Copenhagen suborbitals....

Parachutes: 3
Total effective canopy drag area: 120 sqm
Thread: 6000 m
Canopy lines: 672 m
Canopy Fabric (1.2 meters wide): 264 m
Sowing machine oil spend: 4 ml
Coffee: 10 liters (so far)

Were the apollo missions to the moon hazardous to the point of being reckless ?

Have manned spaceflight become safer since the 1960ties?

Certainly during the early 1960ties there was a great willingness to accept danger to the astronauts. Everybody talked about it - and everybody knew that the astronauts were the heroes we send to the heavens to beat the communist cosmonauts. In the Soviet Union it was all the same. The cosmonauts were willing to accept any danger to push their team towards the prize of them all - a manned landing on the moon.

Space competition was pure, unlike the ugly proxy wars fought in Korea and Vietnam.

The space machines of the 19ties were to travel 350.000 kilometers away from their mother planet, and operate in environments and worlds so extreme that their performance had to beat anything ever build by the hand of man.

The mission dictated most designs - and single point of failure had to be accepted on many components. However - The Apollo warriors working late hours did spend a lot of time building space machines that was relatively safe. They did have pad abort systems and in some cases catapult seats. They did have redundant parachutes, and they did do an enormous amount on testing on the ground and in the air.

In the post moon race era - it was decided that spaceflight should become routine, and should be less expensive. It was also decided that from now on - there is no reason to expose our astronauts to high danger.

However politics is one thing - realities is another.

With the shuttle fleet now going to the museums - let’s logically compare astronaut safety during the moon race and during the post moon race period.

Have in mind - that post moon race, man has not flown further away from earth than LEO, in the old days they would circle the moon and land there.

Launch vehicle:

Apollo CSM / Saturn V: Two unmanned test flights. Rocket survives multiple engine outs, and severe pogo oscillation. Space craft heat shield is tested at, and above, full lunar reentry velocities, . The spacecraft has a LES system, so in the event of launch vehicle failure during the boost phase, the astronauts have a second option.

All right - this is the reckless level. Let’s get more modern and safe.

Launch vehicle:

Space Shuttle: Zero unmanned test flight. Vehicle will not survive multiple SSME engine outs during early boost phase, and will not survive any failure on the tow SRB´s. These can´t be stopped once ignited. There is no LES system. The heat shield is very fragile, and has never been tested unmanned. It is also much larger, and even reusable. The reusability makes individual flights very expensive, and produces a new problem of check out and maintenance.

More astronauts die in Space Shuttles than in any other spacecraft ever.

The Shuttles have their safety upgraded after each disaster - and this cost the system many of its features. Post-Challenger all plans to replace ELV´s with shuttle flights is stopped, and the shuttle is only used for very special high profile missions such as ISS and Hubble service.

The Hubble missions are extremely dangerous and difficult. Flying the shuttle is dangerous - and flying it to the edge of its performance is dangerous - and spacewalking back to back for many hours is dangerous.

But it’s worth it.

In my humble opinion spaceflight is as exceptionally dangerous now as it was the early days. The ultimate incarnation of the 1960´s space machines - the still flying Russian Soyuz - have long since proven that it kills much fever spacemen then the high tech modern post moon era space shuttles.

Politically we have become wimps. Our space machines are as dangerous as ever - and our astronauts are as heroic as ever - but we will not face it or accept it.

After almost fifty years of development the ELV / capsule concept has become fairly safe, and this truth has been accepted by the aerospace community. The choice by Cph suborbitals to follow this concept in our much simpler suborbital endeavor - is of cause also affected by this order of the world.

But don´t tell me Apollo was reckless or had less focus on safety than what followed. By no means - the opposite is much closer to truth.

Peter Madsen

waddlelou a écrit:C'est un peu ce que je disais plus haut sur ce sujet, au niveau de la complexité de la technologie et de vouloir toujours plus de sécurité.

Donc clamer qu'un système sera safe parce qu'il est simple, c'est aussi ridicule que de clamer qu'il sera safe parce qu'il est complexe...

Donc clamer qu'un système sera safe parce qu'il est simple, c'est aussi ridicule que de clamer qu'il sera safe parce qu'il est complexe...

waddlelou a écrit:...

waddlelou a écrit:Pour le moment ce sont les seuls au monde (car c'est une Association) à vouloir faire ce que les grosses agences ont fait dans le passé.

Space Opera a écrit:Et au fait, elles ne considèrent jamais que "plus d'informatique c'est mieux", on arrive jamais à la complexité "pour le plaisir".

waddlelou a écrit:Alors pourquoi en mettre ?????

Ça, c'est toute la subtilité de l'ingénierie de pointe. Tu penses sincèrement que ça amuse les gens d'avoir des systèmes complexes ? Là où il y a de l'informatique, c'est qu'on ne peut pas faire autrement pour le service recherché, sauf que tu ne sembles pas voir les millions de choses qui sont demandées aux systèmes des missions habitées.

Der er to tests...

Jeg kan bidrage med et par detaljer.

Det er to forsøg.

Det ene vil handler om at eksperimentere med at få en af de store skærme at se helt udfoldet og helt bærende. Det kræve et kast fra den størst mulige højde.

Det andet er en simuleret landing i faldskærm. Systemet dimensioneres til at lande ved ca 10 m/s, og en vis vandret hastighed - f.eks. 5 m/s. Det vil kræve et kast fra lille højde, lidt over fem meter - og med et sving som giver os noget vandret hastighed.

Testen instrumenteres så vi kan se hvad astornaut dukken udsættes for, og den rummer også en mulighed for at teste von B opretningssystem. Det gør at ender kapselen med bunden i vejret ( det vi kalder stable 2 ) så vendes den automatisk ved opblæsning af nogle flydelegemer.

Peter Madsen

waddlelou a écrit:Petite info de Peter Madsen sur le futur test de la capsule via le portique du parc industriel Lindø :

Peut-être qu'il y n'a aura pas d'écoutille pour ce test car rien n'est encore définit.

Den 24 marts har vi statisk test igen. Dog ikke med TM65, men med 2. trin til SMARAUG. Der vil være åbent for CSSere til testen, og jeg vil tro vi efter burnout kan komme ind i HAB og kikke og snakke lidt om de fire raketter under bygning der...og hvad dato vi tager den store væskemotor...

Peter Madsen