Some astronauts don’t love SpaceX’s Dragon

About Dragon: I'm a pilot, not a passenger, dammit!

NASA may be sending astronauts (in the next few years) to the International Space Station in a new privately-built vehicle, Dragon (built by SpaceX). And some astronauts, and other people at NASA, are not happy about the prospect.

The main gripe: you ride Dragon; you don’t fly it. Its flight to the International Space Station is completely automated. (The vehicle has been selected to send cargo—in an unmanned version—to the ISS.)

SpaceX is aware of the problem, and is addressing it. Former astronaut Ken Bowersox, now with SpaceX says: “We’ll do what makes sense from the point of view of using humans to increase the reliability of the whole system. To do that, we have to give them displays and controls.”

For me, this means: “We know that Dragon can get a crew to the ISS unaided; but to make the astronauts happy, we’ll add some gauges and controls. I’ve been an astronaut, so I know.”

I think that Dragon should allow astronauts to control the vehicle. Yeah, Dragon may be great, but if something goes wrong, and I were on it—I’d want to take control.

Some don’t like Dragon for another reason: they think it may replace NASA’s new Orion/Ares vehicles. SpaceX’s position is this: Dragon is for getting astronauts to earth orbit; Orion/Ares is for going beyond that. I like that position: we’ve been sending people into orbit for nearly 50 years; NASA should be sending people further out in space. And Orion/Ares is capable of that.

Let’s see what it can do.