A story inThe Washington Posthas claimed that NASA and SpaceX are lock automobile horn over how the latter plans to send astronauts into infinite .
Thanks to substantial funding from NASA to the tune of billion of dollars , SpaceX hop to startsending astronautsinto distance by 2019 . They will travel in a change version of the company ’s Dragon condensation , found aboard their Falcon 9 rocket , call up the Crew Dragon .
But NASA is concerned that SpaceX will fire its rockets with astronaut already on board , hump as load - and - go . And Elon Musk ’s company does not front like it ’s willing to budge .
In a letter released by NASA inNovember 2017 , former astronaut Thomas Stafford laid out some of these concerns from the International Space Station Advisory Committee .
“ There is a unanimous , and strong , feeling by the committee that scheduling the bunch to be on control board the Dragon spacecraft prior to loading oxidizer into the rocket engine is wayward to champion rubber criteria that has been in place for over 50 old age , both in this country and internationally , ” he write .
That letter was actually written right smart back in December 2016 . In other Holy Scripture , SpaceX has known about NASA ’s concerns for almost a year and a half , and has done little about it .
So what ’s the consequence ? It stems from how SpaceXfuels its rocket . for maximise the amount of fuel it can get on its skyrocket , it cools it to an extremely small temperature . This makes it denser , so more can be packed into the rocket .
“ To SpaceX , the approach is another example of how it is break the mould , ” Christan Davenport compose for the Washington Post . “ But to others it is an unneeded risk . ”
The endangerment is that fueling the rocket can be a middling dangerous summons . This was highlighted inSeptember 2016when a SpaceX Falcon 9 roquette explode while it was being fueled for an locomotive tryout .
It ’s not clear what the resolution to this problem will be in the near - future tense . presently , SpaceX plans to fill out a exam flight of its Crew Dragon towards the end of this year . Butsome reportshave advise both SpaceX and Boeing , which is also developing a ballistic capsule under contract by NASA called Starliner , will not be ready to fly until next year at the early .
Whether SpaceX will have conformed to NASA ’s care by then , or whether the government agency will have to become less risk averse , will be interesting to see .
