SpaceX's all-civilian Inspire4 astronauts, who ended their historic three-day journey into space, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.
Who will ensure that space tourists can return to Earth safely? Space tourism representatives believe that strict safety regulations hinder companies' ability to innovate.
Space tourism launch vehicles may be the only transport technology that can kill humans without obtaining independent safety certification. For now, expectant space tourists don't seem to mind, but is the emerging industry playing a dangerous game?
The four private astronauts on SpaceX's Inspire 4 mission — the first all-civilian crew ever flown into space — looked relaxed the day before the rocket was about to launch on Sept. 15, as they looked forward to stepping into space capsules and dashing into space on top of a rocket filled with explosive fuel.
Jared Isaacman, a tech entrepreneur who funded and served as commander for the mission, said the crew would fly fighter jets during training. During this time, the risk of an accident in a fighter jet may be higher.
"Over the past few days, fighter jets have thrown us into the sky again and again, and I think that risk is higher than this mission," he said. So, when we're in space huddled in the tiny Dragon space capsule, we feel good. ”
How dangerous is rocket flying?
But what is the risk of death during a space mission? NASA's director of commercial space, Phil McAllister, said SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft was about three times safer than in the last few years before NASA's space shuttle was retired. In fact, due to the increase in safety inspections and safety awareness, the NASA space shuttle at that time was already the safest.
McAllister said: "We were able to combine some additional technology. The Dragon ship system has flight abort capabilities that we don't have. All this increases the likelihood of successfully executing the task. ”
But what does this really mean? Terry Hamlin, head of technology for probabilistic risk assessment for the space shuttle at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, mentioned in 2011 that in the early days, the risk of a space shuttle crash was high, with one in nine missions failing.
By the time the shuttle was decommissioned in 2011, NASA had lost two space shuttles in catastrophic accidents, and the risk of failure was one in ten, or one in 90 missions. With such data, and assuming that McAllister's inference is correct, the probability of a catastrophic accident in Inspiration 4 is about one in three percent. (In fact, NASA flew a total of 135 space shuttle missions, with only two fatal accidents, the Challenger in 1986 and the Columbia tragedy in 2003.) ）
According to the National Security Council, the average lifetime risk of dying in an air crash in the United States is 1/205552; on the other hand, in the United States, the lifetime risk of dying in a car accident is 1 in 107.
Even so, many experts warn that the space tourism industry is undergoing unprecedented changes that could increase the chances of space tourists dying in a plane crash.
Crew member of Blue Origin's first suborbital manned mission.
Not responsible for anyone
Tommaso Sgoba, executive director of the International Association for the Promotion of Space Safety (IAASS) and former head of flight safety at the European Space Agency (ESA), said: "The problem is that the current space tourism industry has neither government safety regulation nor their own regulation. Nor do they have any history to prove that their technology is safe. ”
No modern appliance or device — from hair dryers and microwave ovens to cars, airplanes and roller coasters — must first be certified by an independent agency that proves that its design meets independently set safety standards before it can go public. These certifications are designed to ensure that efforts have been made to minimize the risk of these technologies harming users and that people independent of the company also consider the technologies to be safe.
But congressional suspension of 2004 safety regulations means space tourism companies have less responsibility than you might think.
Joseph Kohler, director of systems at aerospace companies' Center for Space Policy and Strategy, said: "After some very successful lobbying in the space industry, the suspension of safety regulations is to allow the industry to learn and progress. The law stipulates that the focus should be on developing best practices and voluntary standards that could ultimately lead to the implementation of regulation. But so far, there are very few problems that can really be solved. ”
Currently, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires commercial space companies to certify that their operations do not pose a risk to the public on the ground (or in the airspace). However, an FAA spokesperson told reporters in an email that the agency did not monitor the safety of flight participants and did not prove that the launch and return of the spacecraft to Earth was safe for humans.
Steve Kulm, the FAA's public affairs expert, wrote in an email: "Under federal law, the FAA's commercial space transport oversight duties are designed to protect the safety of the public on the ground and other members of the public who use the national airspace system — not individuals in the spacecraft." In fact, Congress has banned the FAA from regulating the safety of crew members or space participants. In addition, Congress has not authorized FAA-certified spacecraft to safely carry out manned launch and return missions to Earth. ”
However, Kulm added that companies must prove that their technology can operate safely during test flights in order to obtain a manned license from the FAA.
Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson experienced weightlessness in the cabin like Superman during the launch of spaceship TWO, VSS Unity.
Stifle innovation
Karina Drees is president of the Commercial Space Federation representing space travel companies. Early regulation, she said, could stifle innovation in emerging areas and hinder the development of the best technologies. "I think this is exactly the one that a lot of people are worried about. If regulation comes in too soon, there's a good chance that the best technology won't emerge. Today's designed means of delivery are very different from each other. However, if we regulate either style, then some designs may not appear on the market. ”
As a result, today's space visitors sign an informed consent form stating that they accept anything that may happen during the mission.
On December 7, 1903, orwell Wright-controlled Flyer 1 made its first powered flight in history at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
The "Tombstone Technique" of Early Aviation
The situation in commercial manned space is very similar to the situation in the first few decades of the aviation industry.
When the Wright brothers finally invented the flying machine and entered the early twentieth and twentieth centuries, we didn't have much commercial flight, more military flight or exploratory nature flight. But by the end of the twentieth century, commercial flight had become more common. However, there was not much regulation at that time. Therefore, accidents also occur from time to time.
The approach taken by the early aviation pioneers is sometimes described as flight-repair-flight. In Sgoba's words, it's "tombstone technology."
"They'll build machines, fly them, wait for an accident to happen, then investigate the accident, and if they find a problem with the technology, they'll learn from it and solve it," Sgoba said. He added that unlike early pilots, space travel companies are not developing technology from scratch. Government-funded agencies such as NASA or Russia's space agency Roscosmos have accumulated decades of experience in managing and managing the risks associated with sending items (and humans) into space.
On November 1, 2014, the National Transportation Safety Board recorded a video in which the wreckage of Virgin Galactic's commercial spacecraft Spaceship II appeared in the Mojave Desert. SpaceShipTwo disintegrated during the flight and crashed on October 31, killing one pilot and injuring another.
existential problems
"Over the past four decades, the aviation industry has adopted an approach focused on performance requirements and fault tolerance," Sgoba said. For example, your design should never allow a single human error to lead to an entire disaster. But if you look back at the Virgin Galactic accident in 2014, it was a disaster caused by a single human error. ”
On October 31, 2014, Virgin Galactic's first spaceship, the Enterprise, had a fatal accident during a test flight, disintegrating during a rocket-powered test flight. One pilot died and the other was seriously injured.
In a follow-up investigation, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board found that the Virgin Galactic accident was caused by the premature opening of the feathered tail of the Spaceship II aircraft. The role of this tail is to slow down and stabilize the aircraft as it descends through the Earth's atmosphere.
Just this past July, Virgin Galactic successfully completed its first manned spaceflight, with crew members including the company's boss, Richard Branson. However, VSS Unity deviates from pre-approved trajectories on its return to ground, enters the surrounding airspace, or can cristique ordinary people on commercial flights.
The incident resulted in Virgin Galactic being largely grounded by the FAA until the investigation was concluded. As a result, Virgin Galactic had to suspend its second manned flight, which was scheduled for late September or early October. Currently, the company's fare for each suborbital space trip is $450,000 per person.
Sgoba questioned whether space travel would be so exciting for these "ordinary people" if the adventures of space enthusiasts (and a bunch of bored rich people) hit these "ordinary people".
"I think once civilians are injured, the space travel market will evaporate," Sgoba said. Just like the Concorde supersonic airliner withdrew from the stage of history. "The Concorde supersonic airliner is a luxury airliner from Paris to New York. But once the accident occurred, people were no longer interested in this luxury airliner. While the company has solved the problem, interest is about to disappear.
Independent investigation
According to Scrobal, Virgin Galactic's space planes are, in essence, more dangerous than the new Shepard of Blue Origin or SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. Spaceship Two relies more on human factors, making test flights impossible without human pilots.
"Virgin Galactic's problems are bigger because when safety-critical mechanisms are in place, there will always be problems," Sgoba said. It can be a helicopter or other aircraft concept; when you rely on large moving parts to get things done, the safety risks are always higher. That doesn't mean you can't safely operate something like Virgin Galactic's feathered tail, but it certainly takes extra effort to ensure safety. ”
Blue Origin shares the company's approach to ensuring safety in a video on its website. A spokesperson for Blue Origin said the company employs multiple redundancy methods to ensure that no critical system fails without a backup available.
SpaceX's manned system development has benefited from a partnership with the NSSA. SpaceX has a contract with NASA to assist NASA astronauts in getting to and from the International Space Station. Therefore, SpaceX's manned systems must meet NASA's extremely stringent safety standards.
Still, Sgoba has doubts about some of SpaceX's practices.
"For the Inspiration 4 mission, they replaced the interface on the Dragon spacecraft with a beautiful dome," he said. But what I want to ask is, which person, independent of the project, reviewed the change to make sure it was safe? ”
Before NASA, ESA, or other space agencies launch anything into space, they conduct flight readiness checks. The independence of the team conducting the inspection is a key requirement to ensure the effectiveness of the findings. During such an inspection process, each section is carefully investigated to minimize the possibility of problems.
But who is responsible for reviewing the adjustments they made for the Inspire4 mission? Is it just Elon Musk's own approval? This will be the first time in the history of a technologically advanced industry where a single person, the owner, has the final say on such an activity.
Similarly, in the current regulatory environment, no one can question such procedures.
What does the future hold?
The U.S. Congressional suspension of space travel safety regulations expires in 2023. However, what will happen next is still unclear.
The Commercial Space Federation has been working with standards organization ASTM International to develop guidelines and has issued recommendations on fault tolerance and data exchange to support the integration of space operations and air traffic control and the classification of security incidents.
For the foreseeable future, expectant space tourists or participants in space flights can only choose to trust the companies that send them into space. To help customers make decisions about whether to sign an informed consent form, companies are obliged to disclose their safety records. Everyone is ready for this.
"It's in the best interest of these companies to ensure that the flight records of the vehicle are disclosed in a very clear manner, because they want their companies to continue to operate," Drees said. Not disclosing this information does the company any good, and taking shortcuts and ignoring security is self-defeating. ”
Some may question whether it is reasonable to trust these companies. Bank of America, which runs Virgin Galactic stock, last week accused the company of failing to truthfully disclose the fact that VSS Unity veered off course during its flight in July. This incident led to the company being grounded by the FAA.
At the same time, Sgoba is also calling for a more "mature" approach and, along with other industry veterans, has proposed the creation of a new independent body to oversee the security of commercial space operations, the Space Security Institute. The Space Security Institute will serve as an independent reviewer and will also focus on science popularization and research in key areas of space system security.
The Space Security Institute will provide a platform where people and companies can get together to discuss ways to achieve their goals. If companies have new ideas, it's important to provide support and technical analysis on whether the system can truly achieve its goals safely. As long as it does not hinder the commercial space industry's ability to innovate, the industry will not fail to support such a proposal.
We don't set standards and regulations until we have the opportunity to innovate and design new vehicles – which are critical to the future of the industry. So, as long as we can still design, build and test-fly vehicles without having to comply with strict regulations from the start, we believe the industry will generally support this proposal.