GLOVER: We’re going to have an orbital flight test, a test without the crew in it, of each
vehicle, and then we’re going to have the first flight with crew in them, to prove that
these systems are ready to fly people to space.
TRUPATHY: These demonstration missions are important for astronaut safety because, you
know the folks around here that I work with, we all asked ourselves, would we be comfortable
flying our own family on board this vehicle?
And the answer has to be yes, and so because of that we need to make sure we test these
as much as we can.
FERGUSON: Since we’re dealing with a new generation of people who are putting human
space vehicles together again, I think it’s important to impress upon them every day that
there is not a day where their attention can waver.
GOOD: We can test them down here on Earth, we can put them in vacuum chambers and acoustic
chambers and, you know, do thermal tests on them, but there’s nothing like going up
and putting them in the real environment.
VEGA: That will give us a lot of insight on the vehicle performance, the functional systems,
even the abort system will be active on that vehicle.
HOPKINS: That’s why these initial test flights are so important, because you need to see—it’s
not just the hardware—it’s also the software, it’s the people, it’s the procedures,
it’s the whole thing coming together.
WILLIAMS: Boeing’s supposed to land on land, SpaceX is supposed to land in water.
Those are two hugely different environments, so there’s a little bit of interest in the
survival equipment that’s located in the spacecraft as well, where that’s going to
be, how that’s going to work.
LUEDERS: This is a really critical aspect of the NASA job, is to continue to have that
dialogue with the contractors about, well why did you do that, you know why was that
safer?
SIMS: This is someone’s family member, husband, wife, uncle, aunt.
It’s not an option to not be successful.
We have to be successful.
