Thread: Commercial Crew
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Old June 26th 19, 09:43 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Default Commercial Crew

"Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote on Tue,
25 Jun 2019 15:51:12 -0400:

"JF Mezei" wrote in message ...

Dragon had a failure in a critical system which prevents the test of
this critical system (abort in flight).

Starliner hasn't had any failures because it is behind and hasn't even
had unmanned test.

Assuming SpaceX has found the cause and knows how to fix it, Dragon
could be back in business and still be quite ahead. SpaceX appears have
a new policy of not letting Musk say much, so I don't know that one can
derive a conclusion from lack of news.


When Boeing starts its tests, it could work flawlessly or not. We have
to wait. Will they also have a max-Q abort test? That would seem to
require at least 2 test flights right?


I have not seen a max-Q abort test for Starliner planned. I may have missed
it, but I don't think so.
I think NASA is still treating Boeing as "they've done this before, we can
trust them a bit more."
And perhaps after the recent SpaceX explosion, they might be right.


I tend to put it more down to relative cost of the two boosters. I
suspect it was SpaceX's choice to do a 'live test' for a Max-Q abort.


--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to
live in the real world."
-- Mary Shafer, NASA Dryden