Not happy:
Posted on 08/03/2018 1:32:26 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Nine astronauts have new travel plans aboard commercial space capsules, with their mission assignments announced earlier today (Aug. 3).
Five of those astronauts flew aboard the United States' last set of spacecraft to travel to the International Space Station (ISS), the space shuttles. But while the newly announced crews are excited to once again launch from Florida instead of Kazakhstan, they aren't very nostalgic for the hardware of the shuttles themselves.
During the press announcement of the new astronaut assignments, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine asked two veteran astronauts to compare their new rides to the shuttles they flew more than seven years ago.
…
That vehicle, in Behnken's case, will be SpaceX's Crew Dragon, which he compared to the ultimate in smooth technology: Apple's handset. "It is absolutely like flying the iPhone," Behnken said.
Both of the new capsules come equipped with touch screens, and the astronauts' spacesuits include gloves that allow the spaceflyers to manipulate those screens smoothly. "It is also nice to not have all of the complications of switches and buttons, like we did in shuttle," Suni Williams, whose first mission was aboard the shuttle, wrote in a Reddit AMA. "The new flat screens will make it easier to interact [with] and control the spacecraft."
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Open the pod bay door Siri.
The software for the Space Shuttles was written in the late 70’s. It was already obsolete by the time they got to the launching pad.
Human input optional.
Eventually all our technology will be essentially autonomous. If we suddenly disappear as a biological species, our autonomous systems and avatars will carry on.
There Will Come Soft Rains
I don’t think touchscreens would work terribly well given the amount of vibration in a launch, let alone wearing gloves. They probably don’t control anything during launch.
I have a friend who worked at Redstone and he helped write the code.
Ping.
My wife may qualify, she uses one. Think it is a female thing.
So they can be smashed to smithereens? Don’t get too near Hillary.
“Madame Pompadour was a member of the French court and the official chief mistress of king Louis XV. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
MY iPhone can fly as far as I can throw it.
It’s the landing that’s the problem.
Ass-tro-naught.
My thought is that touchscreens are a single point of failure during trouble. At least buttons and switches have a fair amount of independent circuitry, you can repair or bypass independently.
Not happy:
Nice one!
In Soyuz, the commander uses a stick to push the buttons.
It would be smart to have a couple spares for redundancy in case screens get damaged.
That's one of the huge advantages these commercial outfits have over NASA. They don't have to go through the cumbersome and glacially slow federal procurement process with all it's arcane rules, or deal with bids and the inevitable protests and court battles from companies that lose.
Basically Elon Musk or whoever says, "I want a glass cockpit with the latest and greatest software." and somebody immediately runs out and hires the best engineers and programmers to make it happen.
Technology is terrific, when it works.
Wait until the circuit to those touch-screens fails. With no manual controls it won’t be fun.
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