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NASA safety panel questions safety of SLS

NASA’s safety panel has issued a report questioning the safety of the early launches of the Space Launch System (SLS), partly due to the very low launch rate and the lack of any planned unmanned test flights for the rocket’s upper stage engine.

“The ASAP and the Agency remain concerned about risks introduced in the currently scheduled frequency of SLS/Orion launches, ” according to ASAP’s 2014 Annual Report. “The plan indicates a launch about every 2 to 4 years. This would challenge ground crew competency. The skills, procedures, and knowledge of conducting the launch, mission, and recovery are perish-able. The ASAP believes that an extended interval requires the relearning of many lessons and skills, in contrast to Apollo and Shuttle, which had a relatively steady cadence.”

No space project can accomplish anything with launch rate this slow. Not only does this increase the risk that inexperience will cause errors, the long time gaps make it difficult for the project to get anything done.

And then there is NASA’s idea that it can put humans on this rocket without any previous launch testing of the rocket’s upper stage or the capsule’s life support systems. Why should NASA’s rocket get a pass on this kind of testing when the agency is demanding that the private companies do it?

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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2 comments

  • Recall that Shuttle was launched all-up without testing escape procedures or equipment. At the time much was made over the fact that it was the first manned US spacecraft to launch without such testing. Glide tests aren’t exactly comparable to escaping a stack of explosives.

    I can understand NASA’s insistence on private space proving escape systems prior to crewed launches. Whatever NASA may be doing now, they have put people in space. And requiring proof-of-system serves the long-term interests of commercial space. In our risk-adverse society, if crew were to die because safety systems were untested or didn’t work, it would set manned commercial space back years, if not kill it entirely.

  • Pzatchok

    As time and unfortunate accidents have proven there was no possibility of the shuttle ever escaping an explosion.

    Of of any astronauts ever having a chance to escape it during reentry.

    And they had plans for both.

    One of the plans was for the astronauts to have jettisonable seats like fighter aircraft. But that was shot down when they realized that half the crew was on a lower deck and would have to escape directly into the large fuel tank.

    the other idea was to have the whole of the command section serve as a lifeboat type capsule. if an explosion did occur the while thing would be armored enough to survive and could float down to earth on parachutes. Due to weight and the fact that the ship could be going well over a thousand miles an hour when an explosion might occur the parachute idea was tossed out also.

    As for the escape during reentry idea it required the astronauts to get out of their seats and jump out the side door while in space suits all the while hoping the ship was in a steady flight path and not going over a few hundred miles per hour.

    The SLS design actually has a chance of working but why they do not want to test it is beyond me. Maybe they think they are magic and don’t need tests.

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