Turns out Elon can't control the weather – what a scrub: Rain, clouds delay historic manned SpaceX-NASA launch NASA's attempt to launch American astronauts to the International Space Station aboard an American-made rocket from American soil for the first time in nearly a decade was aborted today due to bad weather. Grey clouds loomed overhead as Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley strapped into their seats in their SpaceX’s Dragon crew …
-Arm Launch Escape System
-Load Propellant
-Scrub Scrub Scrub
-Offload Propellant
-Disarm Launch Escape System
That's a good sequence. I like that sequence.
It was oddly gripping, partly because it's been a while, and partly because it's such a relief from the relentless idiocy of politics. At last: real people, doing a proper job, and doing it well. (You too NHS)
Roll on Saturday.
TS Bertha was further north at the time but it's Florida, in the tropics electrical storms are common when the tropical warm air meets cooler air from the north and convection gets going. In the past there have been many launch cancellations but generally the meteorologists have predicted the weather and the date or time has just been shifted a little.
I'm not a fan of Musk, but I really hope this launch is successful. Not just because of the human cost if it isn't, but also the potential political/financial cost.
Also was pondering the new space suits. To me, even though I kind of understand they work, they look wrong. Downside to growing up in the olden days when space suits (even Hollywood versions) looked more substantial. I'm sure the crew appreciate the benefits of FEA and modern materials though.
Like the cars, love the rockets but the man can easily compete with POTUS for the vile tweet of the month award.
Yup. And now X Æ A-Xii. Poor kid. But welcome "Ex Ash A Twelve" or "Ex Aye Eye" or "Ten Ash/Aye Twelve". Celebs, bless them. Apparently the Æ is elvish for "AI", but presumably only for Icelandic elves. Otherwise calling your kid an AI seems a bit harsh for a hopefully free-thinking meatbot. Ash Musk, initials AM would seem appropriate for an individual entity though.
But I digress. The cars & rockets are facing competition, and eventually TSLA will face a reality check, which a launch failure won't help. The part of Musk I like is he has been pushing to lift humanity out of the gravity well. If Musk, Bezos and Branson pooled their resources, a Mars base would be even closer to reality.. give or take a monumental clash of egos.
These aren't space suits, they're flight suits. They provide emergency protection in the case of decompression.
Semantics. Or marketing. I guess they're space flight suits to differentiate between EVA suits and regular flight suits (non-high altitude). Still neat, and AFAIK could be used for emergency EVA. Think one of the vids I saw when they launched (product, not physics) said they could be used for a short hop if the capsule has parking (docking) problems.
But such are the joys of rocket science and human factors. Being able to lose mass is helpful, and apparently these suits are more comfortable.. Which must be nice given the time the astronauts spend in them at 1G waiting for launch, higher G during launch, then micro-G on approach to ISS. I wonder if the computing inside the capsule lets them play Kerbal during that trip?
i wouldn't call micrometeorite protection required for EVA, semantics or marketing.
Err.. nor would I, but I would call a suit designed to be worn in space a...?
But being bored, I figured I'd have a quick look for the number of times a space suit had been hit by a micrometeorite*. In which I learned 2 things. One, the possible answer, the other, ad slinging algorithms. Top search result was for a Marks & Spencer Velvet suit set. Not entirely convinced that would meet specs for EVA activity, or pretty much any activity.
*Favorite example of space hazards was when a shuttle got a small crater in it's windshield. On analysis, was apparently due to colliding with a fragment of frozen urine.
It's not just a question of the correct orbit and position of the ISS. I watched the webcast and they spoke at length about the energy calculations and how they are based on the liquid oxygen and other propellants being in a specific temperature range. If they hold too long, even minutes, the propellants warm up and they don't get the performance they calculated.
Was it just me or was it inordinately foolhardy of SpaceX/NASA to allow the big OrangeOneKanobhead fly over the site in Airforce1.
I thought airspace around rocket launches, especially one as prestigious as this one was closed for safety reasons?
"I'm da Pres and I wanna fly over the frickin launch!"
Possibly a chance to pass the superb achievement as one of his own perhaps.
"50 years ago they just got on with it"
And only *just* got away with it...
Given that one of the outcomes of Apollo 12 was a change in launch procedures to avoid launching into such weather conditions on future missions, criticising the current generation of steely eyed missilemen and women as snowflakes is so far from the mark it's not even funny if you were trying to just make a joke out of it, let alone if you were being even remotely serious.
Scrubbing a launch is disappointing, but I'll take that over an inflight abort (or worse) every single time. "SCE to Aux" is a memorable (for the right reasons) phrase from the lexicon of NASA launches, but let's never ever forget the equally memorable (for all the wrong reasons) "Roger, go at throttle up"...
I am sorry it did not launch last night, been waiting a long time.
But I am pleased that the presence of so many big wigs did not cloud their decision making.
The weather for the weekend does not look much better, maybe they should look to a morning launch before the summer thunderstorms have a chance to build up, but the timing is dependent of where the ISS is and if you launch when the ISS is not in the right place in relation to the launch site, Dragon will need to burn a lot of fuel making the required orbital changes to meet up with the ISS.
But they had a full wet dress rehearsal, which improves the confidence in the vehicle and procedures.
Is a wet dress rehearsal something like a wet T shirt rehearsal, but more thorough?
:)
That said, I agree with the overal sentiment. I am VERY glad they stuck to safety, even though Trump desperately needed the distraction to stop people realising they hit the 100k deaths in the US (depending on sources that happened yesterday already, but US newspapers seem to follow a different counter).
Thumbs up for Elon here. Or at least SpaceX.
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