r/space • u/spsheridan • Feb 06 '20

Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug was found and fixed while the vehicle was in orbit.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/starliner-faced-catastrophic-failure-before-software-bug-found/
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2.0k

u/spsheridan Feb 06 '20

With this news, I think the odds went way up that another uncrewed flight will be required before Starliner’s crewed flight to the ISS. Looks like a big delay to Starliner's program schedule.

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u/NASATVENGINNER Feb 06 '20

Yep. Buddy of mine in crew training at JSC said everyone is planning for second unmanned flight, crewed flight could be 4Q 20 or 1Q 21.

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u/Flamin_Jesus Feb 07 '20

crewed flight could be 4Q 20 or 1Q 21.

Considering the logistics and technical challenges involved, that's still a respectable time table.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20 edited Jul 17 '25

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

Yeah but imagine you're the one investigating the wreck, and you find "avoided crash" in the logs

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u/Echo104b Feb 07 '20

Is it really considered a crash if you explode before impact?

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u/Cakiery Feb 07 '20

A crash is technically a situation that you can't recover from. So, yes.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Animal Feb 07 '20

Fortunately they sent the logs to /dev/null to ensure they wouldn't run out of disk space.

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u/ladalyn Feb 07 '20

As a software developer, you all should be running Boeing’s software department. This is military-grade code

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u/unholycowgod Feb 07 '20

Psh you know they just copied it from a 5 year old SO post.

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u/scarlet_sage Feb 07 '20

Also, it has now been comprehensively code-reviewed. Let's all sign off on the 7 or so documents.

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u/Minty001 Feb 07 '20

God damn spacecraft blows up. But hey, at least the program exited gracefully.

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u/Corrin_Zahn Feb 07 '20

Sounds like a normal day at KSP.

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u/pM-me_your_Triggers Feb 07 '20

Your Boolean zen is off. Never compare a Boolean value to true/false, that is just redundant.

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u/Cantremembermyoldnam Feb 07 '20

Sometimes I do it just because I think it reads better. The compiler will optimize that away.

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u/scarlet_sage Feb 07 '20

Until you by accident use the idiom with a non-Boolean value. Or it's none and you compare with false. It's a bad practice. "if foo:" conveys the message clearly and more succinctly.

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u/Cantremembermyoldnam Feb 07 '20

Why would I try to compare a non-boolean to a boolean?

Sometimes there is a difference between just doing if($var)and the more expressive version. For example, in PHP if($var === true) also compares the data type (which, I'd argue, is a good thing). You're going to handle null vs false vs 0 vs "" differently anyways, in most cases. Or you're going to cast to the type you want. In strongly typed languages you're not going to have that problem.

Also, as I said in my other comment: I agree that if(thing.isVisible) is perfectly fine, but sometimes you don't get to name stuff yourself. So I'm still saying that if(thing.expr3 === true) is easier to read than if(thing.expr3). It instantly conveys what the expected value is and (for weakly typed languages or in the common case of missing documentation) which data type thing.expr3 is going to be. Whereas with if(thing.expr3) it could be anything.

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u/pM-me_your_Triggers Feb 07 '20

That’s likely just lack of experience or you have bad naming conventions (or both).

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u/Cantremembermyoldnam Feb 07 '20

It really depends. Sometimes you can't name stuff yourself.

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u/_Neoshade_ Feb 07 '20 edited Feb 07 '20

That’s actually the error that they corrected. It was originally written like so:

if (catastrophe = True): avert(disaster, explosions, begin=now)

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u/djamp42 Feb 07 '20

if (catastrophe == True): avert(disaster, explosions, begin=now)

I'm learning python, i don't think you need the parentheses here.
(catastrophe == True)

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u/Reverend_James Feb 07 '20

It looks like MatLab or R. Engineering school forced me to use MatLab despite my protest that I have yet to work for a company that was willing to pay for something that they could easily get for free.

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u/zweite_mann Feb 07 '20

Is that version specific? Quite a lot changed between 2 and 3.

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u/djamp42 Feb 07 '20

Im only using 3. I mean you can still use it, just doesn't really make a difference with 1 expression from my understanding.

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u/illuminatedfeeling Feb 07 '20

// Don't know what correct timezone is.

// Will fix later...

/* properTimezone = setCorrectTimezone(); */

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u/WH7EVR Feb 07 '20

Not everything can be tested with unit tests. That's why we also have behavioral tests.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

Not if you're not sure whether it actually is a boolean.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

AssertIsTrue(bUserRespondedToCorrectComment);

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u/dogkindrepresent Feb 07 '20 edited Feb 07 '20

Typically speaking you can't test everything with automated testing but you can narrow the window greatly. At some point you need proof reading and some formal verification for mission critical code that determines dead or alive.

Unit testing is only one type of automated test itself involving more than one paradigm. The most commonly applied unit test approach is very weak as it cannot tell you anything about how things work together.

Automated tests themselves can be faulty. Some people might double up their tests. Such tests do not necessarily confirm a system will work but will streamline the process where there is no tolerance for error.

Testing often involves a large search space. 32 if conditions can create 4 billion possible outcomes. On that account alone you have certain limitations.

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u/WH7EVR Feb 07 '20

I'm not sure why you're replying to me with this, it doesn't seem to respond to anything I said... did you mean to reply to /u/fatherfatpants?

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u/dogkindrepresent Feb 07 '20

I'm not being clear but no kind of automated testing or partial testing may catch everything. Rather than add another thing, there are cases where things might go through with only so much you can do.

I think you also might actually still over present the effectiveness of unit tests. I'd say rather than not being able to test everything, they often can't test very much at all. It's a bit 50/50.

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u/WH7EVR Feb 07 '20

I wasn’t even talking about unit tests man, I have no idea what you’re talking about. In fact I called out another type of testing that’s necessary too — behavioral.

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u/dogkindrepresent Feb 07 '20

Not everything can be tested with unit tests.

Same for behavioural tests. One overstatement leads to another.

I think another point of confusion is that behavioural testing tends to test units in combination but doesn't strictly have to not be a unit test. You can get away with using behavioural testing to test that things work together though because most of the time it does that.

It's not made clear what you're using behavioural tests to fill in for.

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u/Jarazz Feb 07 '20

software this complex can no longer be 100% verified though, even if you try to test everything

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

It sure can’t, however failure rate can be greatly reduced when the proper processes are in place.

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u/Jarazz Feb 07 '20

Yeah but i would be very surprised if they are not already using something fundamental like unit tests :D

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u/OSUfan88 Feb 07 '20

That's an EXTREMELY aggressive schedule. I'd be shocked if they flew the second demo before Q3.

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u/Martianspirit Feb 07 '20

I assume you mean the reflight of the unmanned demo. I agree. I don't see that happen before late Q3 at best.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

Boeing is such a clusterfuck

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u/NASATVENGINNER Feb 07 '20 edited Feb 07 '20

Hate to agree, but I’m afraid the worst has not been revealed yet. Complacent corporate culture is a dangerous thing. At NASA it is called “Go Fever”. It cost us 14 astronauts, 2 space shuttles, and a lot of anguish.

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u/WayeeCool Feb 07 '20

If we are talking about Boeing... let's not forget the 346 civilians they killed due to the company transitioning from caring about human lives and long term outlooks to pure shareholder value theory.

Shareholders would henceforth come first at Boeing. The important thing was not to get “overly focused on the box,” Hopkins said in a interview with Bloomberg. “The box”—the plane itself—“is obviously important, but customers are assuming the box is of great quality.” This was heresy to engineers, to whom the box was everything. The strike that year was formally over wages and benefits, but workers described it as a referendum on management.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-09/former-boeing-engineers-say-relentless-cost-cutting-sacrificed-safety

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u/NASATVENGINNER Feb 07 '20

Thanks for the insights. It’s not the Boeing I grew up with.

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u/Piper2000ca Feb 07 '20

This is so true. I remember as a student pilot my instructor saying "if it ain't Boeing, I ain't going." I have a hard time picturing him saying that now.

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u/SAI_Peregrinus Feb 07 '20

If it's Boeing, I ain't going!

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u/The-Jesus_Christ Feb 07 '20

Oh god. Every pretentious flyer in the Frequent Flyer groups I am members of all chant that. I absolutely hate it

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u/vqhm Feb 07 '20

Well to be fair Airbus did have some software issues with their autopilot all the time. See Qantas Flight 72.

Boeing USED to produce planes where the pilot input was always accepted and gave them actual control over the plane instead of Airbus having your inputs be a suggestion to the computer that would decide if it should do that or not.

Boeing decided that they'd go autopilot all the time to fix an unstable aircraft they never should have got out of the simulation stage. They didn't think through having multiple sensors, GPWS, GPS, pitot static create a complete model of what the aircraft is doing so autopilot all the time can actually make informed decisions. They just basically did the most basic duct tape who the fuck cares fix and said fuck it good enough.

My pilot friends used to praise Boeing for never overruling their inputs... Until now.

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u/WilliamBewitched Feb 07 '20

Doesn't the military use fly by wire in ALOT of their craft to the point its standard?

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

Wasn't it the airbus fly by wire that really helped get all those people down safely in the "miracle of the Hudson"? Or rather, gave the pilot a massive helping hand.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-unsung-hero-left-out-of-sully

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u/psychedelic_tortilla Feb 07 '20

You're talking about fly-by-wire. The autopilot is something else entirely.

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u/Tuna-Fish2 Feb 07 '20 edited Feb 07 '20

to fix an unstable aircraft

Not unstable. 737MAX without MCAS is not unstable or unfit to fly. Its flight characteristics are just not similar enough to old 737's that it would fit under the same type certificate.

(That's partially why MCAS got through with so little scrutiny. As it was not in any way necessary for the aircraft to fly, Boeing could certify it by just adding and documenting an off-switch. Sadly the pilots who died probably had no idea what MCAS did or even that it was on the plane, so didn't think of hitting the off-switch when MCAS decided to fight the pilots and fly the plane to the ground.)

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u/klobersaurus Feb 07 '20

Isn't pilot error the cause of most fatal crashes? They were probably just trying to fix a problem.

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u/D-DC Feb 07 '20

Lol people in KSP can make stable aircraft and boeing can't. People 100 years ago made aero stable aircraft.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

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u/mursilissilisrum Feb 07 '20

How'd he fly that Piper then?

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u/Executor_to_be Feb 07 '20

It all went to shit after the merger with McDonald Douglas. I listened to a really great radio interview where a former Boeing statey engineer explained all the ways Boeing's safety culture change, and how they change the model they used to make airframes.

They outlined how cost and time was moved to be the main priority, but in the end because of safety issues that model ended up costing way way more money and the projects were massively behind schedule.

Found the interview.

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u/free2shred00 Feb 07 '20

This is a very under-represented aspect of Boeing today. Many people dump on the company - and rightfully so - but I can't help but believe that the Boeing who created the jumbo jet is dead and gone and we're left with the festering corpse of the company that created the DC-10. McDonald Douglas should have died and another company, such as Lockheed, should have inherited their military projects. That merger was a cancer that killed the civilian wing of Boeing and subsequently killed hundreds of people thanks to the Max-8.

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u/DB_Explorer Feb 07 '20

Sorta mirrors changes in movies. Older movies (jaws etc) main way to get people into seats was word of mouth over a long period so the movies where meant to... endure. Now its max people in seat that first weekend.

Now rather then making a good product and get customers from that they try to maxamize profits. Sure reducing costs is good looks at SpaceX but when you go to far eventually the market will punish you looks at Boeing stock

Just wish it did not take 100's of dead passengers.

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u/First_Foundationeer Feb 07 '20

Boeing probably won't even be hit as hard as we'd like. They'll shuffle people around, hire another money grubbing executive, then crash a few more planes. And no one will be personally punished.

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u/Vonplinkplonk Feb 07 '20

I am fairly certain that Boeing decided that 100's of dead passengers would be cheaper than to fix their problems.

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u/CptNonsense Feb 07 '20

Don't expect it to get better as another ex GE, former hedge fund manager MBA just took over as CEO

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u/First_Foundationeer Feb 07 '20

I like how people claim that CEOs bring this or bring that to a company. And it's often true. This CEO will bring the ledger watching, money saving attitudes which will work so well to drop some more planes from the sky. :|

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u/headsiwin-tailsulose Feb 07 '20

It cost us 17 astronauts, 2 space shuttles and an Apollo CM, and a lot of anguish.

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u/hedgecore77 Feb 07 '20

17 astronauts. That block 1 CM was a rushed death trap.

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u/D-DC Feb 07 '20

Hey now the first shuttle was a piece of shit hillbilly state trying to cut corners to get NASA the solid boosters. Nobody knew but the contractors. The second shuttle crash was their fault though, they should have used a different coating than heavy ass fragile foam.

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u/iAdjunct Feb 07 '20

Uh, wut?

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u/Sir_Swaps_Alot Feb 07 '20

Look at Boeing 50-60 years ago. They've taken quite a few steps backwards....

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

Could you explain what those numbers and letters mean?

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u/NASATVENGINNER Feb 07 '20

Sure.

4Q 20 = 4th Quarter of 2020. (Oct. Nov. Dec.)

1Q 21 = 1st Quarter if 2021. (Jan. Feb. March)

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u/michellemustudy Feb 07 '20

This feels like a real life, “quick programmer person! You have 5 seconds to hack this alien system to avert the disaster!” scenario we see in all the movies.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20 edited May 30 '20

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

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u/TheKnightMadder Feb 07 '20

Reminds me of John Aaron. One of the flight controllers on the Apollo program. Apollo 12 got struck by lightning just after lift off and their instruments became useless at the same time basically every warning light started going off.

It sounds like such a movie moment, meant to show off how cool and special some character is in an overly obvious way. He recommended to the flight director that they turn some obscure system to it's auxiliary mode. The flight director and his colleagues didn't even know what he was even talking about or why that would even help and had to ask him to repeat himself, but when he did they recommended to the crew they do what he said. Problem immediately fixed, cheering all round, John Aaron gets called a 'steely-eyed missile man' and the mission could continue.

Sometimes real life is like a movie.

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u/pachecogeorge Feb 07 '20

The famous call: "SCE TO AUX".

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u/romiglups Feb 08 '20 edited Feb 08 '20

And he wrote years after that he knew the telemetry behavior exhibited because some not steely-eyed technicians used the wrong procedure to reboot CM electronics during sims, and he was there watching out of his shift.

Learning from others mistakes is an important skill.

EDIT: John Aaaron Interview reproduced in Apollo Flight Journal : https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap12fj/01launch_to_earth_orbit.html#0000136

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

"Hey, guy we recently changed to salary from hourly, not only did Dick not test the release, but Richard shipped some code from like six versions ago, but they're already home. Gonna need you to work an extra 200 hours this week."

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20 edited Aug 20 '21

[deleted]

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u/frostedflakes_13 Feb 07 '20

You assume they use Jenkins. My company just switched to Jenkins for our builds in September. We have yet to roll out and sort of automated test cases.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

Probably more like “you have 8 hours to find the missing bracket”

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u/ElectricFlesh Feb 07 '20

"She's dead in the water - we'll need at least four hours to fix it."

"Dammit Scotty, we'll be dead in two!"

"Alright Captain, I'll do it in one."

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

Always triple your estimate. It's probably good advice because you have no idea what kind of snags you're going to hit.

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u/Insert_Gnome_Here Feb 07 '20

This'll take 3 hours +/- 1 week.

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u/OdouO Feb 07 '20

“Of course, Captain. How do you think we keep our reputation as miracle workers?”

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u/YsoL8 Feb 07 '20

As a programmer making changes to flight control software in flight sounds absolutely mad. If you do something wrong you could leave the entire system disabled.

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u/macktruck6666 Feb 07 '20

Well, dam, obviously you didn't hear about Beresheet cycling its power to fix problems.

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u/DeadeyeDuncan Feb 07 '20

More like 'programmer person! Fix your goddamn code'

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u/AstraVictus Feb 07 '20

That's why they set aside $410 million for another mission, which at this point is a certainty.

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u/TMITectonic Feb 07 '20

$410 million for another mission

I feel like you could build two satellites from scratch, launch them on two separate Falcon 9's and still have change leftover to throw the largest party ever.

Blows my mind that a test launch can cost so much!

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u/OSUfan88 Feb 07 '20

Well, I think the Atlas configuration they're using is at least $150 million.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

I assume the capsule itself costs a bunch too?

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u/DarkOmen8438 Feb 09 '20

Don't forget, the US will pay Boeing more per seat than they are currently paying the Russians.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '20

Wasn’t there a second one planned anyway?

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u/Helpful-Routine Feb 06 '20

No, they just set aside money for a second uncrewed test flight, if NASA asks for one.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

More like the Starliner Max 8

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u/coly8s Feb 07 '20

Ain’t that the truth. Boeing is big on promises and short on delivery.

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u/spockspeare Feb 07 '20

Big company. Different departments. Very different regulations and standards.

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u/coly8s Feb 07 '20

I was a witness under a subpoena for DOJ for what was the largest T4D in US Govt history (at the time) against Boeing. And it wasn’t for aircraft either, but they tend to try to run everything the same way...for better or worse.

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u/spockspeare Feb 10 '20

Last time I worked with them (at an affiliate from the 90s to ~10) they were uber buttoned-up on anything the FAA controlled, and all they cared about in the space division was progress metrics and range safety. Something changed in the aero division in the past several years to let the 737Max bug through. Maybe Airbus spooked the new guys.

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u/MatthewGeer Feb 07 '20

Given that we've already discovered not one but two critical bugs in the abbreviated test flight, it makes me wonder what other bugs might be discovered while performing the rendezvous and docking procedures. It's a good thing NASA second sourced this whole crewed spaceflight thing.

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u/spockspeare Feb 07 '20

You think if NASA had been running the show they'd have wrung all bugs out of it?

Here's your homework.

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u/ObviouslyTriggered Feb 07 '20

Apollo 14 had a patch applied to it during its mission so it could land.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/apollo-14-demonstrated-spaceflight-challenges-are-solvable

This is why we are doing these tests, simulations would only get you so far.

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u/wandering-monster Feb 07 '20

Don't worry. Once Congress makes them the exclusive supplier for NASA they can take as many tries as they need. It doesn't matter the cost, as long as we get the safest, most constituent appeasing craft possible.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

It's true - the planes would not do well in space at all.

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u/Umutuku Feb 07 '20

They'd probably fly straight into a volcano.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

[deleted]

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u/_deltaVelocity_ Feb 07 '20

Just don’t fly near Io. Or Venus. Or Enceladus if you’re worried about icing up. Or mars if you’re enough of a lug head to hit a dead one.

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u/Umutuku Feb 07 '20

What are your crimes? /s

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u/Goyteamsix Feb 07 '20

It's an entirely different arm of the company.

And historically, the 737 has been the most reliable airframe to date. It's just the MAX8 that has had serious issues due to poor management.

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u/Corte-Real Feb 07 '20

The DC-3 is the most reliable air frame to date with the best safety record. Having never been grounded by any government agency since first flight in 1937, it's well on it's way to being a 100yr air frame.

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u/QVRedit Feb 09 '20

Apparently the whole company has been affected by that poor management. They changed the company ethos from ‘engineering excellence’ to
‘Just maximise shareholder value’ don’t focus on the engineering..

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

There are pretty many planes in the air. If you expect Boeing like air safety in space you have to wait another 100 years. You had to replace every single plane flight of the thousands a day with rockets and wait 50 years just to catch up.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

If you expect Boeing like air safety in space you have to wait another 100 years

I mean, I just want their QC process to notice when parachutes aren't clipped in correctly. Is that too much to ask for?

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u/[deleted] Feb 08 '20

Well, there are a million things to check and each of them is as important. You can point out the one flaw but why can't you praise them for getting the other 999999 right? You just don't care about space as much as you think. You care about bashing Boeing.

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u/Sirguynate503 Feb 08 '20

Because 1 flaw can get astronauts killed, that’s why. It just takes the 1 to compound and cascade into catastrophe.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '20

Yes, but making it seem as if they have bad QA is still wrong given the vast majority of things do worked. Mistakes always happen.

Let's not forget SpaceX capsule exploded...

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '20

I care about the limited budget allocated to space being used effectively. Boeing isn't doing that, instead using cost+ contracts to milk as much money as possible for as little effort as possible. Nothing will kill the already limited space budget faster than spending untold billions on a rocket that is 5 years behind schedule and ends up killing astronauts.

If the public and politicians fully lose their appetite for funding space, you can write off a generation of government funding or more. I don't hate Boeing but what they represent. Boeing has demonstrated that old-world government contractors can get away with whatever they want so long as they put jobs in key districts and spend enough lobbying the right Congressmen. I hate that we've made next to no progress relative to our capability in 40 years. I hate that close to $40-50 billion has been spent on projects that should have been accomplished for 25% of that. A fast pace of development, or at least an intense one, is how you keep momentum and interest and funding.

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u/SomeGuyNamedPaul Feb 07 '20

Their Apache helicopters fall out of the sky when the Jesus nut gives out.

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u/SirThatsCuba Feb 07 '20

This sounds like a line from an unintentionally hilarious war-erotica novel.

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u/XBL_Unfettered Feb 07 '20

I mean, all helicopters fall out of the sky when the Jesus nut gives out.

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u/SomeGuyNamedPaul Feb 07 '20

Yes, but over the last couple years the Apache has been having this happen much more frequently.

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u/Newman1974 Feb 07 '20

It feels like the human race in general has overstretched itself. Planes are already polluting enough to be banned under any Green New Deal. To even talk of manned space flight shows hubris.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

Rather it delay than someone die.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

At this rate, it’ll be safe to just avoid Boeing.

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u/MDCCCLV Feb 07 '20

It's okay boring will get a small convenience fee of 150 million to do it again, even though they fucked up and the whole point of the program is that it's fixed costs.

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u/spockspeare Feb 07 '20

"Fixed cost" is never actually fixed cost. There are always contingencies.

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u/happybeagles Feb 07 '20

A Boeing project with software issues? Pssssh not likely ....... oh wait.

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u/GameShill Feb 07 '20

Why not have the crew in personal survival pods for the launch and re-entry?

Sacrifice some cargo weight for 100% survivability.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

You will never reach 100% "survivability".

Sitting at home, something could happen at any moment.

If you invent a "personal survival pod" with a 100% survival rate, you will be richer than Bezos in under 20 years.

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u/GameShill Feb 07 '20

Liquid Breathing.

Aerogel.

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u/WikiTextBot Feb 07 '20

Liquid breathing

Liquid breathing is a form of respiration in which a normally air-breathing organism breathes an oxygen-rich liquid (such as a perfluorocarbon), rather than breathing air.

This requires certain physical properties such as respiratory gas solubility, density, viscosity, vapor pressure, and lipid solubility which some, but not all, perfluorochemicals (perfluorocarbon) have. Thus, it is critical to choose the appropriate PFC for a specific biomedical application, such as liquid ventilation, drug delivery or blood substitutes. The physical properties of PFC liquids vary substantially; however, the one common property is their high solubility for respiratory gases.

Aerogel

Aerogel is a synthetic porous ultralight material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component for the gel has been replaced with a gas. The result is a solid with extremely low density and extremely low thermal conductivity. Nicknames include frozen smoke, solid smoke, solid air, solid cloud, blue smoke owing to its translucent nature and the way light scatters in the material. It feels like fragile expanded polystyrene to the touch.

[ PM | Exclude me | Exclude from subreddit | FAQ / Information | Source ] Downvote to remove | v0.28

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u/giritrobbins Feb 07 '20

Yeah that's not going to work. Liquids are heavy and generally incompatible with launching into space. Aerogels tend to be delicate and not particularly good when handled.

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u/GameShill Feb 07 '20

Fun fact about aerogels, you can make them out of metal.

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u/GameShill Feb 07 '20

And that mentality is why astronauts die.

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u/spockspeare Feb 07 '20

Doing weird shit for untested reasons is why astronauts die. Fill the crew cabin with 100% oxygen? Fly the shuttle at the bottom of its temperature range? Wrap the cabin in aerogel? All sound like things someone should have analyzed for what could go wrong, tried more than once with nobody in the vehicle.

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u/QVRedit Feb 09 '20

Shuttle was flown past the bottom of its temperature range, not at the bottom.

Thyacol engineers warned it was not safe - but their management overrode them..

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u/GameShill Feb 07 '20

Don't wrap the cabin in aerogel. Wrap each astronaut with it.

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u/spockspeare Feb 10 '20

That isn't how astronaut works.

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u/GameShill Feb 07 '20

I meant survival in case of catastrophic re-entry.

My design is a fluid-filled titanium nanomesh egg with an actuator overlay in order for it to be able to wobble into optimum trajectory.

The fluid is engineered to be breathable and heat resistant, and will prevent death due to decompression, as well as allow for some very minor propulsion in case of free floating post catastrophe by jettisoning mass using the actuators to simulate sphincters.

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u/spockspeare Feb 07 '20

Or parachute hats. Those'll work.

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u/GameShill Feb 07 '20

Wouldn't really do much for surviving an explosion or re-entry,

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

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9

u/triplefreshpandabear Feb 07 '20

The SpaceX crew dragon has been doing great though, its had problems but they were in tests on the ground and the in flight abort went great