Ooh, hit a nerve, did we?

I’m glad you agree that NASA is not doing anything anyone else can do, and that they have to prove themselves as much as anyone else.

I’ve also figured out your ” tick-tock… stop talking, start flying.” – you’re overly anxious about the potential for someone other than NASA to fly crew.

Well calm down. You’ll have to wait until SpaceX decides when they want to fly crew, and until then you’ll have to survive vicariously on the successes of Dragon for cargo. If you’re biting your finger nails, you better stop, because it won’t be any earlier than 2014 until any new vehicles fly crew from the shores of the U.S.

Check with you doctor – maybe he can prescribe some additional meds to help you during this stressful time…

What a bogus comparison you desperate Musketeers keep making. No, he’s talking about Elon Musk and SpaceX, who have NEVER done it at all and flown NOBODY into space– for 40 years or ever in all of time. NASA’s expertise at successfully lofting, orbiting and returning ‘capsules’ unmanned and manned, at varying velocities between 17,000 and 25,000 mph., from the earth orbit as well as from returning lunar exploration… manned missions to the moon… are all well documented. Russia has doe it for decades. China has done it. Space X has not. SpaceX has flown nobody. They have not lofted, orbited and returned a ‘capsule’ safely, manned or unmanned. But they have had NASA’s experience and expertise to show them how it’s done and to learn from… so it should be much easier now than it was 40 years ago. Tick-tock… tick-tock… stop talking, start flying. The world, the space community and investors await your ‘success’….

“To prove it, they gotta to do it.”

You’re talking about NASA & Orion, right? Cuz this NASA has not done that with a capsule for almost 40 years.

It’s actually a silly argument, since the knowledge to do this exists throughout the industry, and is not kept in some secret room at NASA.

NASA did not use this level of restriction for the COTS/CRS program, so why would they need to do it for crew? Also, any crew program is going to require validation & review before anyone flies, including NASA, so it’s not like it’s you and Uncle Harold trying to launch your drunken neighbor.

As for SpaceX, which is usually targeted for this type of nonsense, their next flight will be testing the Dragon capsule, including a return to Earth. Every time Dragon flies they are validating their cargo/crew return capability, so they will have a big head start on NASA and everyone else. Once they succeed in returning their capsule, your statement no longer applies to them, but it still applies to NASA. Keep that in mind.

Almighty,
There are enough reasons to rid of Ares I, while this one was an exception, it still has forced Orion to make several other cuts and it needs to go. Wouldn’t you rather see a more powerful launcher that allows Orion to restore what was lost, and does not duplicate what LV’s already exist?

Wrong, and it shows that you don’t no what you are talking about. A manned spacecraft is a payload. An abort system is just a unique feature of a payload.

Launch vehicles do not have to be “made safe” to carry people. The launch vehicles would not be selected if they had to be made safe. All that needs to be down is to integrate the manned spacecraft (which may have some unique requirements) on to the launch system. Eliminating a abort black zone is no more different than tweaking a trajectory

The reliability of existing launch vehicles is adequate for manned flight, since they already launch payloads with nuclear material, one of a kind science spacecraft and important national security satellites.

“integrating payloads is only a small part of making a system safe enough to carry people.”

I can’t speak to that, but all modern launchers already have health monitoring systems incorporated into their design, so this is not a major redesign for crew we’re talking about. I have heard Atlas V already has “man-rated” health monitoring systems, and SpaceX has stated Falcon 9 definitely does.

The #1 way to make a launcher safe enough to carry people is to make sure it doesn’t fail, so frequent launches are a big part of validating launch systems. This is an advantage commercial launchers have since they use the same rockets for both cargo and crew – they validate their crew systems with every launch, not just crew.

Keep in mind that there are no hard and fast regulations for “man-rating” a launch system. Shuttle would not be considered “man-rated”, because it does not have a crew escape system. The Soyuz was “man-rated” by NASA by what they called equivalency – they looked at what they Russians were doing, and found their safety systems to be equivalent to what NASA would do. Not much written down.

NASA has stated that they plan to provide high level requirements for commercial crew, and not be involved in the specific details. This is 50 year old tech we’re talking about, so there is not a lot mystery as to what the launcher needs, and what the human factors are.

In the end, the proof of the pudding will be the LES demo’s, and I’m sure everyone is budgeting for them. This IS rocket science, and all the companies HAVE rocket scientists…