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Could SpaceX Rocket Technology Put Lives At Risk? (chicagotribune.com)
In preparation for a crewed mission into orbit, NASA safety advisers are warning that the super-cold propellant SpaceX uses in their Falcon 9 rockets could be "a potential safety risk." When SpaceX is about to launch a rocket, they load it up with propellant at super-cold temperatures to shrink its size, allowing them to pack more of it into the tanks. "At those extreme temperatures, the propellant would need to be loaded just before takeoff -- while astronauts are aboard," reports Chicago Tribune. "An accident, or a spark, during this maneuver, known as 'load-and-go,' could set off an explosion." From the report: One watchdog group labeled load-and-go a "potential safety risk." A NASA advisory group warned in a letter that the method was "contrary to booster safety criteria that has been in place for over 50 years." The fueling issue is emerging as a point of tension between the safety-obsessed space agency and the maverick company run by Musk, a tech entrepreneur who is well known for his flair for the dramatic and for pushing boundaries of rocket science. The concerns from some at NASA are shared by others. John Mulholland, who oversees Boeing's contract to fly astronauts to the International Space Station and once worked on the space shuttle, said load-and-go fueling was rejected by NASA in the past because "we never could get comfortable with the safety risks that you would take with that approach. When you're loading densified propellants, it is not an inherently stable situation."
Greg Autry, a business professor at the University of Southern California, said the load-and-go procedures were a heated issue when he served on Trump's NASA transition team. "NASA is supposed to be a risk-taking organization," he said. "But every time we would mention accepting risk in human spaceflight, the NASA people would say, 'But, oh, you have to remember the scar tissue' -- and they were talking about the two shuttle disasters. They seemed to have become victims of the past and unwilling to try anything new, because of that scar tissue."
Greg Autry, a business professor at the University of Southern California, said the load-and-go procedures were a heated issue when he served on Trump's NASA transition team. "NASA is supposed to be a risk-taking organization," he said. "But every time we would mention accepting risk in human spaceflight, the NASA people would say, 'But, oh, you have to remember the scar tissue' -- and they were talking about the two shuttle disasters. They seemed to have become victims of the past and unwilling to try anything new, because of that scar tissue."
There's always a risk that you're going to blow up if you climb in a rocket. If you don't want to accept that risk, don't climb in there.
Also, there has only been one case where a SpaceX rocket exploded during propellant loading, and timing analysis shows that a manned capsule would have been able to activate the emergency abort sequence, and escape the fireball.
https://gfycat.com/TenseClever...
There's always a risk that you're going to blow up if you climb in a rocket. If you don't want to accept that risk, don't climb in there.
There is a difference between accepting a known risk and accepting an unnecessary risk.
Also, there has only been one case where a SpaceX rocket exploded during propellant loading
One case is more than enough to warrant caution. SpaceX has had approximately 50 launches so far. That's an approximately 2% failure rate which is alarmingly high. Two shuttles were lost at that rate of failure. I'm all for pushing the envelope but that doesn't mean we should say "hold my beer" and ignore known risks that could be mitigated.
Does anyone else find it convenient the guy most closely associated with Boeing -- you know, that company with the multibillion-dollar vaporware SLS rocket contract -- is squawking the loudest about this?
Nah, no conflict of interest here. Move along folks.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
If you're in the capsule, and there's an explosion, the launch escape system fires and you're safe.
That's like saying that we shouldn't worry about safe refueling procedures on an F15 because it has an ejection seat. That's incredibly irresponsible and almost weapons grade stupid. Emergency escape systems are nice to have but not something you want to depend on since they are almost as dangerous as the problems they protect against. Furthermore explosions can happen MUCH faster than any escape system could carry the crew to safety. Ejection systems only help with failure modes where you have some amount of time to react. Rockets are fast but not instantaneous.
The question is: are the odds of an explosion with the rocket pre-fueled, during the crew loading time, less than the odds of the crew escape system working?
You don't work in risk management do you? That is NOT the correct analysis. If you actually are relying on the escape system rather than designing a safe refueling procedure then you have a poorly designed rocket and incompetent engineers. You use escape systems for to mitigate risks that cannot be further mitigated which isn't the case here. If SpaceX is using unsafe fueling procedures then you redesign the fueling procedures until they are safe. This might involve blowing up a few more (hopefully unmanned) rockts first. You do not say "YOLO" and hope the escape system will protect your ass from incompetent engineering.
Low temperature fuel. Like the LoX and liquid hydrogen used by the Space Shuttle? This complaint doesn't even make sense.
A quick read through TFA, and the second linked article: it's not NASA saying this, it is some unknown group of NASA "advisors". The only person specifically named worked for Boeing. Which is to say that SpaceX's competitors are concerned. The fact that NASA has allowed those competitors to speak to the press as "NASA advisors" just shows the level of corporate cronyism present in the game. And, yes, NASA could stop them - if they were really serious, it would be "contact the press and demand a retraction, or contract xyz is cancelled".
ULA has got to be seriously scared. As in "need a change of underwear" scared. It's all well and good to suck up overpriced contracts, as long as any competition is held at bay with overregulation. However, when a competitor not only jumps the regulatory hurdles, but is 1/10 the price, _and_ has an actual product, as opposed to vaporware... Well, there comes a point where the cronyism is seriously endangered.
ULA will get nasty before they give up - this is just the warm-up. I hope SpaceX has good lawyers, and also a really good security force. I expect all sorts of staged lawsuits - maybe some class actions if they can find an excuse. Meanwhile, a well-placed bullet hole in the fuel tank of a launching rocket might dent that safety record.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
To argue that astronauts should just shut up and strap in without appropriate investigation of the risks they are taking is a dumb way to run a space program
That's why nobody is doing that. Teams from SpaceX, NASA, FAA, and USAF, have been working for months trying to understand the details of the explosion. As a result, they've modified their fuel loading procedure, and proposed longer term updates to their oxygen tank design.
If it isn't then that's unfortunate but they'll have to figure something else out
Or NASA finds another rocket to take their astronauts. Or we just keep them on the ground.
IIRC, the US Nuclear sub command criticized NASA in the Columbia Accident Investigation Board's report for claiming who else operates high performance machinery in hostile conditions?.
They replied We do, we operate Nuclear Submarines and put five thousand people to work studying the Challenger accident to see what we could learn, how many did you put on it?
I personally don't think it's fair to blame NASA for being safety conscious after blaming them for not being safety conscious.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.