SpaceX Refutes Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel

Ah! The right to reply, something all bureaucracies tend to hate with a passion! As for who is right? Well, the proof is in the pudding, so we will just have to see when the birds fly which turn out to be safer and more reliable, the latter being a factor as a 100% safe rocket that rarely flies is actually less than useless.

The only way Space X can refute the Safety Advisory Committee is for them to routinely launch humans into space and bring them back safely.

Talk is cheap!

Marcel F. Williams

Talk is indeed cheap, especially when it's shockingly uninformed proclamations from the ASAP. Paper rockets are safe (and cheap) too... they've never killed anyone, but they've never launched anyone either. Granted, SpaceX is certainly not guaranteed success. However, they have a well thought out and engineered program and there is every reason to believe that they'll be able to come through with a reliable launcher and spacecraft.

This is going to be settled one way or the other once they launch (or attempt to launch) the Falcon 9 test flight.

According to Musk, the panel's findings are "bizarre." He says the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft "meet all of NASA's published human-rating requirements, apart from the escape systems.

Yes NASA has published safety requirements. They also have a document 8 inches thick that is the 'interpretations of safety requirements' for the folks building systems to meet the requirements.

Seems the published requirements can be interpreted many ways; usually in a way that results in less money being spent meeting said published requirements.

Lets hope Elon et al have the 'interpretations of the safety requirements' documents as well, or they are in for a nasty surprise once the HSF safety folks do start looking into Falcon data/systems/design/verification methods etc.

Let's see, NASA was willing to rewrite the human-rating NPR (our policy document on human-rating requirements) in order to accommodate Constellation because they could not meet performance requirements and the two-failure tolerance requirement. NPR 8705.2 now only requires single-failure tolerance as of May 2008. ESAS used these requirements to eliminate commercial rockets for safety concerns and then they changed the rules because Griffin's pet rocket couldn't cut the mustard. Ares I is not only 10 years away from flying, it will most likely be the most unsafe rocket NASA has ever built. Don't believe Constellation's claims for safety and reliability, they are playing a numbers game. I would rather take a chance with SpaceX whose failure could cost Musk his fortune and reputation versus NASA whose failure would merely be an excuse to argue for more funding from Congress. Failure is an option because NASA senior management does not have the integrity or competence to succeed. ASAP is merely defending the status quo.

The ASAP report cited the Ares 1 design's emphasis on safety to back up its findings, saying NASA should not cancel the program unless commercial alternatives are on equal or better safety footing.

Safety (as determined by yet-to-be validated computer modeling) first! The fact that Ares 1 costs nearly an order of magnitude more than the commercial alternatives? Ignore it, says ASAP!

The fact that Ares 1 *real* flight rate would never match that of venerable EELV launchers, leaving NASA launch operations staff without practice for extended periods of time? Irrelevant, just look at the computer models, says ASAP!

Gosh, ASAP's been helpful.

As much as I am rooting for SpaceX, I think whats in the back of everyone's minds is their performance with the Falcon 1 compared to Nasa with Ares I-X.
They aren't taking into consideration the Apollo years or the tiny budget SpaceX has accomplished its program with.

I think the turning point will be the launch of the first Falcon 9. If its a success they can put all these hypothetical safety concerns to bed. If its a failure... Well, Bad things.

I agree with Mr Schriber: The best refutation would be a successful launch. Ares I has had its chance (sort of), so it's only fair that the Falcon 9 should get one, too.

Reading requirements and designing to them is one thing. But as I've found, actually building something and performing certification testing is another. You don't know what you don't know. That's why the experience in NASA launching humans is extremely valuable and would be a shame to lose.

SpaceX has placed themselves in a risky scenario. Regardless as to the accuracy of their claims, touting human spaceflight requirements has significantly upped the ante on their Falcon 9 inaugural flight.

It is going to be boom or bust. If it succeeds then Musk has positioned his enterprise as the de facto savior of indigenous U.S. human LEO transport capability. If it fails then SpaceX's future claims of being able to safely transport astronauts to LEO could be irreversibly tarnished.

The stage is set for a tense ten minutes that could dictate the next ten years. I for one applaud his confidence. It is characteristic of strong leadership and is a testament to his belief in his employees and the quality of their work.

Let's also keep things in perspective with regard to Falcon 9 testing (and Falcon 1 history for that matter). The Europe's first attempt at an indigenous launcher (Europa-1/2) ended in failure with no successful missions. Even Ariane 5 (designed to be human rated for Hermes) suffered a catastrophic failure on it's first launch and two partial failures after that. These were programs backed by national governments with huge investments in money and manpower.

SpaceX is essentially running a similar program (new in-house built launcher, propulsion systems and avionics) but with a much smaller budget and staff. Everything they've accomplished so far is amazing. It would not be surprising at all if there was some kind of failure during flight testing of the Falcon 9. However, to the uninformed, it will look very bad indeed.

Am I the only one who thinks SpaceX not having anything to do (at this day and age anyway) with NASA astronaut transport to LEO could actually be a blessing in disguise? Yes, there's a nice chance for bigger profits, higher flight rates, prestige, new experience, whatever - *if* they get into the business of launching humans, but somehow I feel the prospect of bad things happening outweighs the benefits.

Let's say a crew is eventually killed for one reason or another - as others have pointed out numerous times before, this isn't NASA where the agency would ask for more money for increased safety without anyone really being held accountable, this is a company which could very conceivably be run down to the ground and Musk crucified. Is that a risk worth taking? I'm just not inclined to think a tragedy like that would be viewed the same way as an airline tragedy would. We're just not there yet - really accepting these things are bound to happen.

I don't know, maybe that would actually be a greater impetus for their team to take extra care when launching humans. I wish SpaceX all the best with their inaugural flight of the Falcon 9 and I agree the ASAP conclusions ring all sorts of warning bells, but I personally find it hard to be enthusiastic about this "commercial crew transport" thing.

Even if the Falcon 9 goes as planned, I would think that at some point NASA will insist on a thorough safety review process the verify the design meets the safety requirements.

That is where things could get ugly.

Now, perhaps Elon et al have been working very closely with the HSF Saftey folks at NASA throughout the design process. And they have identified all the hazards, their classification, and the appropriate controls and verification/validation methods of those controls. If so, Falcon 9 is in good shape wrt Safety.

If not......I see battles between the two organizations....and you can bet if it does come to battles, politicians will get involved and pressure will be brought to bear...on either side.

is there some kind of policy at SpaceX that their employees need to respond to this stuff? news flash you can SAY anything you want to, but until you PROVE to NASA and AF/Aerospace that you have document control, parts control, systems engr, safety oversight, etc equivalent to the exisiting rockets companies that have long since demonstrated this capability then you can blather on all you want but it's not taken serious. you can even launch falcon 9, and it only means a small thing. Oh, and if you want NASA and the Astronauts to believe in you, maybe you shouldn't design weed burners that point ox at the wall..

Kudos to all for the good comments.

One thing that seems to be repeated over and over in these comments is "let's wait see the Falcon 9's launch." I would say, rather, "let's see the Falcon's first 200 launches". Over ~ 130 launches the Shuttle's failure rate ( My opinion is that, in order to be truly considered "acceptable", the Falcon's failure rate should be better than the Shuttle's failure rate. One successful launch is interesting but not good enough.

edit I meant "don't" point ox at the wall

You've got it exactly right! Besides, it would be foolish for the US to put all of our eggs solely in the private launch vehicle basket.

That's why I'd like to see NASA choose the Jupiter core vehicle not only for its future HLV but, I'd also like to see them develop an expendable SSTO booster out of the Jupiter core vehicle using perhaps 6 SSME without the need of SRBs solely to launch the 22 tonne Orion or a manned aerospace plane into orbit.

That might be a vehicle that would be attractive to NASA, the military (replacing the Delta 1V heavy) and for the emerging private manned space flight industry.

Marcel F. Williams

I would say, rather, "let's see the Falcon's first 200 launches"

Fine, as long as you take the same standard and apply it to Ares I as well.

Oh, wait, I forgot. Ares I will be safe by default. Operational record be damned.

This is laughable. 200 launches! The Shuttle failed after just 25. The might Saturn V that everyone touts only flew 13 times, though with no failures. Commercial rockets have a very high DEMONSTRATED reliability. Ares I has nothing.

With this mentality, airlines would still be operated by the government. It's time for NASA to back out of operations and get back into development. Maybe if we had been doing our job in feeding improved technology to industry, we would have highly reliable and routine access to space provided by commercial companies.

There seems to be a naivete running rampant here.

Human rating requirements shouldn't be rubber stamped, just because one, or even 100 test flights are successful. SpaceX needs to prove, and auditors need to confirm that they designed their systems properly and used qualified parts.

The media is more than happy to create a scandal when NASA doesn't catch a sub-contractor who skimps on bolts. Yet some people are asking us to assume Falcon 9 is a human-rated launcher, just because it has a successful flight?? Even the word of Elon Musk isn't the sort of certification you accept for something as important as the lives of the folks who strap this thing on.

Even DEMONSTRATED EELV reliability, (possum's emphasis) doesn't mean a system is human rated. Human rating requirements represent decades of experience (which makes Constellation's cavalier disposal of two-fault tolerance all the more tragic).

But if some of you guys want to throw away 50 years of aerospace knowledge, skill, and experience; earned with the blood and souls of some brave explorers; you do so at the risk of wasted lives, wasted years, and wasted money.

ASAP may have tweaked some people's egos, but their core message is right: SpaceX has to prove that their design and every part they use meet every human rating requirement, and that their system works reliably. Even nation-states take years to work the bugs out of new launch systems, don't give SpaceX a pass because they have celebrity status.

You must not work at JSC or KSC or HQ. For us, a failure means the death of a friend and colleague.

I don't think anyone here is being naive. No one expects NASA just to take SpaceX's word as to the human rating of it's vehicle. Just because the launcher is built to human rated standards doesn't mean it's human rated. It'll have to be certified. That will prove to be an interesting process indeed. Also keep in mind that the agency currently responsible for certifying and ensuring the safety of commercial human carrying spacecraft is the FAA.

I'll try to keep this short and sweet. Since NASA decided to mess with NPR 8705.2 in respect to CxP, does this mean that NASA can change the defined term of "Human Rated" at it's wish and whim. Having read NPR 8705.2B (the newest version), I find that since ASAP is trying to apply this to a commercial vehicle instead of a NASA design, NPR 8705.2B does not apply in it's current form. This brings up the question "What is human rating, and how do we go about it in the new era of commercial space flight". If NASA is thinking about having astronauts fly on commercial space vehicles, it better be prepared to have it's way of thinking challenged. With the CxP mess, I would trust Elon Musk and SpaceX before I'd trust NASA. F9 was designed and built in the time CxP has gone from paper to uh' paper. When NASA gets back to designing rocket based on the ideas of WVB, then I might think about trusting them again. Until then, Good Luck SpaceX.

Is this your excuse for being risk-averse?

Space exploration is risky and there will be failures. If we want to colonize the Moon and Mars, there will be deaths.

But NASA (just like most space agencies) is so risk averse that it's just afraid to boldly go where nobody has gone before. Neil Armstrong was your colleague and friend in the past. Yet he believed there's 50% chance to succeed while landing on the Moon.

The FAA needs to write (or sponsor) a set of human rating standards for launch vehicles, spaceships and spacestations. Then it can perform any auditing needed.

Looks like ASAP has been left looking like a bunch of real boobs. That's going to happen when you mindlessly tout the party line, even when that party has long disbanded. But what do you expect from a bunch of old codgers and Shuttle/Apollo huggers?

I predict that once the new policy comes out, Garver will have the influence to start wielding that axe (she's under duress by Charlie until we have any official policy statement). The transition to a more commercially friendly environment depends on a massive flushing within the Agency. It needs to start at the AA level and extend to middle management. Not all should go...but even an exodus of 20-30% would really make a difference, and forever remove the threat of NASA doing work in areas in which it has absolutely business.

There seems to be a naivete running rampant here.

As Griffin has said in the past, there are no difference in the processes in launching a crew vs a billion dollar national security spacecraft, a payload with nuclear material or a once in a lifetime planetary probe. They all demand the same type of reliability from the launch vehicle. ELV's only require a health monitoring system and trajectories that do not impose high g loads during aborts.

As for human rating requirements representing decades of experience, it was accounted for in the design of the EELV's and Falcon 9 when it comes to reliability.

Somebody saying something different doesn't know what they are talking about

I love Space-X's audacity, and am watching eagerly to see their Falcon-9 move from imagination to reality to a reliabile vehicle to launch to space station.

But with that said, Musk is wrong here. Falcon-9 isn't ready... yet. Space-X needs to hunker down and work on getting rockets into space repeatably and reliably.

Space-X has proved that they can get up from failure, dust themselves off, and try again. Excellent. That's the stuff we need.

Now show us a record of reliability by doing it, not by talking about how insanely great your rockets are going to be.

FAA standards are not applicable to NASA.