Talk:Human-rating certification

Standards version
8705.2A is missing a mention in the article entirely. At least there should be a "history" section mentioning it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.87.59.185 (talk) 21:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Redirect
This article is about human spaceflight ratings certifications. It isn't about rating a vehicle for flight by men. (sdsds - talk) 12:40, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * there is no reason whatsoever to have an article on human rating and different article on man rating. I consolidated these into one article, since they are the same.  I happened to consolidate them into the man-rating article, but it would have made absolutely no difference to have consolidated them into the "human rating" article, in either case, the two subjects are the same.


 * I am sorry that you are unaware that for many centuries the English language has struggled with a problem in that the word "man" can be used to mean a human being, and also used to mean a male human being. There is no such thing as a certification to launch "men" that is different from the certification to launch "humans".  This is one article.  Geoffrey.landis 15:03, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for sharing that viewpoint. You might want to watch some of those old NASA public-relations videos one more time. Like the ones about John Glenn, or the "Man in Space Soonest" effort. Then take a peek at the "Human spaceflight" section of the current NASA website. You might notice there have been a few changes in terminology over the years. Why has that happened, when the changes are to new terms with the same denotative meanings as the old ones?
 * As for the question regarding whether the topic deserves one article or two: it might depend on whether an editor wished to expand on the historically interesting topic of man-rated vehicles. The concept was very important during the early history of spaceflight, back in the late 20th century. (sdsds - talk) 05:54, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Major revision needed
The subject of "human-rated" is of growing importance because of the emergence of commercial spaceflight operations. This entry needs to be edited/rewritten to exapnd this section to address how NASA defines "human-rated," to address how NASA establishes "human-rated" certification, and to discuss the differences in this approach from that of aircraft airworthiness certification.

Jamesmsnead (talk) 15:11, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Right! This article is a stub, with one cited reference. A good next step would be to ask, "Does the cited reference represent a "reliable source?" If so, use it to expand the article to the extent possible. If the reference doesn't cover points that should be covered by the article, the next step is to find new references that do, and cite them! (sdsds - talk) 15:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I am going to make some draft edits of the article, providing I understand how the system works. I have worked on the topic since the mid-1980's.

Jamesmsnead (talk) 00:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank-you for your help! If you have any trouble whatsoever, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page or contact WikiProject Human spaceflight on  its talk page. (sdsds - talk) 02:02, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Something that could bear discussion
The article mentions that the Space Shuttle predates existing NASA criteria. While it seems pretty likely it meets those existing criteria, I think it might be worth discussing whether other, earlier NASA equipment could pass this certification requirement (e.g., Project Mercury), and whether foreign spacecraft would meet them (e.g., Soyuz spacecraft). &mdash;/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 19:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, it current reads like the whole idea of a man rating is post-Shuttle. I contrast, I clearly remember a statement by von Braun stating that the Saturn would be the first rocket that would be man rated from the start. Maury Markowitz (talk) 11:47, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

At present this article's coverage of the topic is necessarily flawed by having only one cited source. It would be great to find a source for von Braun's take on the subject, and to find anything at all about the subject in a source outside NASA. (sdsds - talk) 18:28, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The concept dates from at least the 1950s: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4201/ch7-1.htm Aldo L (talk) 00:37, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Someone has started a Spaceworthiness stub page with essentially the same intent as this one. There should only be one page, and I think that one should be merged here.

Also, I don't think Spaceworthiness was well-conceived, and doesn't seem to contain much actual information. I believe at this stage, "spaceworthiness" is essentially a neologism, thought of as an analog to airworthiness. The thing is, the state of air travel, as opposed to space travel, is well enough developed that airworthiness and airworthiness directives are legally defined, regulatory terms. There is no corresponding national (or international) authority which defines what "spaceworthiness" means. And when you look at that page, there isn't much meat there; no information about exactly what constitutes spaceworthiness. The author uses a lot of citations, but these seem to be intended to just show that people are using the word (note search instructions written on the citations) rather than to verify information in the article.

But regardless of whether it is a neologism or not, it doesn't need to be a redundant article page. JustinTime55 (talk) 15:31, 9 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Neutral Oppose (see below) This is a tough question. While I agree that, without much more, the spaceworthiness article probably should redirect somewhere, I'm not sure where. You hit on an important issue, Justin, insofar as that human-rating certification is a regulatory matter in the same sense as an airworthiness directive: to redirect spaceworthiness here would be like redirecting airworthiness to the directive article. Airworthiness and spaceworthiness both are more the engineering "half" of the regulatory issue. Anyway, my point is that the dichotomy may lead us to disfavor merging and redirecting spaceworthiness here. Another argument against it would be that spaceworthiness would encompass the "worthiness" of more than human-rated spacecraft: satellites and the equipment used to put them in orbit and in certain trajectories certainly have to be spaceworthy from an engineering standpoint, but probably need not be human-rated. I would suggest an equally sound alternative to a merger here would be a merger to airworthiness, given the close interrelatedness of the engineering disciplines. Another option might be to merge and redirect to a general aerospace engineering article. Of course, the availability of multiple merge locations with equal reasons to disfavor each might be an argument against merging (in the same sense of an argument against there being a primary topic in a redirect versus disambiguation page debate). Anyway, that's my thoughts. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 18:59, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * For a "neutral" response, you've certainly stirred up enough to cloud the issue, but made a couple of points which I now have to spend some time to refute:
 * First, I don't see how this is like redirecting airworthiness to airworthiness directive. Space- (and air- )worthiness is concerned with safety of flight, regardless of whether or not there is a regulating government authority. There is none (yet) for space, despite the fact this page is titled human-rating certification. ("Certification" is used loosely here.)
 * I also disagree with the idea that spaceworthiness is meaningfully applied to unmanned spacecraft; people are concerned with safety, which implies carrying humans. If it simply means "fitness to fly in space", that renders it trivial, simply a matter of quality (engineering competence).
 * I don't think it's appropriate to merge it into airworthiness; despite some coincidental engineering, the two regimes are quite distinct.
 * I don't think it's appropriate to bury it by merging into more general articles like aerospace engineering or spaceflight; it's distinctive enough to be in its own page (just not redundant to this one.)
 * Perhaps the fact you have trouble determining which page it should be merged with, speaks to how poorly (nebulously) spaceworthiness is currently written; as I said, not much meat there. JustinTime55 (talk) 21:07, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Hm, you're quite right, I have recast my !vote above as a straightforward oppose. Respectfully, I find your arguments that other possible targets are sufficiently inappropriate as to be unrelated unconvincing. I think we're well into "intersection" of topic areas territory that no merger would be appropriate in a straightforward fashion. I think instead effort should be put into reworking the spaceworthiness article, which, as I say above, is more about an engineering topic than the (primarily) American regulatory concept this article contemplates. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 02:50, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You have not convinced me that spaceworthiness is an "engineering topic" while human-rating is "primarily an American regulatory concept"; there is no "regulatory concept" yet, and they are both the same "engineering topic." Airworthiness is regulated by governmental authorities such as the Federal Aviation Administration, or its European counterpart, the EASA. These agencies issue certificates, without which private companies (airlines) are not permitted to operate new aircraft, nor without the proper maintenance. Despite the fact NASA is a government agency, it does  not operate like this; it is the customer (like the airline) which operates the spacecraft, and thus would be "regulating itself", which makes no sense. It is issuing human-rating engineering requirements for the vehicles it is effectively purchasing (or otherwise sponsoring} for operation; it's not regulating anyone in the same sense as the FAA or EASA. JustinTime55 (talk) 22:16, 10 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Have you read this article? It solely contemplates a regulatory concept. As you say, airworthiness is regulated by governmental authorities: they do so through, among other things, a framework called airworthiness directives. There is no need to complicate the matter with the minutiae of how NASA or other agencies may operate in practice: The principles are the same. NASA is not about to operate a piece of equipment that it has not determined to be spaceworthy, and the way it does this is through a human-rating certification. I don't quite understand your objection to the idea of a government agency regulating itself. This is commonplace. To put it more simply, a certificate is not an engineering concept: a piece of well-designed equipment will probably be airworthy or spaceworthy, but until it has gone through a regulatory process to prove this to the correct agency, the agency will not allow it to be operated. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 22:47, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Do not merge. Just my 2¢: Sea/Air/Space-worthiness have nothing to do with Man-Worthy. Sea = must not founder or, in the case of ballast, not take on more water than by design. Air = must perform atmospheric flight maneuvers as design intended (ex: controlled pitch, roll, yaw, ascent, descent). Space = must perform as design intended in the absence of atmosphere, gravity, pressure, extreme temp fluctuations, radiation, etc... Man/Human-Worthy is just a qualifier to denote safe usage of said design in ex: transporting a person. Man-Worthy is not related to the 'worthiness' of it being used successfully in its designed 'medium' of Sea/Air/Space... If you are 'unhappy' with the state of the article, put some of that energy you're using to argue your opinion to finding facts that support the merge, and when you find you can't find facts that support your stance, please, add the ones you do find to the article anyway, as they surely will be beneficial to the Spaceworthiness page. Shaggygoblin (talk) 13:09, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Probability
This makes no sense:


 * The NASA CCP human-rating standards require that the probability of a loss on ascent is no more than 1 in 500, and that the probability of a loss on descent is no more than 1 in 500. The overall mission loss risk, which includes vehicle risk from micrometeorites and orbital debris while in orbit for up to 210 days, is required to be no more than 1 in 270

If the chance of fail is 1/500 on the way up, and 1/500 on the way down, then the chance of fail on up or down is ~1/250, and certainly greater than 1/270 William M. Connolley (talk) 22:19, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

You cannot just exclude every other risk during the mission, and just count ascent ans descent for the total. also, no more that 1/500 is not "equal to 1/500". your understanding of this is flawed. 89.8.126.191 (talk) 10:56, 10 December 2020 (UTC)