On this note, does anybody know what the weather thresholds are that would cancel the launch? I mean, the current forecast suggests it will almost definitely be raining at 433pm Eastern, and wind will be around 10 mph. Is some amount of rain tolerable? How much wind is acceptable?
Nominally a 60% chance of a go for launch weather, but according to Ken the Bin on Ars Technica, the weather in the abort corridor is poor so he expects a postponement.
I live on Merritt Island. Our power has been out since 6:30 this morning due to intense storms in the area. That having been said, it is currently sunny and calm.
Given what the weather has been like since Sunday I could see it being postponed. I hope the weather holds and gives a window.
Typically that percent chance doesn't actually consider all the launch criteria as crazy as that sounds.
It misses the upper level winds, and for the human launch I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that it is missing some weather criteria in the abort recovery zone as well.
I get that you dont want to fly a giant rocket full of liquid oxygen and other explosives into a thunderstorm or hurricane, but what are some practical reasons for postponing a launch due to weather. As I (hardly) understand once you get high up in the atmosphere there is high wind even on a clear day, does rain matter that much?
Recovery due to an in-flight abort would be difficult in rough seas and weather if they had to be plucked out of the Atlantic.
The aerostructure of the falcon 9 can only withstand so much side loading due to aerodynamic forces and wind before exceeding the operational limits of the rocket (body to keep it all from breaking apart, and the engines working hard to keep them on the correct trajectory).
Thank you for the answer. To those who downvoted- I normally don't comment on that, but damn it was an honest question and I admitted to having little knowledge on this and its not like I gave a hot take. Just wanting to learn something...
First of all, weather is much more than just rain.
One of the things that's monitored closely in the launch corridor are the upper atmospheric winds. Specifically the wind sheer in the upper atmosphere. Strong wind isn't typically a problem, but high wind sheer in the upper atmosphere can be problematic.
Additionally, they check the weather in the entire recovery corridor. That is, anywhere that the capsule could end up during an abort. They want to make sure that if the capsule ends up in the ocean, the weather permits recovery operations. An abort and safe splash-down doesn't do us much good if the astronauts then drown because recovery operations are impaired due to weather.
We're putting two lives on this rocket. A small delay is absolutely the right trade-off to reduce risk.
The issue isn't so much high wind but wind shear. Namely when you pass through a sharp change in air direction there's a bending force applied to the rocket that's proportional to the vehicle speed and atmospheric density. This can get very high and risk destroying the rocket.
The space suits, UI, design of it all feels exactly what I’ve though the future of space technology would be. Maybe not all the way there yet, but a great leap from hundreds of manual switches and raw aluminum of the shuttle era.
> a great leap from hundreds of manual switches and raw aluminum of the shuttle era.
Wonder if reliability of virtualized controls surpasses the one of dedicated hardware though.
I suspect one of the reasons Apollo computers were all built with just one type of logical chip is the ability to replace faulty parts - one just need a single type of replacement. If for some reason touchscreen malfunctions, what options are left for the crew?
> If for some reason touchscreen malfunctions, what options are left for the crew?
First, the spacecraft is I believe fully automated. While there is the ability to pilot the craft manually using onboard controls, my understanding is that is already considered a backup or unusual scenario.
As far as the touchscreens themselves, my understanding is there are four touchscreens total, and each can represent / control every aspect of the vehicle. So if a single touchscreen fails, the other 3 provide redundant access to necessary controls.
Finally, the dragon capsule does have manual (non-touchscreen) joystick controls for the critical flight controls.
So these systems have enough redundancy that a touchscreen failure should absolutely not jeopardize the flight.
I wonder if the touchscreens are made of diverse hardware types and run by different programs running on different types of CPUs. If it's all common hardware and a common code-base then one in-common hardware or software failure could still take them all down.
For redundancy, the Space Shuttle used five of the same computer (IBM AP-101). Four of them ran the same software, while the fifth ran independently-developed software in case a bug prevented the others from working.
> Finally, the dragon capsule does have manual (non-touchscreen) joystick controls for the critical flight controls.
Joysticks are better, though some convenient indication is also required (the "screen" part, not the "touch" part). I'm sure the designers saw questions like that; I'm just curious about details.
> I suspect one of the reasons Apollo computers were all built with just one type of logical chip is the ability to replace faulty parts
The Apollo Guidance Computer was built with two types of chips: a 3-input NOR gate and a core memory sense amplifier. The reason to use just one logic chip was because ICs were very new at the time and there was very little reliability information. By standardizing on a small number of components, they could procure enough to determine and maintain quality. (See Journey to the Moon chapter 12.)
Having used (and been highly dissatisfied with) touch-based controls in cars I cannot imagine why touch-based controls for a spacecraft are a good idea. The ergonomics are terrible.
Switches can certainly fail, with potentially dire consequences (see the Apollo 14 abort switch failure). I would assume the number of failure modes for touch-based interface hardware are vastly more.
Touch controls are, no doubt, easily reconfigurable, which is probably great for profit margins. The idea of the human spaceflight industry applying "cost down" mentality to crew vehicles scares the heck out of me (and I'm not even flying in them). (I'm thinking about the Boeing MCAS mentality, but for spacecraft...)
Isn't this attributable to needing to focus on driving and the controls being a secondary concern? The astronauts don't seem to have much more to focus on than the screens and controls in front of them.
At first I didn't really care for the SpaceX suit because I liked the raw look of the old NASA suits. But looking at it more, it reminds me of motorcycle leathers and that sleek look you get when your gear fits just right.
Not a fan of Boeing suits tbh, it looks a bit like an arts and crafts project.
I agree and would add that we’ve gotten very used to touchscreens on our very multi-purposed phones and tablets.
Navigation is a fairly fixed function. I doubt these astronauts are going to installing new apps on their way to orbit...
Interestingly offshore sailboat racers (IMOCA 60 class for instance) prefer keyboards and thumb ball mice. They’re not pulling g’s, but they experience some pretty extreme motion from waves.
Not all navigation is created equal. When navigating in a car or boat, you need to be able to look ahead and pay attention. Therefore physical control are better because you can use them without looking at them.
That's not the case in a space ship. Additionally, piloting a space craft is infinitely more complicated. Just take a look at the Apollo 11 control module[1]. I think having a single place where you receive all your information and react to it is way better than having to memorize the location and function of thousands of physical elements.
Man if only they had 2 of the most experience pilots in the world that could test and validate ever one of the design decisions and could influence the design to their liking.
If those guys had also space flight experience and could review all the engineering done on the capsule, that would be the way to do it.
SpaceX isn't to the point in this endeavor where they should be worrying about making things look "sexy". If there isn't an objective improvement in doing something in a non-flight-tested way then I'd be highly suspicious.
Though I agree making the interior sexy is not particularly important. I think a large portion of SpaceX’s success thus far is due to making space sexy and interesting to the public again.
Part of their mission is to inspire the next generation. So if it doesn't add to the cost or make it more hazardous, making it look good / futuristic can have a positive payoff if some 10 year old kid looks at it and decides to go into a STEM field and invent something cool.
I agree for cars and planes, but for spacecraft, the crew doesn't really need to "keep their eyes on the road," so to speak (and it's not like the spacecraft controls can be done without looking, anyway, like turning up the radio).
Comparing to Apollo, I can imagine that being able to impose some hierarchy on the controls could be beneficial (rather than having all 566 switches laid out across the cabin), and the reliability is probably better than one dedicated switch per control, since the control can be used on any of the several touch screens.
Apollo 14 nearly failed due to a faulty switch. Apollo 12 was saved by flipping a switch that was not well known. Are there other incidents where the controls were critical? In general it seems like when the astronauts are in a hurry you've probably already got major issues, and being able to find the control out of the hundreds (or thousands) is probably more important than being able to flip it with your eyes closed.
Astronauts are going to wear the pressure suits with gloves, so it's hard to have such controls anyway. Touchscreens are fine when they are replacing MFD side buttons, which aren't typically haptic to begin with. (as well as most buttons on the Soyuz panel, for example)
Elon has fascination for sci-fi aesthetics so no matter what, he is going to shoe horn it in.
Sci-fi UI/UX was developed in a short time under pressure when movies were being made. The authors did not consider literally anything about the implications such as ergonomics, cost, reliability, discoverability, etc. Literally zero research behind it. It was not an engineering project by any stretch of the meaning.
Sci-fi aesthetic is the cancer of our society propelled by big budget films and cultural impact worldwide. It has absolutely no place in space exploration.
All this is decoration and marketing. Personally, I also hate the new space suit design, it looks like a movie set than those badass suits astronauts used to wear. They screamed of technical prowess, not aesthetics. Emerging aesthetics were absolutely badass: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Tim_Kopr...
SpaceX/NASA are preparing the suiting up process right now. It looks like a low budget bad sci-fi movie: https://i.imgur.com/MzdPwD6.png
The Crew Dragon touchscreen monitors compensate for vibration by oscillating the image, enhancing readability especially during reentry. Analog gauges are unable to do that.
To say 'sci-fi aesthetic is the cancer of our society' is empty hyperbole. The sci-fi aesthetic mirrors the age in which we live. Additionally, which sci-fi aesthetic is so ruinous? Is it Star Wars with all it's switch, levers, and knobs? Is it 2001 and Star Trek with display monitors everywhere? Is it Blade Runner or Alien with a decayed future? What is this cancer causing your histrionic invective?
I think that your insinuation that a significant number of those sci-fi aesthetics were implemented at a detriment to usability or safety is completely incorrect.
Could you please elaborate more on why it is completely incorrect? I think the opposite from what I've seen. Touch screens in a space capsule cockpit with UI and fonts that appear to be more of a pizzaz than functional. I think that SpaceX has leaned too much towards decoration while presumably sacrificing a tremendous amount of functional aspects. I don't know for sure because I've not operated those systems but I've seen Everyday Astronaut's YT tour of the Dragon capsule and it is a sad sight. My guess is neither have any of us used those systems, these are observations from limited information.
I assume that the professionals at SpaceX and NASA have prioritized safety and usability, while also introducing a sci-fi vibe. This is a reasonable position.
You, however, take a conspiracy theory (the literal definition) angle that SpaceX have reduced the safety and usability of their module in order to look cooler. Do you see why this is not a reasonable position with the information that we have?
> while also introducing a sci-fi vibe. This is a reasonable position.
I think that's my main grumpy objection. May be I am just old.
I also found your dismissal as "conspiracy" a low blow. How can I engage in a productive discussion when the other party dismisses your entire proposition as a conspiracy theory - you don't seem to see any issues with that?
You've turned your "grumpy objection" into suggesting that SpaceX is willing to reduce the usability safety of their systems for style. That's a huge jump that I felt should be called out.
Maybe conspiracy theory was too harsh, but I stand by heavily calling you out for hatching this idea with minimal evidence beyond "grumpy objections" to a sci-fi vibe.
The lag on that touchscreen is bothering the hell out of me. It reminds me of crappy in-flight entertainment systems. Is it physically turning a camera, or is it just that bad?
It's both. They have a handle below the screen precisely for this reason. [1] You can grab it and press the buttons below/tap the lower part of the screen above with your thumb. This seems much more reasonable and pragmatic than the sci-fi looking mockup they originally presented. [2] Although my understanding is that it's probably not a huge problem, because Soyuz introduced the stick to push the buttons only in its later variants.
Also, judging from the photos, they seem to have their button covers supported by the frame. In 2003, there was an incident when a cosmonaut inadvertently fired RCS thrusters on the Soyuz attached to the station, simultaneously pushing several buttons with his foot while loading the spacecraft with cargo to be returned to Earth, crushing the protective caps that were pressing against the (relatively flimsy) case. The thrusters fired for quite some time until a ground operator noticed it and turned them off remotely. After that, the covers in Soyuz were redesigned to press against the frame. Seems like that incident has been learned from in Crew Dragon as well.
I would imagine they would have control lockouts as well. Not something super complicated/time consuming to disengage, but something to prefect that exact scenario from happening.
Yes, the lockouts were in place during that incident too, but for several good reasons they are non-modal - you have to hold two buttons at the same time to trigger some critical operations like manual RCS controls. Which is exactly what happened, so the confirmation procedure had to be changed as well.
I have listened to a podcast about the F-35. It has touchscreens but they also put a lot of the critical functions onto the stick so the touchscreen doesn't need to be used when things are shaking. I imagine it's the same here. The astronauts probably don't have much to do during a launch and can't do much when things go wrong.
If you watch the livestream, the UI elements are much larger on the touch screens than would be possible if there was a dedicated physical button for every possible function. If precision is a concern, then these screens are safer.
I think the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo cool was that the hardware was completely lacking in design: it was as practical as a carburetor and as stylish. And that's why we liked them.
It's the first manned launch on the Dragon platform. There have been a number of unmanned launches and tests, but no where near as many as on Soyuz.
A quick search through Wikipedia shows 140+ manned Soyuz launches, and around 20 total for the SpaceX Dragon.
Note those numbers are for the spacecraft, not the booster (the Soyuz platform has both the spacecraft and booster named Soyuz, SpaceX has the Dragon spacecraft on the Falcon 9 booster).
While I agree the risks are higher than Soyuz, there has to be an acceptable risk threshold, in order to build the safety record of a new platform.
Both the Saturn 5 and Space Shuttle had far fewer unmanned launches than Dragon, before the first manned flight. The Soyuz booster started as an ICBM, and thus has a harder to compare track record. Here's a graphic for the booster family historically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_R-7_launches
This is the Dragon 2, it has flown twice, once to the Station and back. A second time where the rocket was blown up to test the in-flight abort system.
It is pretty different from the 20 Dragons used on CRS.
For some context they certified the Dragan capsule with a LOC (loss of crew) rating of 1 in 270, which is more than double what the shuttle had (IIRC it ranged from 1 in 10 for the first shuttle flight to 1 in 90 towards the end of the career)
In fact, if they are mutually exclusive it’d be indicative of incredible mismanagement. There are enough people for us to be able to do both, and nobody benefits from reallocating rocket scientists to things that aren’t rocket science.
We raise the question if the space deserves exploration fairly frequently here. For some reason, neither commercial advantages - certain things, like global communications, navigation, imaging can be conveniently done with satellites - not traditional expansion of species habitat reasons - though I'm sure for each Columbus crew there were some loudly wondering why sail at all - serve as a good enough explanation.
Of course it is worth to explore space. It does not "deserve" to be explored, it just pays off. There is huge amount of knowledge and resources to be had.
Of course robotic missions are better for exploration than manned mission. Manned missions costs so much we could do so many more robotic missions for the same cost. People are absolutely not required in space.
We send people into space because we can and we want. Because we keep separate track of record of things achieved by actual human beings. That's why we list who beat 100m or marathon record even though we have machines to move as around much faster. Because standing a human on a mountain, sea bed, or a piece of rock in space is an important step for us to prove we can command nature around us.
> Of course robotic missions are better for exploration than manned mission. Manned missions costs so much we could do so many more robotic missions for the same cost. People are absolutely not required in space.
Can you imagine being wrong on that? That people can and are cheaper than robots for certain important aspects? That accomplished space robot makers would disagree that robots are at least universally cheaper - or better in other aspects?
> We send people into space because we can and we want. Because we keep separate track of record of things achieved by actual human beings. That's why we list who beat 100m or marathon record even though we have machines to move as around much faster. Because standing a human on a mountain, sea bed, or a piece of rock in space is an important step for us to prove we can command nature around us.
I suspect you're mixing several significantly different things into one here. Token achievements, like current champion in sport X, are one thing. Genuinely advancing, say, science - like on ISS - is another.
People are not cheaper in space, by no means. Robotic things can be easily prepared well in advance, on planet Earth, where sitting a bunch of programmers by the computer is much cheaper than training and sending actual bag of mostly water into space.
If you are still not convinced, we have sent a robotic missions to almost every larger body in solar system, yet we are excited today we can send two people to LEO. Just look at costs involved...
Humans cannot do anything in space without tools and tools in space is a bunch of electronic signals that are either processed locally or sent to Earth. The things people do in space is either trivia (yeah, have fun with this ball of water in zero-G) or studying behavior of human body and mind in space to be able to send more humans to do the same.
We have learned how to do very complicated things without humans involved. Hovering a craft in Mars atmosphere? Orienting craft with extreme precision? Running complicated manouvers at the ends of solar system?
Look at missions which are only possible because we can send a craft on decades' long journey. If people were necessary we would not be able to do anything of that. Any human mission is limited to short hops from Earth to Moon, maybe Mars, until we advance our science and technology way, way past current level.
Sending people to space isn't really advancing science (except studying how people fare in space). It is another token achievement. There isn't physics we are learning IN ORDER TO or BECAUSE we are sending people to space. Physics is advanced by physicists. There might be some technological advancement necessary to send humans that would not be necessary for robotic missions, that's all, really.
Take a close look at what people in space are doing. Find anything that requires humans in space?
Don't get me wrong. I am all for human presence in space. Just be realistic about why we are doing it.
We can send half a dozen robotic missions for the price of one carrying people. Just send two spacecraft for redundancy.
As to Hubble, that is pretty bad example. If people were present with Hubble they would be able to do exactly nothing. Everything was prepared on Earth and only then sent to space.
Also, the cost of servicing mission was almost as much as it would cost to make a copy of Hubble. The cost of servicing mission was reported 250M and the cost of sending Hubble was reported 4.7B but from what I remember most of this was R&D, making software, tools, developing plans, etc. A lot of spare parts for Hubble were already available (it is typical to have copy of everything on Earth for debugging and so on).
Robotic missions have the option of being scrapped and sent again which is not really an option for human missions.
It's clear that the people writing the checks thought they would make more money with the web company. Either they're looking at the green projects and thinking "meh" or they're not seeing them at all.
Elon seems to be in favor of both space exploration and green energy and other ways to generally improve the planet and human life. Comcast vs Starlink, hmmm, I wonder which?
All efforts have diminishing returns. If the tiny amount of resources our species spends on space exploration were re-directed towards taking care of Earth you wouldn't see any difference there. And also, efforts in space benefit the Earth a lot through things like comms and weather satellites and by learning more about our come by comparing it with other planets. Comparing the atmosphere of Earth with that of Venus and Mars, for instance, told us a lot about the importance of the ozone layer and we might have only just stopped the production of CFCs if it hadn't been for space exploration.
in general, there's a lot of items on the urgent list, there's so much money to go around and you don't want to invest everything in endeavour X only for Y to be worse and catch you by surprise.
so you allocate some budget to secondary research as well. NASA doesn't even burn that much in the grand scheme of things.
This is like parents telling their children "If you have time to goof off and play games, you should have time to study harder / do the dishes / mow the lawn". This isn't an either /or, also even if you stopped doing X completely, and did only Y, you still won't be done with Y. Because there is always more Y to do. So as long as Y isn't fully achievable, might as do some X also.
Well, the human species first and foremost should be seen as consisting of individuals, and while being deeply excited about and appreciative of all the high-tech endeavors, I keep asking myself, how much they are - and for how long they will continue to be - dependent on a near-slave labor of millions of said individuals around the world. (It's still there, on a massive scale, in spite of automation, machines, robots, the AI and what not we take as a given these days.)
That's not going away until we robotize everything. We no longer hunt, all the genetic material for hunting left in us is now just an artefact, we no longer ride horses for transportation, we no longer loose contact from our friends and families for prolonged periods, we no longer do many many things. I think we no longer eat meat too - I mean sure we eat meat but for most of us meat is this thing in the supermarket and we don't have an intuitive understanding from where it is coming from.
Something like that needs to hapen with robotics before we no longer have people who do the undesirable jobs.
There's this movie "Downsizing" about people getting miniaturized and live lavish lives as their material needs get smaller. It's not a very good movie but what stike me in the move was that even in that kind of society they needed to have miniaturized people for the labour that no one wants to do and they had to have slums and so on so that the society works. I find this very realistic because even though we have rich countries and poor countries, we still have to have income gradient everywhere so that some people will do the jobs that others don't want to do.
I don't think that this will go away without eliminating the need for near slave labour.
Yes, but is manned missions really going to achieve much. I thought there was much differing opinion about the value/lack of value of manned missions among the space community itself.
The US kind of has to preserve at least a minimal manned spaceflight capability in case we really need it for something in the future. If we completely lose the infrastructure, supply chains, and institutional knowledge it will become impossible to restart from scratch in a reasonable time frame. Think about it like paying for an insurance policy. It's worth doing even if it eats into the budget for unmanned satellites and probes.
I don't think the US as a nation (or anyone in particular, for that matter) "has to" do anything. As usual, there are simply various diverse interests - military, commercial, scientific - and it's up to these interested parties to do what and when they think benefits them.
> The exception to the rule is when referring to the Manned Spaceflight Center (also known as the Manned Spacecraft Center), the predecessor of Johnson Space Center in Houston, or to any other historical program name or official title that included “manned”
Notably, there was a single global hegemon that bombed and invaded countries at-will during that time period.
Now another pole rises in China and so a return to a "cold war" like system is possible. Personally, I hope we can come to an arms control limitation with China. In 20-30 years, even force parity will be charity on their part.
That's solely because the USSR collapsed and Russia is only a regional power, not a superpower. Russia has a small, weak, backwards economy that is of modest global consequence. It severely limits their capabilities. Russia's position on the global stage is still eroding. Had the USSR somehow survived and continued to this day, the Cold War would not have ended. Putin as an authoritarian dictator-for-life is unable to push his view of how things should be, onto very much of the rest of the world. Putin is boxed in, contained, by Russia's various weaknesses.
The contrast could hardly be greater with China, which is clearly going to be far beyond anything the USSR ever accomplished in most every sense (from financial/economy to technology to military to global influence).
China under Xi has chosen an aggressive authoritarianism domestically and a so-called Wolf Warrior policy internationally. They continue to push forward ever faster in those directions, rather than turning back. The fundamentally conflicting world-views, democracy vs dictatorship, market economies vs arbitrary command economy, liberal vs regressive, human rights vs lack of human rights, is why we're entering cold war round two. China's position under Xi on nearly everything is fundamentally incompatible with the rest of the world continuing to make liberal progress. Something has to give when those two visions meet, and that thing will guarantee a new cold war that will split the planet in half.
Go down the long list of liberal ideas & topics, and look at where China stands, and then consider where the world should ideally stand. China stands opposite nearly every liberal idea you can name. There's your cold war, and nothing can stop it short of China resuming the brief period of modest liberalization they underwent before Xi took over - or the world giving up all the liberal progress it has made post WW2.
Similar - about 18-19hrs before docking. You should be able to watch it live tomorrow morning.
It's funny that it takes that long, since they could theoretically make it up there in like half an hour or so. Here's a good overview of what's gonna happen today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr_zfpzGxQQ
They do a couple orbits gentle approach first because a) it's not a great idea to barrel towards the ISS at speed and b) it gives an opportunity to check for things like "did our solar panels deploy" and "do we need to land because the air is leaking out".
Honestly, wondering how the touch interface will work in this mission. Always thought it will be tough to make sure the touch works as opposed to physical switches and buttons.
eagerly waiting for the launch, though! Wishing luck from India!
If they have to take their gloves off to get the TouchID to work, then that's kind of a bummer. Don't know how well FaceID works while wearing the helmets either.
For those who aren't giant space nerds (like me) the very best place to get info on SpaceX and SpaceX launches has always been Reddit's /r/SpaceX[0]. The launch today (like all launches) has a dedicated thread[1] with mods keeping all details up to date, all links that matter organized.
It's 100% not sponsored or run by SpaceX, but honestly it's probably doing a better job than a corporate PR side could manage. Fantastic amount of details on everything in their wiki and posts, and friendly people who answer questions happily.
Well, mostly, they replaced Usenet and a hodge-podge jumble of forum sites running generic interfaces where you have to click to a new page for every 50 comments (or less), which have no comment reply nesting.
Reddit brought a more useful/readable interface, allowed anonymous accounts with no email address, and had a very simple & powerful (if flawed) voting system. This attracted content creators of all kinds, which led to a rapidly growing audience, and it snowballed.
I don't like one company owning all this stuff, but I do love what users in niche subs have created there. With a massive general audience comes better populated niches, excellence riding the coattails of the mediocre. Also, should Condé Nast ever screw the pooch here, plenty of clones are waiting in the wings.
> Demo-2 is the final major test for SpaceX’s human spaceflight system to be certified by NASA for operational crew missions to and from the International Space Station.
The two astronauts along with the Falcon 9 will be docking with the ISS and then returning home. No crew swap is happening, which seems like a waste of energy. I get that SpaceX isn't "operationally certified", but is a crew swap inherently more risky?
The mission was initially intended to be a short, crewed test flight, lasting only a week and a half but the spacecraft that was planned to be used for this was lost in a test accident.
Now they are flying on its successor capsule which is rated for much longer (iirc up to 110 days of) space operations. This allows NASA to extend the mission and lets the astronauts Hurley and Behnken help out on the ISS which are currently short on people iirc. They received training for this extended mission in the last few month.
They will stay for 1 to 4 months. Its apparently partially dependent on whether they are prepared to launch the first actual crew mission on Aug 30.
A crew swap would require astronauts that are on station to return on the dragon, something they may not have trained for. So to do a swap, you'd probably have to take more than just the two test pilots up since they are likely required to pilot the capsule back down. Taking additional crew on the test flight would certainly be more risky to those additional lives.
> The two astronauts along with the Falcon 9 will be docking with the ISS and then returning home
Just to be clear, the Falcon 9 is the booster that never gets to orbit. It's not going to the ISS- not moving fast enough to achieve orbit. Just the little Dragon spaceship on the nose of the rocket will get to the ISS.
> No crew swap is happening, which seems like a waste of energy. I get that SpaceX isn't "operationally certified", but is a crew swap inherently more risky?
Believe it or not, they've sent this 7-seat spacecraft to the ISS already (well, the same model) just to verify it could do it. It arrived empty, it went home empty (except for a plushy that stayed behind). The point is that SpaceX is going to be doing this maybe hundreds of times in the future, but the first time, they want to minimize the number of people that could die if something goes wrong.
Remember, this whole test would have been done 6 months ago except that the sister to this spaceship unexpected exploded during a simple ground test. This stuff is dangerous.
They are the SuperDraco thrusters, for launch escape. There are no holes because there are covers that get blown away by the thrusters, to protect them during re-entry if they are not used.
The production quality of the SpaceX feed is amazing and emotional. Right now (9:40am or so) the bios on the astronauts are great. They have really invested over their launches in making space inspirational, and this feed is clearly something they spent a ton of time on.
Very emotionally uplifting, I highly recommend watching the feed now if you like space.
> The production quality of the SpaceX feed is amazing and emotional. Right now (9:40am or so) the bios on the astronauts are great. They have really invested over their launches in making space inspirational, and this feed is clearly something they spent a ton of time on.
I assume the astronauts and everyone involved is tested daily for COVID-19. I am sure that bringing the virus to the IIS would be disastrous. Anyone has any insights on the measures taken to prevent it?
This Verge article[0] appears to describe the preventative steps to be less severe than I'd expect.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/25/21264868/spacex-nasa-laun...
Ever since one of the astronauts got sick on one of the Gemini missions the astronauts have undergone quarantines for a period before going up into space.
And still Ken Mattingly was pulled from Apollo 13 3 days before takeoff because of a potential exposure to measles.
In the live video, most of the technicians and even Musk are wearing masks, most of them staying at some distance though. I doubt they were all quarantined for the last 2 weeks.
Why should it be desastrous? I hope you do know the odds.
The COVID-19 fatality odd is 0.3%, the Dragon-lost odd probably much higher, maybe at around 5%. The Falcon 9 has over 80 starts now, but this is only the 3nd Dragon 2 start, and one of it failed.
I think the astronauts health makes them much less likely to die from Corona than 0.3% but exposing the current crew of the IIS does not sound like a good idea either.
Fatality rate is one thing, but being in a small space can cause high concentrations of virus and any health complication in space is a big deal.
A catastrophic failure is definitely a risk, but not sure how its magnitude should diminish our caution when it comes to bringing the virus to the space station (by your calc, it lowers the risk only by 5%).
It really warms my heart that the landing pad is called "OF COURSE I STILL LOVE YOU DRONE SHIP"
In a consumer era where almost all naming is done by marketing and void of any soul, it really, really makes me happy to see a little bit growing through the cracks in the concrete.
The name is just "Of course I still love you". They're named after vessels from Iain M Banks' "Culture" SF setting.
Culture spaceships have AI "minds" and the mind of a large ship-constructing ship will name its offspring. They tend to have an odd sense of humour, there are plenty of sites with lists of Culture ship names, and Banks wrote footnotes excusing the obvious references to 20th century human culture as matters of translation (e.g. there is an Offensive Unit named "I said I have a big stick" which is a reference to Theodore Roosevelt's "Speak softly and carry a big stick").
An update just now on the radio said the one they were tracking is no longer a concern, and the one over Orlando is expected to be their decision today, and it's getting weaker.
I find it sort of weird to not have buttons in there: with all the vibrations you would think it's rather difficult to touch the exact control that you want. I guess they considered that...
I don't think the astronauts make extensive manual corrections during takeoff. And if you watch the livestream, the UI elements are much larger on the screen than would be possible with physical buttons. So if you are worried about precision, the touch screens would actually be safer.
Looks like there are some physical buttons underneath the touch screens. Not sure what they do, but hopefully they're used for important stuff.
I just watched one of the astronauts push buttons on the touch screen, and it's shocking how small the icons on the screen are relative to their fingers. I would not want to try to the hit the right icon while accelerating!
That seems like an unlikely failure scenario. But I imagine if that happened during launch they would pull the abort lever since that would be indicative of a significant failure. Later they and the engineers on the ground would work to control the vehicle either remotely or to fix the displays... or both. And probably abort to the ground as quickly as is reasonably possible.
Actually I remember reading an article mentioning that they use vibration data from accelerometters to slightly shift content on thescreen, thus preventing the screen from appearing blurry to the crew during the launch. Pretty clever. :)
But indeed, the launch is automated and for any the few important manual thing (basically just manual launch abort trigger) they have separate physical controls.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 274 ms ] threadEdit: and for the falcon 9 (non crew) https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/649911main_051612_falcon9_weather_c...
Given what the weather has been like since Sunday I could see it being postponed. I hope the weather holds and gives a window.
It misses the upper level winds, and for the human launch I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that it is missing some weather criteria in the abort recovery zone as well.
Recovery due to an in-flight abort would be difficult in rough seas and weather if they had to be plucked out of the Atlantic.
The aerostructure of the falcon 9 can only withstand so much side loading due to aerodynamic forces and wind before exceeding the operational limits of the rocket (body to keep it all from breaking apart, and the engines working hard to keep them on the correct trajectory).
One of the things that's monitored closely in the launch corridor are the upper atmospheric winds. Specifically the wind sheer in the upper atmosphere. Strong wind isn't typically a problem, but high wind sheer in the upper atmosphere can be problematic.
Additionally, they check the weather in the entire recovery corridor. That is, anywhere that the capsule could end up during an abort. They want to make sure that if the capsule ends up in the ocean, the weather permits recovery operations. An abort and safe splash-down doesn't do us much good if the astronauts then drown because recovery operations are impaired due to weather.
We're putting two lives on this rocket. A small delay is absolutely the right trade-off to reduce risk.
Wonder if reliability of virtualized controls surpasses the one of dedicated hardware though.
I suspect one of the reasons Apollo computers were all built with just one type of logical chip is the ability to replace faulty parts - one just need a single type of replacement. If for some reason touchscreen malfunctions, what options are left for the crew?
First, the spacecraft is I believe fully automated. While there is the ability to pilot the craft manually using onboard controls, my understanding is that is already considered a backup or unusual scenario.
As far as the touchscreens themselves, my understanding is there are four touchscreens total, and each can represent / control every aspect of the vehicle. So if a single touchscreen fails, the other 3 provide redundant access to necessary controls.
Finally, the dragon capsule does have manual (non-touchscreen) joystick controls for the critical flight controls.
So these systems have enough redundancy that a touchscreen failure should absolutely not jeopardize the flight.
https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff
Joysticks are better, though some convenient indication is also required (the "screen" part, not the "touch" part). I'm sure the designers saw questions like that; I'm just curious about details.
The Apollo Guidance Computer was built with two types of chips: a 3-input NOR gate and a core memory sense amplifier. The reason to use just one logic chip was because ICs were very new at the time and there was very little reliability information. By standardizing on a small number of components, they could procure enough to determine and maintain quality. (See Journey to the Moon chapter 12.)
Switches can certainly fail, with potentially dire consequences (see the Apollo 14 abort switch failure). I would assume the number of failure modes for touch-based interface hardware are vastly more.
Touch controls are, no doubt, easily reconfigurable, which is probably great for profit margins. The idea of the human spaceflight industry applying "cost down" mentality to crew vehicles scares the heck out of me (and I'm not even flying in them). (I'm thinking about the Boeing MCAS mentality, but for spacecraft...)
The touch screen panel is surely very cool.
Boeing suits look WAY better imo
Not a fan of Boeing suits tbh, it looks a bit like an arts and crafts project.
Boeing suit: http://www.boeing.com/features/2017/01/space-suit-01-17.page
I think it's important to discriminate between what the spacex suits look like in stylized prototypes and actually on people. Take this image for example: https://sm.pcmag.com/t/pcmag_uk/news/n/nasa-space/nasa-space...
Non haptic controls in critical systems like cars, planes, and rockets are an insane fad.
Navigation is a fairly fixed function. I doubt these astronauts are going to installing new apps on their way to orbit...
Interestingly offshore sailboat racers (IMOCA 60 class for instance) prefer keyboards and thumb ball mice. They’re not pulling g’s, but they experience some pretty extreme motion from waves.
That's not the case in a space ship. Additionally, piloting a space craft is infinitely more complicated. Just take a look at the Apollo 11 control module[1]. I think having a single place where you receive all your information and react to it is way better than having to memorize the location and function of thousands of physical elements.
[1] https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/apollo-11-3....
If those guys had also space flight experience and could review all the engineering done on the capsule, that would be the way to do it.
Oh, that is exactly what happens.
SpaceX isn't to the point in this endeavor where they should be worrying about making things look "sexy". If there isn't an objective improvement in doing something in a non-flight-tested way then I'd be highly suspicious.
Comparing to Apollo, I can imagine that being able to impose some hierarchy on the controls could be beneficial (rather than having all 566 switches laid out across the cabin), and the reliability is probably better than one dedicated switch per control, since the control can be used on any of the several touch screens.
Apollo 14 nearly failed due to a faulty switch. Apollo 12 was saved by flipping a switch that was not well known. Are there other incidents where the controls were critical? In general it seems like when the astronauts are in a hurry you've probably already got major issues, and being able to find the control out of the hundreds (or thousands) is probably more important than being able to flip it with your eyes closed.
Sci-fi UI/UX was developed in a short time under pressure when movies were being made. The authors did not consider literally anything about the implications such as ergonomics, cost, reliability, discoverability, etc. Literally zero research behind it. It was not an engineering project by any stretch of the meaning.
Sci-fi aesthetic is the cancer of our society propelled by big budget films and cultural impact worldwide. It has absolutely no place in space exploration.
All this is decoration and marketing. Personally, I also hate the new space suit design, it looks like a movie set than those badass suits astronauts used to wear. They screamed of technical prowess, not aesthetics. Emerging aesthetics were absolutely badass: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Tim_Kopr...
SpaceX/NASA are preparing the suiting up process right now. It looks like a low budget bad sci-fi movie: https://i.imgur.com/MzdPwD6.png
To say 'sci-fi aesthetic is the cancer of our society' is empty hyperbole. The sci-fi aesthetic mirrors the age in which we live. Additionally, which sci-fi aesthetic is so ruinous? Is it Star Wars with all it's switch, levers, and knobs? Is it 2001 and Star Trek with display monitors everywhere? Is it Blade Runner or Alien with a decayed future? What is this cancer causing your histrionic invective?
I am also willing to bet, SpaceX UI designers have never even touched this document: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19940023266
We both have limited information.
I assume that the professionals at SpaceX and NASA have prioritized safety and usability, while also introducing a sci-fi vibe. This is a reasonable position.
You, however, take a conspiracy theory (the literal definition) angle that SpaceX have reduced the safety and usability of their module in order to look cooler. Do you see why this is not a reasonable position with the information that we have?
I think that's my main grumpy objection. May be I am just old.
I also found your dismissal as "conspiracy" a low blow. How can I engage in a productive discussion when the other party dismisses your entire proposition as a conspiracy theory - you don't seem to see any issues with that?
Maybe conspiracy theory was too harsh, but I stand by heavily calling you out for hatching this idea with minimal evidence beyond "grumpy objections" to a sci-fi vibe.
You'd also have to ignore the PR benefits, which certainly corresponds to more money down the line.
Or, maybe there isn't much to do manually during this phase, and for the little things there are some classic controls.
Also, judging from the photos, they seem to have their button covers supported by the frame. In 2003, there was an incident when a cosmonaut inadvertently fired RCS thrusters on the Soyuz attached to the station, simultaneously pushing several buttons with his foot while loading the spacecraft with cargo to be returned to Earth, crushing the protective caps that were pressing against the (relatively flimsy) case. The thrusters fired for quite some time until a ground operator noticed it and turned them off remotely. After that, the covers in Soyuz were redesigned to press against the frame. Seems like that incident has been learned from in Crew Dragon as well.
[1] https://imgur.com/KyAaQS0
[2] https://imgur.com/pTYfAew
If I remember right, all the important controls are done with buttons and a joystick, while h touch screens are only for informational displays.
I think the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo cool was that the hardware was completely lacking in design: it was as practical as a carburetor and as stylish. And that's why we liked them.
A quick search through Wikipedia shows 140+ manned Soyuz launches, and around 20 total for the SpaceX Dragon.
Note those numbers are for the spacecraft, not the booster (the Soyuz platform has both the spacecraft and booster named Soyuz, SpaceX has the Dragon spacecraft on the Falcon 9 booster).
Both the Saturn 5 and Space Shuttle had far fewer unmanned launches than Dragon, before the first manned flight. The Soyuz booster started as an ICBM, and thus has a harder to compare track record. Here's a graphic for the booster family historically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_R-7_launches
That seems like incredible pessimism to me.
It is pretty different from the 20 Dragons used on CRS.
I expect a decent number of systems were reused or modified, rather than being fully original
I hope for the best too
https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink-lat...
Wish you the best luck and hope that this will lead to some serious competition. Soyuz is great but we need to do more as species.
Space exploration and exploitation is awesome, but shouldn't the first items on the "do more as species" todo list be about taking care of earth?
And rocket science is only one small part of the overal industrial effort of launching rockets.
In all honesty, that's like saying that Jack the Ripper could work as a surgeon.
Of course robotic missions are better for exploration than manned mission. Manned missions costs so much we could do so many more robotic missions for the same cost. People are absolutely not required in space.
We send people into space because we can and we want. Because we keep separate track of record of things achieved by actual human beings. That's why we list who beat 100m or marathon record even though we have machines to move as around much faster. Because standing a human on a mountain, sea bed, or a piece of rock in space is an important step for us to prove we can command nature around us.
Can you imagine being wrong on that? That people can and are cheaper than robots for certain important aspects? That accomplished space robot makers would disagree that robots are at least universally cheaper - or better in other aspects?
> We send people into space because we can and we want. Because we keep separate track of record of things achieved by actual human beings. That's why we list who beat 100m or marathon record even though we have machines to move as around much faster. Because standing a human on a mountain, sea bed, or a piece of rock in space is an important step for us to prove we can command nature around us.
I suspect you're mixing several significantly different things into one here. Token achievements, like current champion in sport X, are one thing. Genuinely advancing, say, science - like on ISS - is another.
If you are still not convinced, we have sent a robotic missions to almost every larger body in solar system, yet we are excited today we can send two people to LEO. Just look at costs involved...
Humans cannot do anything in space without tools and tools in space is a bunch of electronic signals that are either processed locally or sent to Earth. The things people do in space is either trivia (yeah, have fun with this ball of water in zero-G) or studying behavior of human body and mind in space to be able to send more humans to do the same.
We have learned how to do very complicated things without humans involved. Hovering a craft in Mars atmosphere? Orienting craft with extreme precision? Running complicated manouvers at the ends of solar system?
Look at missions which are only possible because we can send a craft on decades' long journey. If people were necessary we would not be able to do anything of that. Any human mission is limited to short hops from Earth to Moon, maybe Mars, until we advance our science and technology way, way past current level.
Sending people to space isn't really advancing science (except studying how people fare in space). It is another token achievement. There isn't physics we are learning IN ORDER TO or BECAUSE we are sending people to space. Physics is advanced by physicists. There might be some technological advancement necessary to send humans that would not be necessary for robotic missions, that's all, really.
Take a close look at what people in space are doing. Find anything that requires humans in space?
Don't get me wrong. I am all for human presence in space. Just be realistic about why we are doing it.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/servicing/index.ht...
Would it be cheaper to build a replacement scope and launch it instead?
As to Hubble, that is pretty bad example. If people were present with Hubble they would be able to do exactly nothing. Everything was prepared on Earth and only then sent to space.
Also, the cost of servicing mission was almost as much as it would cost to make a copy of Hubble. The cost of servicing mission was reported 250M and the cost of sending Hubble was reported 4.7B but from what I remember most of this was R&D, making software, tools, developing plans, etc. A lot of spare parts for Hubble were already available (it is typical to have copy of everything on Earth for debugging and so on).
Robotic missions have the option of being scrapped and sent again which is not really an option for human missions.
We have all the resources we need here on Earth.
in general, there's a lot of items on the urgent list, there's so much money to go around and you don't want to invest everything in endeavour X only for Y to be worse and catch you by surprise.
so you allocate some budget to secondary research as well. NASA doesn't even burn that much in the grand scheme of things.
Something like that needs to hapen with robotics before we no longer have people who do the undesirable jobs.
There's this movie "Downsizing" about people getting miniaturized and live lavish lives as their material needs get smaller. It's not a very good movie but what stike me in the move was that even in that kind of society they needed to have miniaturized people for the labour that no one wants to do and they had to have slums and so on so that the society works. I find this very realistic because even though we have rich countries and poor countries, we still have to have income gradient everywhere so that some people will do the jobs that others don't want to do.
I don't think that this will go away without eliminating the need for near slave labour.
See https://history.nasa.gov/styleguide.html
> The exception to the rule is when referring to the Manned Spaceflight Center (also known as the Manned Spacecraft Center), the predecessor of Johnson Space Center in Houston, or to any other historical program name or official title that included “manned”
There are two alternatives...
1. Non-nuclear hot wars.
2. A single global authority.
Now another pole rises in China and so a return to a "cold war" like system is possible. Personally, I hope we can come to an arms control limitation with China. In 20-30 years, even force parity will be charity on their part.
That's solely because the USSR collapsed and Russia is only a regional power, not a superpower. Russia has a small, weak, backwards economy that is of modest global consequence. It severely limits their capabilities. Russia's position on the global stage is still eroding. Had the USSR somehow survived and continued to this day, the Cold War would not have ended. Putin as an authoritarian dictator-for-life is unable to push his view of how things should be, onto very much of the rest of the world. Putin is boxed in, contained, by Russia's various weaknesses.
The contrast could hardly be greater with China, which is clearly going to be far beyond anything the USSR ever accomplished in most every sense (from financial/economy to technology to military to global influence).
China under Xi has chosen an aggressive authoritarianism domestically and a so-called Wolf Warrior policy internationally. They continue to push forward ever faster in those directions, rather than turning back. The fundamentally conflicting world-views, democracy vs dictatorship, market economies vs arbitrary command economy, liberal vs regressive, human rights vs lack of human rights, is why we're entering cold war round two. China's position under Xi on nearly everything is fundamentally incompatible with the rest of the world continuing to make liberal progress. Something has to give when those two visions meet, and that thing will guarantee a new cold war that will split the planet in half.
Go down the long list of liberal ideas & topics, and look at where China stands, and then consider where the world should ideally stand. China stands opposite nearly every liberal idea you can name. There's your cold war, and nothing can stop it short of China resuming the brief period of modest liberalization they underwent before Xi took over - or the world giving up all the liberal progress it has made post WW2.
Previous unmanned Dragon missions take ~1 day to approach and dock but I can't imagine they will subject the astronauts to the same.
It used to take days. Not fun in a tiny capsule like Soyuz, I'd imagine. https://www.engadget.com/2013-03-29-soyuz-cuts-travel-time-t...
It's funny that it takes that long, since they could theoretically make it up there in like half an hour or so. Here's a good overview of what's gonna happen today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr_zfpzGxQQ
On a separate note, it's amazing how Tim has built such a brand in such a short time, I remember when he started out a couple of years ago.
They do a couple orbits gentle approach first because a) it's not a great idea to barrel towards the ISS at speed and b) it gives an opportunity to check for things like "did our solar panels deploy" and "do we need to land because the air is leaking out".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr_zfpzGxQQ
He has lots of great videos including some very well produced content on rocket engine design, starship etc.
The short answer to your question is just over 19 hours until docking, and then I think another 2 hours after that until the hatch opens.
Working on manned space flight is not for me. The stakes are just too high.
eagerly waiting for the launch, though! Wishing luck from India!
It's 100% not sponsored or run by SpaceX, but honestly it's probably doing a better job than a corporate PR side could manage. Fantastic amount of details on everything in their wiki and posts, and friendly people who answer questions happily.
[0] https://reddit.com/r/spacex
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/glwz6n/rspacex_cctc...
but it feels like it is sometimes
Reddit brought a more useful/readable interface, allowed anonymous accounts with no email address, and had a very simple & powerful (if flawed) voting system. This attracted content creators of all kinds, which led to a rapidly growing audience, and it snowballed.
I don't like one company owning all this stuff, but I do love what users in niche subs have created there. With a massive general audience comes better populated niches, excellence riding the coattails of the mediocre. Also, should Condé Nast ever screw the pooch here, plenty of clones are waiting in the wings.
I'm really hoping they don't, because I don't think a replacement coulg gain traction as long as reddit is functioning.
The two astronauts along with the Falcon 9 will be docking with the ISS and then returning home. No crew swap is happening, which seems like a waste of energy. I get that SpaceX isn't "operationally certified", but is a crew swap inherently more risky?
I read somewhere that the first 'operational' SpaceX <-> ISS will be in a couple of months.
Now they are flying on its successor capsule which is rated for much longer (iirc up to 110 days of) space operations. This allows NASA to extend the mission and lets the astronauts Hurley and Behnken help out on the ISS which are currently short on people iirc. They received training for this extended mission in the last few month.
A crew swap would require astronauts that are on station to return on the dragon, something they may not have trained for. So to do a swap, you'd probably have to take more than just the two test pilots up since they are likely required to pilot the capsule back down. Taking additional crew on the test flight would certainly be more risky to those additional lives.
Just to be clear, the Falcon 9 is the booster that never gets to orbit. It's not going to the ISS- not moving fast enough to achieve orbit. Just the little Dragon spaceship on the nose of the rocket will get to the ISS.
> No crew swap is happening, which seems like a waste of energy. I get that SpaceX isn't "operationally certified", but is a crew swap inherently more risky?
Believe it or not, they've sent this 7-seat spacecraft to the ISS already (well, the same model) just to verify it could do it. It arrived empty, it went home empty (except for a plushy that stayed behind). The point is that SpaceX is going to be doing this maybe hundreds of times in the future, but the first time, they want to minimize the number of people that could die if something goes wrong.
Remember, this whole test would have been done 6 months ago except that the sister to this spaceship unexpected exploded during a simple ground test. This stuff is dangerous.
[1]: https://www.spacex.com/launches/
edit: part of controlled airflow maybe when coming down in reverse/re-entry?
The xEMU suites even more.
Going to ISS is easy afaik but when are we ever going to try landing on the moon again (don't even talk about Mars).
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/
Given that only 3 nations in history have produce anything that could potentially do it, that statement seems like utter lunacy.
Very emotionally uplifting, I highly recommend watching the feed now if you like space.
Kinda like a Nike ad.
The COVID-19 fatality odd is 0.3%, the Dragon-lost odd probably much higher, maybe at around 5%. The Falcon 9 has over 80 starts now, but this is only the 3nd Dragon 2 start, and one of it failed.
Fatality rate is one thing, but being in a small space can cause high concentrations of virus and any health complication in space is a big deal.
A catastrophic failure is definitely a risk, but not sure how its magnitude should diminish our caution when it comes to bringing the virus to the space station (by your calc, it lowers the risk only by 5%).
In a consumer era where almost all naming is done by marketing and void of any soul, it really, really makes me happy to see a little bit growing through the cracks in the concrete.
Culture spaceships have AI "minds" and the mind of a large ship-constructing ship will name its offspring. They tend to have an odd sense of humour, there are plenty of sites with lists of Culture ship names, and Banks wrote footnotes excusing the obvious references to 20th century human culture as matters of translation (e.g. there is an Offensive Unit named "I said I have a big stick" which is a reference to Theodore Roosevelt's "Speak softly and carry a big stick").
https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the...
- Your friendly neighborhood pedant.
Heh
Good news!
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/04/03/photos-astronauts-trai...
I just watched one of the astronauts push buttons on the touch screen, and it's shocking how small the icons on the screen are relative to their fingers. I would not want to try to the hit the right icon while accelerating!
But indeed, the launch is automated and for any the few important manual thing (basically just manual launch abort trigger) they have separate physical controls.