Orbital insertion should be routine enough that the computer can do it.

But yeah, where’s the manual over-ride?

The first test flight of the Crew Dragon sent a mannequin to the ISS, where it docked perfectly. Here’s an ISS crew member snapping publicity photos for SpaceX:(StarMannequin to the left). Thus, Demo-1 proved conclusively that the Crew Dragon doesn’t need a crew, just a cargo of human flesh.

Considering all that, I guess Bob N’ Doug were to prove that human flesh could be delivered to ISS aboard a Dragon. And then SpaceX Commuter lines would be open for business.

I think you’re setting the bar too high, judging the Crew Dragon by the standards of “a true man-machine symbiosis capable of exploring the solar system”. That isn’t what it’s for, it’s just a commuter bus to schlep humans to ISS. That’s the contract Musk signed with NASA, and I expect he’ll deliver.

To be fair, here’s the interior of the competition, a Boeing “Starliner”:

OMG, is that a fire extinguisher I see? And looks like another touch screen bank.

Just had a thought: Maybe NASA mandated the touch screen interface, and they’re mandating a common user interface? That would make a hell of a lot of sense, allowing astronauts to receive basic training on a generic spacecraft interface.

I would expect SpaceX and Boeing to bid on the eventual Boots Back On The Moon Again Tour(tm) using more sophisticated designs based on the chassis they’re currently testing. Makes sense, improves reliability and keeps costs down to not start from scratch every time you define a new space mission. The Crew Dragon is derived from the cargo model, and the next one might come closer to satisfying your (our) hunger for a “a true man-machine symbiosis capable of exploring the solar system”. Patience.

I hate to flog a dead horse, but I believe these are very serious design issues and we are going astray here. I’ve always heard the whole purpose of a manned space program was to handle unanticipated emergencies (and opportunities!) by having humans aboard, whether they were pilots, mechanics, scientists…or warriors.

If the Spacex is just an automated cattle car, a delivery shuttle and life support for inert slabs of human flesh, then we are doing little to build up a true man-machine symbiosis capable of exploring the solar system.

I’ll bet there isn’t a fire extinguisher, screwdriver or a flashlight in that sleek, modernistic, IKEA-designed cabin. Its nothing but pretty Norwegian Wood interior decoration for the paying passengers and the travel brochure.

Bf 109G cockpit

I come back to the fact that the Dragon is an automated commuter bus, and really doesn’t need to be flown at all. I’d wager the displays mostly show status information, with few actual controls. A closeup of the hardware panel below the displays shows mostly indicator lights that probably back up the flat panels, like “Deorbit burn”; the most critical info.

Come to think of it, the Tesla has an “autopilot” mode that does a lot of the work of driving. If Tesla made a bus, it would look a lot like a Crew Dragon.

This new type of control system may be justified from an purely engineering point of view, it may even be superior, but it no longer takes advantage of the long lifetime of physical experience and training pilots already have in them the day they enter astronaut school. When a jammed thruster sent a Gemini capsule into uncontrollable 3-axis spins, it was Neil Armstrong’s hands and ear canals that brought it under control, not frantic button and mouse pushing. Operating any machine relies on physical and manual skills picked up by long real-life experience, then refined on endless hours in a dedicated flight simulator. This is what is really meant by seat-of-the-pants flying. When an analog system undergoes failure, the body and brain adjust, adapt, recover. When a screen goes dark, the result is just instant, total disorientation. It may only be temporary,
but for a time you are helpless.

A purely digital user interface, even when working perfectly, does not take advantage of all that prior experience. Sure, you can probably control a bicycle with a keypad, too, but you’d have to learn to keep it rolling upright all over again, and you’d never be any good at it. We are monkeys, and we use, and coordinate, our hands and eyes and our perception of the gravity field when we climb trees. Its not a logical process at all.

You can achieve a lot of efficiencies with a highly specialized machine.

The suits are lightweight, I think, because they re “launch and entry” suits serving a single purpose: To be worn inside a pressurized cabin, providing protection for a short period in event of a catastrophic loss of cabin pressure. The design margins can be a lot thinner, literally, than an EVA or lunar surface suit. This is a shuttle LES:
Not quite so stylish, but then NASA didn’t use the same design firm as designed the Tesla.

Speaking of commercial design, after poking around images of the cabin, it really seems like designers were given the mission to impress people, and convey “that 21st century look”. Which one of these is a Dragon, and which a Tesla:

Which is the long way round to those flat panel displays.

I agree with your uneasiness about those panels being a single point of failure. Or three. Crack a panel or fry the electronics, and you take out 1/3 of the capsule’s instrumentation and controls. OTOH, I’ll bet there’s an emergency mode to reconfigure the remaining displays to take over the essential part of a busted panel. Might even be a spare panel in one of the lockers. Touch screens are double-edged blessing that way.

But they sure are pretty, aren’t they?

The other mitigating factor, I think, is that this minivan is highly automated. It’s derived from a cargo capsule that can make it to the station on its own, where the final docking is handled by a manipulator arm. The crewed version does allow the pilot to fly it in, but I looked and I looked, and never spotted the joystick or translation controller. It probably implements those as graphics on the touchscreen, so the pilot flies the Dragon by pushing buttons, like a Federation starship. If they aren’t available, there’s always the robot arm.

Bottom line, I think there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors to the Dragon, a lot of features driven more by marketing and design than by engineering necessity. Everything’s stylish, in an Elon Musk sort of way. The Dragon’s a Tesla for space.