[X] My Assistant

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2005/12/..._repo.html#more

Do they actually think they can SELL this? Even to this Congress? (Actually, I don't think they really do.)

[dvandorn]

The problem with giving the crew the *sole* call on aborts, etc., is that even during the pioneering days of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, the spacecraft were so complex that you literally couldn't display status reports on all the systems onboard. There wasn't enough display console space (back in those pre-CRT-display days) to show everything that was happening.

So, the mission control concept evolved not from a distrust of the crew, but from the technical inability for the crew to continually monitor their own systems. It was just way safer to have the ground controllers monitoring systems.

The same is true for maneuvering -- even during Apollo, there was no way their onboard computers could maintain a moment-to-moment projection of the trajectory. (In fact, Apollo planners originally wanted to have a Return to Earth computer program that would allow the crew to plot their own return maneuvers from any point in the mission, but the onboard computer was simply too limited to be able to contain the RTE propgram along with the rest of the required programming.)

You have a very good point about deep space missions, though. When you get more than about a light-minute away, it's nearly impossible for Houston to run the flight real-time. That means that there will have to be complete monitoring of systems onboard (probably automated). It will also be *very* useful for base camp crew to act as "mission control" for EVA astronauts on Mars traverses. Apollo demonstrated the usefulness of having a mission control supoprt EVA astronauts -- I'll bet that the non-EVA crew will perform that function during Martian traverses.

-the other Doug