Ultimate Steve

This was in response to wondering how fast the ISS comms system was in comparison, and the ISS system was not built by SpaceX.

That moment when we got the helmet camera of him coming out of the hatch, that was the coolest thing I've seen in a long while!

That was cool!

Polaris Dawn EVA clock has started! Currently flushing nitrogen out of the suits, will proceed with Dragon depressurization in a few minutes if all goes well. Hatch opening in ~25 minutes nominally.

The length of the update had me worried, but it seems like everything is going well!

If any of you had read the actual post, you would know that this new grievance has nothing to do with the deluge. The splashdown point of the hot stage ring on IFT 5 will "marginally" change (no details there). Because of this change, the FAA approved a 60 day consultation with the national Marine fisheries service. If any new questions are raised, the 60 day timer "can" be reset. Unsure what can means here. If it's automatic or optional. SpaceX notes that this can go on indefinitely. A similar 60 day thing is in place for the fish and wildlife services because of a slightly larger area experiencing a sonic boom (possibly either due to coming in over land or the hsr area not overlapping as much with the sh area, im guessing and they didnt say). It does kind of seem maddening that splashing a rocket part in a slightly different spot could trigger a 2+ month delay when literally every other operational orbital rocket does that except for Falcon and sometimes Electron. Granted, maybe that's because everything else lands in international waters. Danger to marine life was analyzed a lot for the previous flight. Seems unreasonable to spring a delay to November on SpaceX this late in the process when they were ready to go in August. Sonic boom I'm much less versed in. Granted, I've only heard one side of the story.

Polaris Dawn launch in about 4 and a half minutes. https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=polarisdawn

I don't see why it wouldn't work. There's probably better and less complex ways to achieve the same effect, though.

Still very happy about that.

Interesting, I don't remember getting that vibe, I'll have to rewatch.

The surface level statement is that the analysis hadn't closed. Deeper down it had been over two months of the analysis not closing with a lot of uncertainty still remaining. This is a bit of a stretch but I would wager that there was no indication that the analysis would close any time soon. That's not necessarily a red flag but it's at least a yellow flag. At a certain point a decision has to be made before you start running into other stuff like docking port scheduling (there are only two ports of this type), cargo stuff, and Dragon's max rated orbital time so there is a fuzzy upper bound on how much time is reasonable for the analysis. If Boeing can say it's safe and nasa says no, that's something that needs addressing. But Boeing had over 2 months to figure it out when the iss schedule called for that port to be occupied for 8 days, and they still can't decide if it is safe or not. I can see why nasa felt the need for calling it this way.

It's a totally normal thing to have a favorite Falcon 9 booster! ...Right? Right, guys? b1021 gang

I think you're confusing Polaris 2 with Fram2. Fram2 is gonna be first polar orbit. We don't know much about Polaris 2. Rumor has it that it was gonna be the hubble servicing mission but that's in limbo. Polaris 3 is going to be the first crewed launch of starship.

A dedicated dragon mission just to return the Starliner isn't really feasible. Endeavor is currently in space for crew 8. Resilience is prepared for Polaris Dawn and has all of the EVA modifications and currently has the cupola in place of a docking port. It would be possible to modify it back and do a specialty mission but Jared and crew would probably have to wait the better part of a year to fly. Freedom is going to fly Crew 9. Using this for a rescue flight would mean Crew 9 gets pushed back a few months, and either Crew 8 stays up there for a year (Dragon may not be rated for that) or the ISS crew goes down to 3 and relies entirely on Soyuz until Crew 9. Endurance is slated for Fram2. It has only been back since March and isn't scheduled to go up until an ambiguous "Q4" date. It probably isn't ready and will probably also use the cupola. This would also make the customers somewhat unhappy. C213 is set to fly in Februart for crew 10 and will not be ready in time. Sure, they could possibly get Resilience or Endurance ready for a rescue if needed, but why bother with a very expensive mission that involves delaying someone else and having to add yet another spacecraft to the ISS parking schedule when the problem can be solved by keeping 2 people in space for 8 months and bumping 2 astronauts to a later flight? Seems like the solution of least resistance as it is minimal ground work for minimal cost and only seriously inconveniences four people. Like basically SpaceX can indeed throw around a Falcon with a few days notice. I don't believe they can, or plan to be able to do the same with Crew Dragon. They aren't rapidly reusable and I believe require significant refurbishment. There are only four (soon to be five) of them and at any given time one of them is probably in space, and the rest of them are spoken for to various degrees.

Starliner crew will return on Dragon.