India Manned Capsule

Nice article here

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology ... eship.html




Good luck to them I say!

Every time I see a non-NASA manned spaceflight effort, I immediately think of the possible extra hoops that NASA have to go through for man rating.

Do people think that some of these other agencies require less stringent rating/testing than NASA, and therefor will have a greater chance of overtaking them in the near future because there is less work required? I'm thinking India, China.

That said - good luck to them. I think NASA, because of the accidents in the past, are more politically motivated to rate and test beyond what is necessary in order to mitigate risk, whereas in fact, most astronauts would accept a little more risk for a shorter time to flight.

James

I do not see a point because it is a pure prestige mission. If those three guys are going to be strapped in for the duration of the flight, what's the point? At least the Chinese have a decent size OM/SM to conduct experiments.

India building manned capsule:

http://www.livemint.com/2010/03/2321445 ... ng-sp.html


PDF link:

http://www.livemint.com/2010/03/2321445 ... ArtVPF.pdf

India hasn't offered to buy a Russian Soyuz-TMA capsule:

http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/scien ... 369235.ece

Unmanned capsule flights to precede manned ones:

http://aerospacediary.blogspot.com/2010 ... rough.html

Most of the safety requirements and proceedures come from lessons learned paid in blood. Most of the new space programs have either had direct advisement from the pioneering national agencies, or at least access to histories and accident reports. NASA et al. safety protocols are widely known (or at least acessable with minimal effort) and follow engennering practices. I would not assume that just because other national and private efforts are not carbon copies of NASA that they are cutting corners or unsafe.