Hello SpaceX

--paul

I don't know about the food, but the underlying problem they're about to have is that there aren't enough parking spaces.

Here's a map of what's currently docked.

There are 2 docking ports that can accommodate US-spec modules. They're both full. They can't send up Crew-9 (currently scheduled for no earlier than 18 August) until they free up one of those two. Starliner is on one, and the Crew-8 Dragon is on the other. They can't undock Crew-8 because that would leave insufficient crew return seats for an emergency evacuation. They can't undock Starliner because, well, vague handwave.

NASA could let Starliner autonomously re-enter and fly Butch and Suni home with the Crew-8 guys. But pretty soon they're going to start pushing Crew-9 to the right if they don't make up their minds. I hope that doesn't lead to get-there-itis.

Oh my.

Attachment:

Donner Party.jpg

I wonder when they would have figured that out if the thrusters hadn't left them stuck. Or, is that a planned "feature"?

Boeing.

I wonder when they would have figured that out if the thrusters hadn't left them stuck. Or, is that a planned "feature"?

Boeing.

The current software was capable of an automated flight and docking, arguably more difficult than undocking and entry. Yes, Boeing may have just assumed that the crew would manually perform those functions, but really, is that a good idea? Even just as a back up I'd expect the vehicle to be capable of autonomous operation.

If it were a different company I might be inclined to think that there was a conscious, purposeful reason for it, but it's not, it's Boeing.

Would you really want a software glitch to undock the Starship by itself?

I would expect that a competent company <cough>SpaceX</cough> would design the spacecraft and its software in such a way that it was free of "glitches" and sufficiently redundant that it could work autonomously. Dragon does it all the time.

At this point there may be a few people wishing that it would just undock itself and go away.

I would expect that a competent company <cough>SpaceX</cough> would design the spacecraft and its software in such a way that it was free of "glitches" and sufficiently redundant that it could work autonomously. Dragon does it all the time.

At this point there may be a few people wishing that it would just undock itself and go away.

Lance, if I recall the overflow was because Buzz decided he knew better and left both the landing and rendezvous radar on at the same time. Had the system been used properly the overflow would not have taken place



Heck, even the Apollo Guidance Computer's software had a tremendous amount of redundancy and the version used for the Lunar Lander saved the day (and the astronauts) by repeatedly and seamlessly rebooting several times during final descent to the moon during the Apollo 11 mission.

This in incorrect.

This was just what CBS news reported because complex issues are just too hard. They essentially made it up.

Both astronauts followed the checklists correctly and the RR was in AUTO per the landing checklist. (Originally the thought was that they could track angles on Columbia during the descent but this was abandoned. Programming was not changed and neither was the checklist. The interface between the RR and the computer was not fully understood at the time.)

At some point in time Aldrin said he left it in auto in case there was an abort but it was on the checklist to be in AUTO so he would have had to go cowboy to put it in SLEW or OFF.

Here are a couple of papers that explain the issue.

https://ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/Ch ... egesis.pdf

This white paper covers this subject in its entirety.

https://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html

In theory it was capable of automated docking, but in the face of the thruster failures it didn't work, and had to be done manually by Butch.

Yes, but on a prior uncrewed test flight it flew, docked, undocked, and returned to Earth autonomously. The code was there then. Why isn’t it there now?