Andy Pasztor always has to toss fecal matter in the punchbowl:
John Marshall, a former member of NASA’s outside safety review board, said SpaceX continues to face major challenges in demonstrating its rocket is ready to carry astronauts. “They are still a long way from having a vehicle” that can be certified as reliable enough for such missions, Mr. Marshall said in a recent interview. “The company is clearly not ready,” he added, to tackle manned launches “by a long shot.”
At least he found someone willing to go on the record with this kind of stuff. What does “a long shot” mean? What does “certified” mean? Do others have a different opinion.
You know what? If it were important to get someone to the station, it’s “safe enough” now. But it’s clearly not.
That’s not to say, of course, that they shouldn’t investigate, and find out what happened, and mitigate it. But there’s no reason to think that they won’t do it, and do so quickly. Garret Reisman said that they would in Las Cruces, and he’s presumably going to ride it himself.
Will be instructive to see how he spins it if Romney gets elected and institutes a different-in-name-only space policy (kind of how Obama made small-but-important changes to Bush’s policy).
The article has been pasztorized for the protection of the status quo.
pasztorize (v.) – to use subtle rhetorical devices such as ambiguous phrasing and sentence structure to cast the subject of an article in a negative light without obviously doing so.
I’m just happy it was Blue Bell ice cream that SpaceX successfully took to the ISS.
Mmmmm….Blue Bell…I gotta go get me some PP&C. (that’s Pecan Pralines & Cream for the uninitiated)
I think there’s a simple formula for the required safety level that’s based on the ratio of the mass of safety paperwork to the gross liftoff weight of the rocket. Once the rocket is incapable of putting all the paperwork into LEO, it’s safe enough.
Then they’ll mess that up with the kindle edition.
Who cares if SpaceX isn’t ready right now. They also are not launching people right now. I would be more worried if they weren’t ready some years from now when they are carrying people.
SpaceX has a number COTS deliveries and private launches to insure the F9 is spit polished and in top shape to launch people.
One could probably point out that NASA is also “still a long way from having a vehicle that can be certified as reliable enough for such missions.” And that NASA “is clearly not ready,” to tackle manned launches “by a long shot.”
Isn’t the next scheduled NASA-run, manned spaceflight about a decade out?
Just sayin.
~Jon
Plus, SpaceX will have dozens of mission under it’s belt before people go. NASA was planning to have just one.
Can’t say it’s really a huge surprise that the WSJ is biased toward Big Aero.
I was really disappointed by the item. After the COTS2/3 flight to ISS, it seemed like Andy had had a “road to Damascus” moment and was suddenly all for SpaceX etc. We had a conversation a couple of months ago and he said something like, “well, they proved themselves.”
Maybe this goes to show that “road to Damascus” moments aren’t the best way to judge space policy… But I do think it possible that he actually only thought he was throwing some ‘Balance’ in and is not swung all the way back.
Maybe I’ll find out at some point.