Jeff Foust mined Gwynne Shotwell’s Space Show interview for some interesting nuggets. Here’s what I found interesting:
Despite concerns about US access to the ISS given current tensions with Russia and NASA’s current reliance on Soyuz, Shotwell said she didn’t think it was feasible to greatly accelerate the development of a crewed Dragon. “We proposed a pretty forward-leaning program” for commercial crew, she said. “I don’t want to say that we couldn’t speed things up: we probably could, but it would have to be in lockstep with NASA.” She added that SpaceX current believes it can have a crewed Dragon ready “a little bit faster” than current NASA plans for flights in late 2016 or early 2017. [Emphasis added]
I’m pretty sure that if NASA went to her and Elon and said, “we want to fly this year, and we’re willing to do it without the abort system,” they’d be able to do it.
I agree and I think Gwynne hinted at that in the interview.
I’m para-phrasing, but I believe her last comment on what might happen if the US was shut out of Soyuz was something like “in emergencies, hard things get done”.
Not sure why Jeff left that part out…
While I’ve seen the cockpit mockups, I don’t know the current status of hardware and software development for the crewed Dragon. What is the status of the docking adapter that would allow unassisted docking? How much testing has gone into the crew seats and expanded life support system? What about the cockpit instrumentation and controls – what’s their development status? If you’re willing to treat passengers as cargo and control/dock Dragon like they do for the unmanned version, you could probably fly people in the next 12 months. It’s all the other things beyond the abort system that make Dragon a qualified crew transport that can only be rushed so far.
depends how good the power system for Dragon is.
is it 3 bus/ 4 bus or is it single threaded?
Also an ECLSS does suck power, is there margin to spare in the solar arrays?
How rough is the ride? People don’t like shock or G beyond a certain level.
I’ve wondered what fraction of Russia’s expenses for the Ukraine/Crimea adventure are offset by NASA’s contributions for crew transport.
I’m pretty sure … the abort system
The abort system is not stopping the show. They could have it this year with the abort system. The rockets work and the s/w doesn’t require “Wash” Washburne to code it (good thing because the reavers got him.)
This is really well understood stuff.