Tim Fernholz has the story of today’s announcement, which was a big “Meh” for me. Wake me up when they’ve decided that putting Americans in space on American rockets is actually important enough to start doing that.
14 thoughts on “The New Astronauts”
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WTF? Only 2 women and no Asians.
Did you just assume their race and gender?
Wait, did I say “their”? I meant to say fwizz. I apologize and will do better in the future.
Suni Williams?
“Wake me up when they’ve decided that putting Americans in space on American rockets is actually important enough to start doing that.”
But…but…it’s going to happen ‘Real Soon Now!’, right? Sure, the schedule is slipping in real time, but…but…’Real Soon Now!’
At least we are almost at the end of this national nightmare. There could be more shenanigans to slow things down but it looks like next year is the end of the gap.
And in a pinch they might be able to go in a few months, if they had to.
Is there a private astronaut corps being developed by any of the commercial flight companies?
Yeah WHY does it have to be NASA astronauts that make the first ride? That let’s the camel’s nose into the tent.
I don’t know how the change came about, but back in 2013 NASA said that they would require the test flights to be flown entirely by private test pilots.
[SpaceX’s Garrett Reisman] said the first manned Dragon test flight with SpaceX test pilots could be launched in mid 2015.
At the briefing, Reisman stated, “We were told that because this would be part of the development and prior to final certification that we were not allowed, legally, to use NASA astronauts to be part of that test pilot crew.”
So I [Ken Kremer] asked NASA’s Ed Mango, “Why are NASA astronauts not allowed on the initial commercial test flights?”
Mango replied that NASA wants to implement the model adopted by the military wherein the commercial company assumes the initial risk before handing the airplanes to the government.
I like Ed, but I suspect JSC leadership took him behind the woodshed. By the time the contracts were awarded in 2014, I’m sure the requirements were that NASA certification would be done by NASA astronauts.
But let’s not be jaded, and see if I’m right, “Google?” Sure enough, I’m right.
There are good people at NASA, like Ed Mango, but they are hampered by a bureaucracy more interested in having a job that continues to pay rather than accomplishes anything.
I’m sure you are correct about the decision having been made by the time Boeing and SpaceX received their contracts, but test pilot rolls are not discussed in the PM article you linked which instead concentrates on budget and design oversight concerns.
Beyond the question of time frame, I wonder about the various interest groups who argued for or against the change. While the Astronaut Office is certainly interested in safety, I can see them also wanting the additional flight opportunities of the test flights.
Looking back at the 2013 Ken Kramer article, I see him quoting Ed Mango: “What we did is we flipped it around under iCAP. It’s not what we’re going to do long term under phase two, but we flipped it around under iCAP and said we want to know when you’re ready to fly your crew and put your people at risk. And that then becomes something that we’re able to evaluate.”
That thoroughly confuses me. Phase two included the Boeing and SpaceX awards in September 2016. Had they ever intended to actually require commercial test pilots, or was the point just to put the pressure on during CCiCap? Was Ed Mango revealing the change (“It’s not what we’re going to do long term under phase two”) for the first time, or else why was Garrett Reisman still speaking of the requirement?
Strange.
can see them also wanting the additional flight opportunities of the test flights.
I can see them (and NASA) wanting the glory. Having all the crew of the test missions be Boeing or SpaceX employees would be detrimental to the collective ego of NASA and it would emphasize perhaps more than they want about how things are changing.
There are a few companies that claim to train astronauts but I haven’t heard of SpaceX or Boeing having something like a training academy, although they must be working with NASA on the training somehow. Since they want to have customers other than NASA, we should start seeing something more detailed about crew and customer training sometime soonish.
Wake me up when …
The announcement wasn’t particularly exciting, but I watched all 45 minutes of the presentation to see what Administrator Bridenstine had to say, given his recent comments about reusability. I don’t know how much should be read into this, but the one noticeable difference between him and the other NASA officials who spoke there was what he didn’t mention. Orion, SLS, and Mars. Compare with:
Mark Geyer, NASA Johnson Space Center Director: We have engineers working on the spacecraft which will enable the United States to sent humans further into the solar system than we have ever done before.
Bob Cabana, NASA Kennedy Space Center Director: You know, it’s pretty amazing when you think about it. In all of human history, only three nations have flown humans to space — the United States, Russia, and China — yet today in the United States, we have three US companies building capsules to take humans to space — SpaceX and Boeing with the Starliner and Dragon taking crews to the International Space Station, and the program that’s here that Mark mentioned, Locheed Martin with the Orion spacecraft on the SLS rocket that’s going to take us back to the Moon and on to Mars.