I was on The Space Show yesterday discussing this, but Marcia Smith has a good rundown.
The subject of fueling the Falcon while crew was aboard is mentioned there, and it came up on the show yesterday. I need to write something up on this, but my take is the usual one. It’s probably saf(er) to load crew after propellant has been loaded, but it’s not at all obvious to me that doing it with them on board is sufficiently unsafe to justify the extra cost/time. As always, the notion of “human rating” is nonsense, there is no single correct level of safety. It depends on the purpose of the mission. I’d let the astronauts decide (knowing that they will know that if they won’t accept the risk, they probably won’t fly, because others will).
Elon says that a crewed Dragon would have had plenty of time to zoom off and save the crew.
He said the same thing about the payload that was lost when the in-tank strut failed.
Maybe it’s time to start putting the escape system on every payload and prove this.
Maybe it’s time to start putting the escape system on every payload and prove this.
That would impact the delivered payload a lot and make them noncompetitive. It makes sense for manned payloads, perhaps for some critical unmanned payloads, but not in general.
I think a bigger question is do you want to delay Commercial Crew even more by adding extra requirements a year before the planned deployment? IMO if they want to add requirements with substantial time impact to the schedule like this they should defray them until the competition for the next round of flights.
The pad escape case has already been tested.
I would much prefer to get into the spacecraft on an unfueled rocket, strap in, seal the hatch, configure the switches and arm the escape system BEFORE fueling the vehicle.
Operating elevators, getting in to a primed bomb with people messing around near it and with no means of escape for flight and ground crew seems like a really bad idea to me.
Beats me, but I can’t see that the second method is in any way safer.
Pad Crew Lives Matter, Too! Fueling after the crew is secure, the LES in armed, and the ground crew has cleared the area puts far fewer lives at risk. Some people as as if only the astronauts’ lives are important.
Larry, Not only that but nobody, flight or pad crew have a chance during the flight crew ingress/clear the pad procedure, as you point out.
Not only fewer lives at risk by fueling after crew entry but they have a chance to live because they have the abort system.
Can’t see how fueling first is safer.
Good show, very enjoyable to listen to.
“No one knows what Trump will do, not even Trump!”
Lol
Well, it’s true.