Fwd: Panel warns of creeping risks to NASA crews--DELAYS & Shuttle like crew safety COMING for cots & SLS----we may never fly!!!!!!!

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: January 18, 2016 at 11:27:19 AM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Panel warns of creeping risks to NASA crews

 

 

 

Panel warns of creeping risks to NASA crews

James Dean, FLORIDA TODAY 3:30 p.m. EST January 16, 2016

 

     NASA is ready to move forward with the development of the Space Launch System -- an advanced heavy-lift launch vehicle that will provide an entirely new national capability for human exploration beyond Earth's orbit. NASA video

An artist's rendering shows NASA's Space Launch System.(Photo: NASA)

An independent safety panel last week warned that NASA is gradually allowing funding and schedule pressures to increase risks to future human spaceflight missions, even in programs years away from launching astronauts.

"Even at this relatively early stage, schedule pressures appear to be impacting safety," said NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, or ASAP, in its 2015 annual report.

The 42-page report focused most on preparations to launch the 322-foot Space Launch System rocket and Orion exploration capsule from Kennedy Space Center.

After an unmanned test flight planned in 2018, NASA has committed to launching a first crew in Orion by 2023, but says it continues to work toward a more aggressive launch date in 2021. The ASAP said confidence in meeting the earlier target date, however, is "close to zero" based on current budgets.

The report said NASA's test program for SLS and Orion has "gradually eroded." Concerns cited included a less extensive test of a launch abort system planned from Cape Canaveral; late changes to Orion's heat shield; and flying the capsule's life support system for the first time with a crew on board.

"This plan appears to incur an increased risk without a clearly articulated rationale," the reports says of the life support plan.

The panel also predicted a "high likelihood of delays" to planned 2017 test flights from the Space Coast by Boeing and SpaceX capsules now in development to fly crews to the International Space Station.

KSC is scheduled to host the ASAP's next meeting on Feb. 24.

 

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