First commercial passenger spacewalk on Dragon will involve depressurizing entire spacecraft
According to an interview to Space.com by the four crew members on next year’s private manned Dragon flight financed by Jared Isaacman, the spacewalk, the first involving commercial passengers, will include all four passengers, since Dragon will not have an airlock and will be depressurized entirely when the hatch opens.
“We’ve collectively taken the position that we’re all going for an EVA,” Isaacman said, adding that the spacecraft cabin is to be depressurized in a hard vacuum. “Whether you’re sticking your head outside, you are doing an EVA. We are contemplating two people on the outside of the vehicle,” Isaacman said, “and two would be inside making sure that everything is going correct.”
To accommodate the spacewalk, this Crew Dragon will not be outfitted with a transparent dome, as was the case for the Inspiration4 mission.
The mission is presenting targeting March ’23 for launch.
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According to an interview to Space.com by the four crew members on next year’s private manned Dragon flight financed by Jared Isaacman, the spacewalk, the first involving commercial passengers, will include all four passengers, since Dragon will not have an airlock and will be depressurized entirely when the hatch opens.
“We’ve collectively taken the position that we’re all going for an EVA,” Isaacman said, adding that the spacecraft cabin is to be depressurized in a hard vacuum. “Whether you’re sticking your head outside, you are doing an EVA. We are contemplating two people on the outside of the vehicle,” Isaacman said, “and two would be inside making sure that everything is going correct.”
To accommodate the spacewalk, this Crew Dragon will not be outfitted with a transparent dome, as was the case for the Inspiration4 mission.
The mission is presenting targeting March ’23 for launch.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Do not like.
Going for EVA with no airlock might be justified if there was something important to accomplish outside, but I don’t see what it is.
To test the EVA suit? Why not test it one at a time on the ISS, using an airlock with another safety astronaut wearing a current suit? Too much risk… for the sake of a “first”?!
Wonder why they don’t use an airlock similar to the one Alexi Leonov used on Voskhod 2 in 1965.
The reason to do it is compelling. The one paying the freight wants to. Should be end of story right there.
Seems to me that because every component and the entire system can be tested on earth in a vacuum chamber that it is safe. An airlock can fail too. Gemini did not have one either.
Why not test it one at a time on the ISS, using an airlock with another safety astronaut wearing a current suit? Too much risk… for the sake of a “first”?!
NASA has already prohibited private EVA’s on ISS, I’m afraid.
Anyhow, the nice thing is, SpaceX’s future for human space flight is Starship, not Dragon, and at last check, crewed Starship variants won’t, ah, lack for space for airlocks.
Much like Ron White’s take on Hurricanes, “It’s not THAT the wind is blowing, it’s WHAT the wind is blowing”, my FIRST thought was “Isn’t it RATHER COLD in SPACE?”!!! Now I would guess they have tested all the electronics and hydraulics for the vacuum of space, but I thought SPACE was EXTREMELY FRIGID!!! Imagine opening the hatch and ALL the electronics being FROZEN! They HOPEFULLY have some “space heaters” to keep the systems safe – ???? We’ll see!
The most important thing about this EVA is not that it is a 1st but that for the USA it is the 4th system and a return to our EVA capability. There was Gemini, Apollo, STS then a gap, and now Falcoln 9 + Dragon doing it Gemini style. It will work and be the only way that we can assemble things in space for a while. BTW the inside of Dragon will remain warm due to heaters, the outside facing the sun will be hot and parts in shadow cold.
Isn’t it RATHER COLD in SPACE?!!!
The heat content of space vacuum is, in essence, zero — because there’s essentially no matter in it. This means that a body in space which is shaded from the sun will gradually lose heat due to radiation until it ends up exceedingly cold.
However, technically the temperature of that surrounding space vacuum depends upon the velocities of the relatively few and rarified particles still flying through it, and (particularly in the inner Solar System), those speeds are likely to be high — meaning high temperature.