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All New For NASA
"Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote on Thu,
30 Aug 2018 22:02:42 -0400: "JF Mezei" wrote in message ... On 2018-08-30 07:10, Jeff Findley wrote: That's my understanding. Conversion to cargo configuration will involve taking out the seats, crew consoles, life support, and etc. Essentially it means unbolting, unplugging, and removing components that simply aren't needed. And adding the structural supports for cargo. (aka glorified shelves/racks or whatever). However, if the insides of the Dragon are re-usable easily and not damaged by a flight/landing, why go through the trouble of changing in inside config from a crewed one proven to work to a cargo one ? It isn't just the "bolted on" consoles, but also all wiring harnesses. I wonder if Musk/SpaceX will ever explain what arguments were used to decide that crewed shouldn't be re-usable as crewed. NASA is always conservative (other than crewed STS-1 :-) So my guess is it ultimately came down to: "because we said so" and everything else was justification for that. And my guess is after 3-4 flights, NASA will relent and go with a refurbished crew capsule. This was apparently a SpaceX decision and not driven by NASA. NASA offered both SpaceX and Boeing the option of reflying capsules. Boeing plans to do so, flying each crew capsule up to ten times. SpaceX decided not to do that for their own internal reasons. The Boeing capsule is going to land on land while SpaceX is going in the water. That difference in refitting costs may be the difference, although SpaceX plans to refly Crew Dragons as cargo carriers after their single manned flight. -- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw |
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All New For NASA
"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message ... "Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote on Thu, 30 Aug 2018 22:02:42 -0400: "JF Mezei" wrote in message ... On 2018-08-30 07:10, Jeff Findley wrote: That's my understanding. Conversion to cargo configuration will involve taking out the seats, crew consoles, life support, and etc. Essentially it means unbolting, unplugging, and removing components that simply aren't needed. And adding the structural supports for cargo. (aka glorified shelves/racks or whatever). However, if the insides of the Dragon are re-usable easily and not damaged by a flight/landing, why go through the trouble of changing in inside config from a crewed one proven to work to a cargo one ? It isn't just the "bolted on" consoles, but also all wiring harnesses. I wonder if Musk/SpaceX will ever explain what arguments were used to decide that crewed shouldn't be re-usable as crewed. NASA is always conservative (other than crewed STS-1 :-) So my guess is it ultimately came down to: "because we said so" and everything else was justification for that. And my guess is after 3-4 flights, NASA will relent and go with a refurbished crew capsule. This was apparently a SpaceX decision and not driven by NASA. NASA offered both SpaceX and Boeing the option of reflying capsules. Boeing plans to do so, flying each crew capsule up to ten times. SpaceX decided not to do that for their own internal reasons. The Boeing capsule is going to land on land while SpaceX is going in the water. That difference in refitting costs may be the difference, although SpaceX plans to refly Crew Dragons as cargo carriers after their single manned flight. -- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw |
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All New For NASA
"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
... "Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote on Thu, 30 Aug 2018 22:02:42 -0400: "JF Mezei" wrote in message ... On 2018-08-30 07:10, Jeff Findley wrote: That's my understanding. Conversion to cargo configuration will involve taking out the seats, crew consoles, life support, and etc. Essentially it means unbolting, unplugging, and removing components that simply aren't needed. And adding the structural supports for cargo. (aka glorified shelves/racks or whatever). However, if the insides of the Dragon are re-usable easily and not damaged by a flight/landing, why go through the trouble of changing in inside config from a crewed one proven to work to a cargo one ? It isn't just the "bolted on" consoles, but also all wiring harnesses. I wonder if Musk/SpaceX will ever explain what arguments were used to decide that crewed shouldn't be re-usable as crewed. NASA is always conservative (other than crewed STS-1 :-) So my guess is it ultimately came down to: "because we said so" and everything else was justification for that. And my guess is after 3-4 flights, NASA will relent and go with a refurbished crew capsule. This was apparently a SpaceX decision and not driven by NASA. NASA offered both SpaceX and Boeing the option of reflying capsules. Boeing plans to do so, flying each crew capsule up to ten times. SpaceX decided not to do that for their own internal reasons. The Boeing capsule is going to land on land while SpaceX is going in the water. That difference in refitting costs may be the difference, although SpaceX plans to refly Crew Dragons as cargo carriers after their single manned flight. Huh... I had only seen comments about NASA pushing it. I'm a bit surprised it's a SpaceX decision. Then again, right now I think the current contract only calls for 6 flights by each company, and SpaceX probably wants to iterate through some design stuff as they go, so building 6 crewed capsules gives them more experience than building just one and flying it 6 times (or more likely 2, so they'd have a backup). And if something DOES go wrong, they can just incorporate the fix into the next capsule, not have to rebuild the existing one. That said, I do expect a future contract and I can see them reflying then. And I do expect a Bigelow Hotel or similar in the next 5+ years. -- Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/ CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net IT Disaster Response - https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/ |
#15
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All New For NASA
In message
"Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote: "Fred J. McCall" wrote in message ... This was apparently a SpaceX decision and not driven by NASA. Huh... I had only seen comments about NASA pushing it. I'm a bit surprised it's a SpaceX decision. I've been wondering if it's driven by the costs of NASA oversight? We already know NASA flights are charged about 50% more than commercial, and one of the stated reasons for SpaceX increasing the price of future CRS missions is them having underestimated the additional costs for NASA work. First stage re-uses for NASA have always had both flights being for NASA, never commercial-NASA. Maybe refurb with NASA inspectors looking over everyones shoulder (currently) pushes the time and cost over the point where it's worthwhile. Anthony |
#16
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All New For NASA
Anthony Frost wrote on Sat, 01 Sep 2018 11:59:32
+0100: In message "Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote: "Fred J. McCall" wrote in message ... This was apparently a SpaceX decision and not driven by NASA. Huh... I had only seen comments about NASA pushing it. I'm a bit surprised it's a SpaceX decision. I've been wondering if it's driven by the costs of NASA oversight? We already know NASA flights are charged about 50% more than commercial, and one of the stated reasons for SpaceX increasing the price of future CRS missions is them having underestimated the additional costs for NASA work. First stage re-uses for NASA have always had both flights being for NASA, never commercial-NASA. Maybe refurb with NASA inspectors looking over everyones shoulder (currently) pushes the time and cost over the point where it's worthwhile. Anything is possible, but SpaceX *IS* going to refly these capsules. They're just going to refly them as cargo carriers. So they're still going to have to do NASA-style refurbishment. -- "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." -- Charles Pinckney |
#17
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All New For NASA
JF Mezei wrote on Sat, 1 Sep 2018
11:33:31 -0400: On 2018-09-01 08:11, Fred J. McCall wrote: Anything is possible, but SpaceX *IS* going to refly these capsules. They're just going to refly them as cargo carriers. So they're still going to have to do NASA-style refurbishment. Looking at crewed flights, would the cost of certifying a just landed Dragon 2 (crew) exceed the cost of certifying a brank spanking new one ? So you're just going to ignore construction costs? Would it be correct to state that so far, a Dragon 1 have only been reflown once in their lifetime? True, but they've only been launching previously flown Dragons for about a year, so how many times would you expect one to be reflown? If, for watever reason, SpaceX is only comfortable with re-using them once, then it means that it still needs to have an active production line. You're leaping to an unwarranted conclusion. Since they've only be reflying capsules for a little over a year and it looks like it takes 4-6 months to refurbish and check them out, there hasn't been enough time for them to be reflying much (they've only done it three times, total). (it could also be a case of the cost of refurbishing the heat shield after X used being higher than the cost of building new shell.) There's no need to 'refurbish' the heat shield. There are a lot of variables/possibilities and unless SpaceX provides insight on why it reached decision to use new Dragons for crewed and recycle them to cargo for subsequent flights, we can only speculate. There are even more variables/possibilities when you pull them out of your ass based upon absolutely nothing. -- "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw |
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