what makes a rocket human-rated?

What makes a rocket human-rated (or whatever the term is)?

With the cancellation of Shuttle and Ares if I was an astronaut I would want NASA to build Constellation and mount it on a well-tested rocket such as Delta or Atlas. I wouldn't want NASA to put me in a Dragon capsule on a Falcon rocket - even if it is human-rated.

reply to post by cloudyday


Your bias for preferred vehicles of space flight have been noted. If NASA or any space agency asks me for opinions on who would make good astronaut candidates, I'll keep your bias preferences in mind should selection concerns come up.

Space flight is dangerous, even on man rated vehicles. Look at Columbia. Look at Challenger.
Look at this list of incidents and fatalities: Fatalities in Space and related Incidents

If you're going to be scared about ANY vehicle, you don't need to be an astronaut.
Astronauts know the risks. Astronauts accept the risks. Astronauts do the job.

Here is some info, follow the sources to find out more:

en.wikipedia.org...

I believe launch abort system may be a key requirement.

Originally posted by Maslo
en.wikipedia.org...

The implication of that article is that the Shuttle is (was) not human rated, since the development of the shuttle predated the development of human rated standards which were developed at least partly as a result of shuttle disasters.

Human rated rockets fail entirely from human error, (and the media in the case of Challenger).

It all depends on where you want to go and how nervous you might be about it, and maybe how comfortable you want to be doing it. But I would hire the greatest minds in rocket science and, well, kind of head their warnings. Both Space Shuttle disasters were human error, and could have been avoided.

A human capsule abort wont change that, (another comfort level mechanism, like auto seat belts, air bags, and collision reinforcements). You know what you're doing you don't need that stuff.

Originally posted by cloudyday
What makes a rocket human-rated (or whatever the term is)?

Here's a link to a post on another forum that goes into some detail on the requirements for human-rating a rocket. (link)

With the cancellation of Shuttle and Ares if I was an astronaut I would want NASA to build Constellation and mount it on a well-tested rocket such as Delta or Atlas.

ULA is looking at human-rating there Atlas V for the CST-100.

I wouldn't want NASA to put me in a Dragon capsule on a Falcon rocket - even if it is human-rated.

What's wrong with the Dragon/Falcon, if I may ask? While it still needs to go through more testing, I think it looks really promising.

Originally posted by Illustronic
Human rated rockets fail entirely from human error, (and the media in the case of Challenger).

Maybe I have forgotten-- but I think I just never knew. What is the media connection regarding Challenger?

Pressure to launch for the cameras?

For a rocket to be human rated, it needs to meet a few key standards.

The most important of which is the amount of G-forces the crew and cargo are exposed to during launch. To be cargo rated, the g-forces can be greater. To be human-rated, they can only be so high before you injure or kill the crew.

Originally posted by Frira
Maybe I have forgotten-- but I think I just never knew. What is the media connection regarding Challenger?

Pressure to launch for the cameras?

I'm not sure if any of us know 100% of the story, but we probably know 90% of it as documented in the investigation records, maybe?

The documentary I saw implied that several contractors for the SRB's (solid rocket boosters) who bid on the job had access to waterways and therefore could have supplied each SRB in one single piece, meaning it would not have a joint at all. The implication in the documentary was that there may have been some political influence to steer the contract to a landlocked company who not having access to a waterway, was unable to supply the SRB in a single piece, and it had to be made in two pieces, which created the failure point. The Challenger disaster failure occurred at the joint where those two pieces were connected together (which did not perform adequately at low temperature as designed). What really happened in excruciating detail, that finally ended in a decision to make the booster in 2 pieces rather than 1, I don't know, and I don't know if all the information related to that is publicly available but I'd like to look into it when I have the time because I'm curious. But I think it's reasonable to say that particular failure would not have occurred had the booster been in one piece.

Jim Oberg touches lightly on this when he discusses 7 myths about what caused the Challenger disaster:

I can't say I technically disagree with anything he says but obviously it's a short article and you have to read a lot more than this to figure out what really happened. But at least this article should help dispel some myths:

7 Myths about the Challenger shuttle disaster

Launch officials clearly felt pressure to get the mission off after repeated delays, and they were embarrassed by repeated mockery on the television news of previous scrubs, but the driving factor in their minds seems to have been two shuttle-launched planetary probes.

No doubt the media taunted NASA because of previous delays, but according to Oberg, that wasn't the primary factor in their feeling pressure to not delay the launch too long, but rather it was the upcoming deadline for the planetary probes, which apparently if they missed the launch window on that, they couldn't launch the mission at all, period. I suppose that has to do with planetary alignments and once they get too far out of line the fuel becomes inadequate to complete the mission, at least that's my rudimentary understanding.

The first ever probes of this kind, they had an unmovable launch window just four months in the future.

Apparently, that window was probably more on their minds, than the media pressure.

Originally posted by Illustronic
Human rated rockets fail entirely from human error, (and the media in the case of Challenger).

That's a good point.

The human decision making process seems to be a much bigger risk for the astronauts, than rocket design, according to this article by Jim Oberg:

www.msnbc.msn.com...

On Jan. 27, 1967, during a pre-launch test, an unexpectedly ferocious fire suffocated Grissom, White, and Chaffee. On Jan. 28, 1986, an unexpectedly brittle booster seal destroyed shuttle Challenger and killed Scobee, Smith, Resnik, Onizuka, McNair, Jarvis, and McAuliffe. And on Feb. 1, 2003, unexpectedly severe heat shield damage destroyed the shuttle Columbia and killed Husband, McCool, Chawla, Clark, Anderson, Brown, and Ramon....

It was at this stage --- the choices made or not made by human beings –- that each of these three disasters could have been averted. That the NASA space team failed to do so not once or even twice but three times is the true disaster. None of these people needed to die; their deaths taught NASA nothing that it shouldn’t already have known. And that’s the true tragedy of these three events.

If I was an astronaut I'd be a lot more worried about what's going on in the minds of the decision makers at NASA, than I would be about the rocket design.

In the Challenger disaster, one of the astronauts told his wife he was sure he wouldn't be going on the mission, because the temperatures were too low and he was sure they would scrub the mission for that reason. So, certainly the astronauts knew that there were problems with low temperature launches. Everyone knew it, but they launched anyway, took a bigger risk than they should have, and it ended in disaster.

All the upgraded human rating factors in the world probably won't stop bad decision making...the solutions to that lie elsewhere, like in creating a safety culture in the organization.

Originally posted by jra
What's wrong with the Dragon/Falcon, if I may ask? While it still needs to go through more testing, I think it looks really promising.

Just a gut feeling. I'm afraid commercial pressures will short-change safety. I would feel more comfortable with an established defense contractor making my rocket. Of course I have no desire to spend months floating around in the ISS puking all over myself either. Maybe that's the wrong career choice for me?

Also, it seems silly to have different designs for the capsule. One astronaut will train for the Dragon capsule and another astronaut will train for the CST-100. I think NASA should specify the capsule and let the private companies focus on the rocket.

Originally posted by Frira

Originally posted by Illustronic
Human rated rockets fail entirely from human error, (and the media in the case of Challenger).

Maybe I have forgotten-- but I think I just never knew. What is the media connection regarding Challenger?

Pressure to launch for the cameras?

That's a very loaded question. Only NASA mission control can directly answer. Looking at the facts objectively one is inclined to point the proverbial finger squarely at NASA, and not the systems contractors.

The Challenger launch was originally scheduled for Jan. 22. Delays suffered by the previous mission, STS-61-C, caused the launch date to be pushed back to January 23 and then to January 24. The launch was again rescheduled to Jan. 25 due to bad weather at (get this) Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) site in Dakar, Senegal. NASA decided to use Casablanca as the TAL site, but because it was not equipped for night landings, the launch had to be moved to the morning (Florida time). Predictions of unacceptable weather at Kennedy Space Center caused the launch to be rescheduled for Jan. 27.
The launch was delayed the next day by problems with the exterior access hatch. First, one of the microswitch indicators used to verify that the hatch was safely locked malfunctioned. Then, a stripped bolt prevented the closeout crew from removing a closing fixture from the orbiter's hatch. When the fixture was finally sawn off, crosswinds at the Shuttle Landing Facility exceeded the limits for a Return to Launch Site (RTLS) abort. The crew waited for the winds to die down until the launch window finally ran out, forcing yet another scrub.
Forecasts for January 28 predicted an unusually cold morning, with temperatures close to 31°F, with overnight temperatures as low as 18ºF. It was maintained by the engineers at–then, Morton Thiokol–the contractor responsible for the construction and maintenance of the shuttle's SRBs, to abort launch due to temperatures below their redline of 40°F. Thiokol engineers argued that if the O-rings were colder than 53°F, they did not have enough data to determine whether the O joint would seal properly. This would be the first Shuttle launch at temperatures below 53ºF.
Engineers at–then, Rockwell–the main contractor of the Shuttle itself, were horrified while viewing operations of the Ice Team and the amount of ice buildup on the main tank and SRBs and voiced their concerns.

So omitting the many series of troublesome details to follow, (I know too late), Thiokol management was influenced by demands from NASA managers that they show it was not safe to launch rather than prove conditions were safe. It later emerged in the aftermath of the accident that NASA managers frequently evaded safety regulations to maintain the launch manifest.
Roger Boisjoly, the engineer who had warned about the effect of cold weather on the O-rings, argues that the caucus called by Morton Thiokol managers, which resulted in a recommendation to launch, "constituted the unethical decision-making forum resulting from intense customer intimidation." It's argued that if that if Morton Thiokol engineers had more clearly presented the data that they had on the relationship between low temperatures and burn-through in the solid rocket booster joints, they might have succeeded in persuading NASA managers to cancel the launch.
So the official conclusion is deemed "poor presentation of information", but one can speculate as to how much PR pressured mission control to set proof of concept so rigorously high.

Objectively, actual live media coverage of the launch was rather light, CNN was the only news media to air the launch live, though several radio networks were also live. Due to the presence of New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe on the Challenger crew, NASA arranged with many public schools to view the launch live on NASA TV. 48 percent of nine to thirteen-year-olds, according to a New York Times poll, watched the launch at school.

The aftermath of the Challenger disaster is where I adopted an active personal interest in NASA in general and safety specifically. In 1987 NASA created a new Office of Safety, Reliability and Quality Assurance, headed as the Rogers commission had specified by a NASA associate administrator who reported directly to the NASA administrator. Still it was argued that NASA policing NASA safety lacked an independent confidential safety reporting mechanism to protect anonymity. But in 1987 such a mechanism was established and operated by my new employer and I inherited an active role in promoting the awareness of this avenue available to all of NASA contractor's workplaces.

Interesting one can read The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) concluded that NASA had failed to learn many of the lessons of Challenger. In particular, the agency had not set up a truly independent office for safety oversight...(boring self indulgence cont...)

… the CAIB felt that in this area, "NASA's response to the Rogers Commission did not meet the Commission's intent". The CAIB believed that "the causes of the institutional failure responsible for Challenger have not been fixed," saying that the same "flawed decision making process" that had resulted in the Challenger accident was responsible for Columbia's destruction seventeen years later.

I always wondered what became of the safety reporting system my employer was informed in 1993 that we were ‘no longer eligible to rebid for a contract renewal’. So since I was able to access a website through a simple Dogpile search I don’t think I could be held liable for any breach of corporate confidentiality.

So here is what I found. How it is operating or whether this page is current is something I can’t comment on. Apparently the system’s effectiveness is questionable.

Originally posted by Illustronic

Originally posted by Frira

Originally posted by Illustronic
Human rated rockets fail entirely from human error, (and the media in the case of Challenger).

Maybe I have forgotten-- but I think I just never knew. What is the media connection regarding Challenger?

Pressure to launch for the cameras?

That's a very loaded question.

Not really loaded. I had not heard of the media being an issue on the decision to launch.

I watched most of the hearings-- recorded them and watched each night. I do not recall the media being considered as a factor.

To launch so as to avoid criticism (fair criticism or not) is not the fault of the media-- adults make their decisions without regard to the criticism of the ignorant (and the media is terribly ignorant of issues regarding manned space flight).

Furthermore, it seems that was not a factor. The fundamental cause was a critical concern about the o-ring and the temperature was either not heard, or heard but not heeded.

After reading the good and detailed responses, I remain where I began-- I don't believe the media played a role in the loss of the Challenger crew and vehicle.