Spike Jones <spike66@attglobal.net> writes:
> This is a topic I *almost* stumbled into during my posts
> on privately funded space exploration, for a private
> organization may accept higher levels of risk than
> NASA. Remember that *all* astronauts are volunteers.
I have been thinking about this in my roleplaying scenario. In my
scenario the astronauts are employees, but of course free to turn down
the mission offer (which is hardly a problem; few people with the
skills and education necessary for this kind of mission tends to stay
jobless).
One thing that might be used in the Orpheus mission is not to load the
craft with enough fuel to make an emergency return to Earth from the
asteroid - it has to extract enough water if the crew wants to do
that. This would save a lot of mass and speed up the expedition, but
of course introduces a certain risk if all the measurements of the
asteroid against all expectations are wrong. Then they will have to
wait for fuel supplies from Earth.
Somehow this doesn't sound like anything NASA would ever do.
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