Spaceflight safety hearing wrapup

The House Science & Technology subcommittee hearing on human spaceflight safety just ended. Brett Alexander was outnumbered 5 to 1 but did just fine under the circumstances. Don't see any big headlines coming from the event. The five NASA champions claimed, as expected, that the Ares I/Orion is the safest crew system ever despite the fact that it will not fly before 2015 at the earliest. And they claimed it would take just as long for the commercial systems to reach crew capability. Brett repeatedly emphasized the fact that the Atlas/Delta systems are already flying reliably and that the Falcon 9 will have flown many times before Ares I does and so developing safe crew capability does not require a major leap in their development. Dana Rohrbacher was the only House member to push the panelists to defend the use of a still-to-be-built Ares I for LEO access over the use of working EELVs .

If the panel had been balanced, I think more issues would have been raised and there would have been more of a debate. For example, Brett said at one point that it would be feasible for a commercial crew system to be ready within 3 years. Former astronaut Thomas Stafford responded that it took a crash program 39 months to develop the Gemini/Titan system. That would have been a good point to bring up the fact that the "human rating" term came about from the need to convert ICBM rockets like the Titan to crew launchers. That is quite different from converting an Atlas V, which has been reliably launching billion dollar military payloads essential to national security, into a crew launcher.

There was also no discussion of the credibility of safety estimates for paper rockets and how flight experience is the only way to prove that a vehicle is safe. In response to a question about the Orlando Sentinel article concerning the ESAS recommendation of seven unmanned test flights for Ares I/Orion, Hanley and Fragola amazingly claimed that a single test flight was sufficient to reach its very high safety level.

Other comments on the hearings:
/-- Combined Twitter notes from Ken Davidian on the House Transportation subcommittee hearing and from Jeff Foust and Rob Coppinger on the Commercial Spaceflight and the House Science & Technology subcommittee hearing on spaceflight safety.
/-- Space Safety - Transterrestrial

Posted 12/02/09 | 13:28:23 by TopSpacer | Filed under: Space policy

Comments

From one of Ken's Twitter posts:

"Fragola says that Atlas 431 would likely not pass a safety review for crew missions since it uses solid strapon boosters."

But Ares 1 does, and he says it is safer because it uses a solid?

Lies, damned lies and probabilistic risk analysis. It's the NASA way.

Posted by Gary C Hudson at 12/02/09 13:36:35

That whole thing was a joke. A fabricated Circus to make everyone feel good about Ares. The Commercial Space bashing was painful to watch. I felt for the Brett Alexander being up there with the Sharks like that. He did very well.

Posted by Space Enabler at 12/02/09 15:28:22

They would be saying the same thing about the Titanic and we all know what happened there!

Posted by PHILLIP at 12/02/09 20:24:13

ASAP's Marshall says NASA should have articulated to commercial about what
human rating is earlier.

Marshall says NASA is behind in getting human rating reqs to comm'l providers.
O'Connor notes there is right no comm'l crew program at NASA.

In answer to Griffith's question about timetable to human rate EELV NASA's Hanley says 6-yrs
Can someone explain to me how NASA knows how long it takes to human rate EELV when NASA doesn't know what human rating even means yet?

When NASA doesn't even know how long it takes to build Ares I?

The answer is they don't know. Because they're lying.

Posted by donnie at 12/02/09 20:54:11

Sorry, the formatting of that sucks. Try this: "[51] ASAP's Marshall says NASA should have articulated to commercial about what human rating is earlier. [50] Marshall says NASA is behind in getting human rating reqs to comm'l providers. O'Connor notes there is right no comm'l crew program at NASA. [44] In answer to Griffith's question about timetable to human rate EELV NASA's Hanley says 6-yrs"
Can someone explain to me how NASA knows how long it takes to human rate EELV when NASA doesn't know what human rating even means yet?

When NASA doesn't even know how long it takes to build Ares I?

The answer is they don't know. Because they're lying.
[51, 50, 44]: http://commercialspace.pbwo...

Posted by donnie at 12/02/09 20:57:59

"13. Fragola says single core is more reliable than triple core, i.e. Atlas and Delta."

Only if the cores are the same. For Delta heavy vs Delta single core that comparison works.

But it doesn't work when comparing Delta heavy and a rocket that does not exist. The comparison is completely invalid. It is like comparing apples to a newspaper story about next season's harvest of florida oranges.

The things people do, unbelievable

Posted by donnie at 12/02/09 21:11:05

""Fragola says that Atlas 431 would likely not pass a safety review for crew missions since it uses solid strapon boosters."

But Ares 1 does, and he says it is safer because it uses a solid?

Lies, damned lies and probabilistic risk analysis. It's the NASA way."

The Ares-I doesn't have huge tanks of liquid explosives sitting next to it. There is a difference, think about it.

Posted by KSB644 at 12/02/09 21:22:31

"Gifford closing out [the Hearing On Human-Rating NASA and Commercial Launch Vehicles And Spacecraft] saying she sees no grounds for changing course based on safety."

Either the author or Gifford made a mistake, because it seems like Gifford isn't even talking about the content or purpose of the meeting (rating spacecraft not changing course from safety)

Posted by donnie at 12/02/09 21:26:29

"The Ares-I doesn't have huge tanks of liquid explosives sitting next to it. There is a difference, think about it."

I have thought about it. It's my job.

If you think the LOX-Kerosene propellants of the Atlas 431 are going to make a bigger bang than the propellant in the Ares 1 5-segment motor, you haven't been paying attention. The TNT equivalency of solid propellant is rated at 100%, while LOX-hydrocarbon is around 15-20%.

I'd never launch anyone on a vehicle with solids � strapon, or core stage. It's madness.

Posted by Gary C Hudson at 12/02/09 22:02:36

let me state my primary goal is to see EELV used as a LEO Crew launcher.

That said Stafford is probably right, if you want to get a Capsule and the booster integration down, 39 months is a good estimate.

That said, Ares won't be flying for 9 years, so, it's a good strategy.

Better to go in with a little caution have a realistic schedule and get it to
work

Posted by anon at 12/02/09 22:59:36

Just to add to Gary's point - if you are getting burn through on your solid, you shouldn't be flying on it, period. Just because it can't burn through a fuel tank doesn't mean its somehow safer

Posted by Ferris Valyn at 12/02/09 23:48:50

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