Inside the SpaceX Crew Dragon: Here ’s How the Inspiration4 Crew Will Fly to Space

Here’s how you fly a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft: Climb aboard; strap yourself in; close the hatch; fly to space. The Dragon takes care of everything, so relax and enjoy the ride—unless, of course, something goes wrong, and in space, something can always go wrong. So here’s how you prepare for that possibility: Spend months of 60-hour weeks in classrooms and simulators; master hundreds of pages of technical specs and procedures; learn the workings of dozens of systems and subsystems aboard the spacecraft; train for emergencies ranging from communications blackouts to navigation failures to on-board fires; and, not for nothing, spend a little time in a centrifuge and an altitude chamber, practicing for the g-forces you’re going to have to endure and the possibility of depressurization. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “There’s north of 60 procedures that range from normal contingency to emergency,” says Jared Isaacman, the CEO of Shift4 Payments, an online payment service, who will be commanding the Inspiration4 mission in September, spending three days in orbit with three other civilian astronauts. “In a multi-day mission there is a lot of time for a lot of things to go wrong.” (TIME Studios is producing a documentary series on the Inspiration4 mission.) Practicing for those eventualities aboard a Dragon requires a whole new kind of training, because by any measure, the new ship is not your daddy’s sp...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Space Special Project Source Type: news