Re: was June 21 an X Prize attempt?

From: Joann Evans (bondage_at_frontiernet.net)
Date: 06/22/04 

Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2004 23:40:03 GMT

Tamas Feher wrote:
>
> >>>First off, major congrats to the Scaled, Vulcan and SpaceDev
> >>>crews. I saw the CNN web video, and it was great to see SS1
> >>>flying like that.
> >>
> >> Do they use spacesuits or just shirt-sleeve? Are there ejection seats
> >> installed in the vehicles?
> >
> >Shirt-sleeve; no ejection seats.
>
> Holy ***! They should rename the craft to "Second Soyuz-11".

   A valve problem that even the crew identified, but couldn't stop in
time.

> Or
> "Challenger-2" maybe?

   Pressure suits wouldn've helped them (at least until impact). It's
never been a secret that you can't do ejection from the shuttle for more
than two people. At some point, you simply have to design a pressure
hull you have confidence in. You don't eject from a wide bodied jet,
either. And fighters have them because they're intended to fly in
environments where someone may be actively *trying* to destroy you.

> What if one of those pretty round nose windows
> suffers a General Protection Fault? I saw a photo on CNN, where the
> pilot wore fighter-jet style helmet and oxygen mask. That won't save him
> above 12-18 km, they need a full-body compression suit and closed
> helmet. What if the stylish pivoting wings break off mid-air? The guy is
> NOT going to get out of the spinning wreck under his own power.

   Right. So you either fly fools, or design a decent vehicle where the
probability of that is very low. I'm assuming Rutan did the latter.
There are still plenty of failure modes where a pressure suit still
wouldn't help you. (Columbia, for instance.)
 
> So I promptly sent the following e-mail to the X-prize board:
>
> "Dear Ansari X-Prize Comitte,
>
> Scaled Composite's flight was a success, they finally reached 100km. But
> the spaceship suffered some severe malfunctions in-flight (uncontrolled
> roll, trim failure, violent expansion caused buckling in the rear
> fuselage). I think the pilot was lucky to survive.

   And had the ship come apart near 100km, what? See my previous
comment.

 
> Here is the question:
> X-prize attempts must fly with three persons onboard or one human pilot
> and two weight dummies. Would you allow omitting the two weight dummies
> if Scaled Composite installed additional crew safety measures for the
> remaining single pilot?

   Remember, this is meant to be a technological precursor to a tourist
vehicle. Where are the alleged tourists?
 
> I mean things like having an ejection seat and true spacesuite for the
> pilot, as opposed to the current shirt-sleeve environment. Considering
> that a proven capable ejection seat, like the russian Zvezda K-36DM
> weights about 225 kg (~500lbs) fully equipped, that would be no cheating
> with regards to mass / thrust requirements. One K36 would provide
> full-envelope single crew survival up to Mach3 and 30,000 meters max.
> height.
>
> I do feel Ansari X-Prize comitte should encourage all participants to
> fly with governmental-grade safety measures in place (especially full
> vacuum rated spacesuits and crew bail-out equipment). Shirt-sleeve
> environment has historically killed ten astronauts in state-run space
> programs (Soyuz-11 and Challenger). The last thing you need is people
> spelling your name like "ANother Silly Astronaut Roasted In-flight
> X-prize". Especially not with CNN and NBC live coverage.

   The entrants should decide themselves what degree of risk is
acceptable. These are not X-vehilces in the old NASA/USAF sense.If you
can't ddesign an acceptably (in the commercial airliner sense)
shirt-sleeve vehicle, then the demonstration becomes "Another Flight By
A Right-Stuff Test Pilot That I'll Never Be Able To Fly With."

   Yeah, it still would've been acheived privately, but that alone
wasn't the point, or Scaled could quit today.

   This, after all, is why we have incremental testing. I'm confident
Scaled closely monitored the ship's performance on lower, slower
flights, examined it for structural weaknesses, etc., gradually building
confidence. Just as you would for most new aircraft designs. You can't
do that with government spacecraft, so far. Except for Mercury-Redstone,
you went for a mimimum LEO flight the first time. Indeed, NASA hopes it
never *has* to try a shuttle Return To Launch Site (RTLS) maneuver, as
it's believed to be highly risky, and only preferable to certain death.
If they can at least abort across the Atlantic to Africa, they'd rather.
 
> Thanks for your attention, Sincerely: Thomas Feher." 

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