racing circuit design and facilities then mortality/morbidity would be rather higher than it is. Most recent tragedies are related to getting on the bike at all eg. in the rain and/or at the Isle of Man.
If/when it is all askew ie. some who-knows-what-event then all bets are off. Unless you want to ascend inside of some deeply padded marshmallow then limb snapping and organ ripping awaits. The problem will be rotation about Dragon's centre of mass and how much of that, if any, can be nulled out either by the abort/escape method itself and/or deliberate pilot control ( as advertised ) on subsequent descent.
As for ejection seats, the early ones especially, I think most surviving pilots remained permanently shorter thereafter. Not infrequently a career ending event on various grounds in any case.
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) I believe the current seats are described as 'tan leather' ..... and the phrase 'up to seven' is used.
( edit ) On reflection my prior analysis on spleens etc was limited to average comments and not sufficiently informed by detailed third derivative data. That's definitely where the money is and there is a sensitive & conflicting dependence upon two needs :
- to escape the proximity of extremely high velocity shrapnel ASAP, versus
- keeping the peak jerk low enough to not rip your guts up.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
RE: RE: I am once again
)
My understanding of Lovell's explanation in Lost Moon was that the relay controlled by the thermostat was designed to handle the voltage of the on-board power supply, but that for ground testing they fed it much higher voltage from the ground supply, so that the first time it tried to open the circuit, the relay contacts welded themselves together and the power just kept flowing. This was compounded by the thermometer for the human watching it only being speced to read as high as the temperature at which the thermostat was set, so no one was able to see that the actual temperature was much higher. This is what allowed the cryo-stir wires in the O2 tank to overheat and damage their insulation.
IIRC, the damaged relay was eventually discovered and replaced (the entire module of H2 and O2 tanks being pulled from their original spacecraft and eventually reinstalled into Odyssey), but no one thought to check for downstream damage it may have caused.
I have to believe that this is all conjecture based on records of the thermostat/relay being replaced, since the actual O2 tank was not available to examine after the fact. (Well, I suppose they could have re-enacted the whole too-much-power thing with another set of tanks to confirm the theory.)
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
RE: Now in the instance of
)
I am reminded of a passage in the very humorous Star Trek novel How much for just the planet? I will try to remember to look it up later.
David
Miserable old git
Patiently waiting for the asteroid with my name on it.
Mike Hewson wrote: Now in the
)
Aha, perhaps you may wish to factor in the comment from SpaceX regarding peak loadings from their escape system (as published on that web page I pointed to).
I hazard a guess they are talking about something like 3G. One hopes they did not forget the jerk.
The astronauts concurred with the decision to delete originally planned protective seating from Apollo's lunar lander. The general thinking was that it was pointless to improve astronaut survival of an impact in which the system would be damaged beyond capability of return flight. At least that is the story I think I remember.
RE: Aha, perhaps you may
)
Yeah I had read the "about the same" comment. That's not enough info, for me at least. Human innards separate from one another when they move apart relatively too quickly. In context that translates to how quickly does the acceleration change, and how long that is sustained. Different organs are tethered within differently*. I could restate this in the language of tides ( but I won't ). The age factor is crucial because connective tissue 'withers' thus and tissues become more frail. I have seen a senior who did rupture their spleen after an otherwise fairly benign traffic shunt.
Ah those were the days of The Right Stuff indeed. IIRC most Apollo astronauts had honestly rated their return chances as about even or below. But they went anyway. Mind you more than a few were combat veteran fighter pilots eg. Neil Armstrong flew forty-something times over North Korea. Others were ( also ) test pilots and so were shy of underestimating risk. Of course it makes better sense to shift resources saved from not installing an after-incident mitigation feature of dubious benefit to a pre-incident mitigation feature that helps avert the deeper poop.
Cheers, Mike.
* The ideal jerk-proof astronaut would be a homogeneous bowl of mush, however they are generally crap at decision making and other desired tasks. Hmmmm ...... now there's more than a few CEOs that instantly come to mind that could fit the role here. Let's elevate that epiphany to :
The Hewson Jerk Principle : use a jerk to become jerk proof
( edit ) Chant & repeat after me :
"More CEOs to deep space, when do we want it .... now !"
"More CEOs to deep space, when do we want it .... now !"
"More CEOs to deep space, when do we want it .... now !"
.... :-)
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
SpaceX wrote:Crew Dragon
)
Hmm. I wonder. There was a ride at Disney Epcot several years ago called "Mission: Space" - a ride that has caused previous concerns because of its intensity . "It simulated what an astronaut might experience aboard a spacecraft on a mission to Mars, from the higher g-force of liftoff to the speculative hypersleep." A couple of adults and a 4 year old died on that ride because they did not meet the required set conditions: "For safety, you should be in good health and free from high blood pressure, heart, back or neck problems, motion sickness, or other conditions that could be aggravated by this adventure." I believe the ride actually employed "centrifugal motion simulators" and they had to be dialed back to ensure a "most wonderful place in the world experience". SpaceX's comparison to Disneyland might not be ideal.
I saw the video that someone posted of the escape capsule sequence and it did not appear to be a "walk in the park".
RE: "For safety, you should
)
That is : you should be a successfully trained astronaut .... recalling that about one half of such training is detecting and then sending the failed candidates home.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Now here's a find that my
)
Now here's a find that my daughter has alerted me of : Project Apollo Archive that has just appeared on the web. What an exciting time it was to be 8 years old and following this. It's in the public domain and they are unprocessed/raw images. Specially made Hasselblads + special Kodak films. It has snaps like this of Apollo 9 in low earth orbit with an EVA :
.... not a job for those with vertigo. So who ( & where ) is holding the camera ? Send answers scribbled on the back of a $100 note please ... :-)
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) After Apollo 11, for me the coolest mission was 15 to the Hadley Rille. Long surface time, alot of EVA time, alot of rover travel and much proof of the common debris origin of Earth and Moon after an ancient Big Splat. It is also of note that while the camera aperture is clearly marked with a grid/overlay, the dimensions of all the craft and equipment etc were also known to high degree in order to accurately scale all the natural features when in the same shot.
( edit ) Bonus marks if you can identify any of the surface attachments etc of either craft eg. which must be the roll thrusters vs which are yaw/pitch ? Exactly how many degrees of freedom could a pilot control, and how did he go about that ?
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
RE: The Hewson Jerk
)
The Chris S Crusade :-)
Be alert
The world needs more lerts!
Waiting for Godot & salvation :-)
Why do doctors have to practice?
You'd think they'd have got it right by now
RE: It has snaps like this
)
Pretty neat pictures. I wonder what else they have not shown us?
I see a "block" of thrusters consisting of opposing "pairs" up and behind the astronaut at about 1130. Of the thrusters in the cluster the left most and its opposing nozzle would be for roll clockwise/counterclockwise while the others could pitch the nose up/down or slow it for docking if the nozzles on the cluster positioned on the other side of the module (not shown) fired also. Hmm I wonder if they had a "spin dry" setting. All that money, and nice sunny day and no screen doors. Too bad.
I believe they had control over roll, pitch and yaw so that would be 3 degrees of freedom, except when two gimbals rotate around the same axis. Then it looses one degree. I think.