SpaceX (general discussion)

I don't post much because I am an aerospace and astrospace fan, not an expert. I've enjoyed following discussions by those more knowledgeable than myself on this forum for many years. Sometimes, lately, the politics of the forum members spoils some of the enjoyment of the conversation.
I don't always agree with Elon Musk's political posturing but his accomplishments are amazing. I think maybe he might be an alien .
SNNE, thanks for the levity.
MartinBayer, Dark Sidius and Archibald, you all three seem like very charming and knowledgeable gentlemen...most of the time.
Forgive the rant. (Picks up soap box and shuffles off stage left.)
 
TMA1 said:
The starship and it's first stage are so large that it seems these kinds of maneuvers to land them are quite aggressive. I wonder if as they perfect the landing and capture of starship and first stage if we won't see frequent damage to equipment and outright losses. Then again I am no engineer. To anyone with engineer chops out there, are these vehicles getting to the outer edge of safety in these kinds of landings?
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Wrong kind of engineer, but my immediate reaction to the Super Heavy mission profile is that bringing the booster back to the launch tower doubles the chance of an accident taking out your launch infrastructure and I'm not convinced that's a sensible decision. It's a spectacular decision, but I'm not convinced it's sensible in a pure engineering sense. Better to bring it back to a separate tower that doesn't have multiple functions.
 
TomcatViP said:
@Byeman : I hope that with a deserted launchpad and budget realignment, Kuru spaceport would reconsider their apparent lack of fair play.
At the end, making space more a private endeavor is what their gov, as the EU, have called for. It might not start with their plethora of dubious startups. But we could see that aspiration lifted hosting the best of the best athlete... (as they say).

Probably also that the French, German and other NATO members MoD would be relieved to see SpaceX reliable launchers available also there.
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No, they don't have deserted launch pads
It has nothing to do with FairPlay.
They want an indigenous European launch vehicle and not be dependent on a US company. Especially the French(who own Kourou).
 
Byeman said:
No, they don't have deserted launch pads
It has nothing to do with FairPlay.
They want an indigenous European launch vehicle and not be dependent on a US company. Especially the French(who own Kourou).
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How many launches this year and the one before?
 
What have Space X said about how much time will be saved recovering it in this way vs it coming down on a pad elsewhere?
 
fram2
@framonauts
We are now targeting NET spring 2025 for launch of Fram2, the first human spaceflight to explore Earth from a polar orbit. The new timing allows us to take advantage of more favorable weather conditions required for a safe launch and return to Earth for human spaceflight missions

We continue to train and finalize details around the research we will be flying aboard Dragon.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1846016893766807631
View: https://twitter.com/framonauts/status/1846016893766807631

https://twitter.com/x/status/1846156249743720806
View: https://twitter.com/satofishi/status/1846156249743720806


Will splashdown in the Pacific.
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i like SpaceX sense of humor
GZ8fxNfWEAANQYw
 
DWG said:
Wrong kind of engineer, but my immediate reaction to the Super Heavy mission profile is that bringing the booster back to the launch tower doubles the chance of an accident taking out your launch infrastructure and I'm not convinced that's a sensible decision. It's a spectacular decision, but I'm not convinced it's sensible in a pure engineering sense. Better to bring it back to a separate tower that doesn't have multiple functions.
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LOL, a pure engineering solution it is not, rather it is more of an engineer with an MBA type of solution. Ultimately any business endeavor is a multi-disciplinary thing, Elon definitely has the knack to figure out that kind of optimization which is supremely rare.

P.S. I say this as a semi-hobbyist entrepreneur (BS eng, MS eng, MBA)
 
Byeman said:
A meaningless point.
a. They realized their folly in using Russian supplied Soyuz for medium launches.
b. The fact that Ariane 6 has had development challenges doesn't change their stance and only reinforces it.
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Meaningless? Really? Do you make disdain a style, because It doesn't even hide the fact that you are absolutely refusing to see the stakes at play with an open mind.
Their launch site is bleeding money and, being unused, degrades slowly the competencies that are essential to ensure reliability.
And guess on what point the industry is at war today...
 
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Space X is banging along, keeps banging along and being innovative, keep going Space X. NASA did Webb (I'll give them that one and Webb is excellent) but mainly probes and some rovers now. Starliner and launch vehicles, DONE! And look at Boeing, how sad and what a mess or did I not use the right pronoun.
 
Byeman said:
A meaningless point.
a. They realized their folly in using Russian supplied Soyuz for medium launches.
b. The fact that Ariane 6 has had development challenges doesn't change their stance and only reinforces it.
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Ariane 4 (perhaps the 40 - 42 variants) should have been expanded beyond 2003, rather than the Soyuz option (although in the 2000 - 2008 period Putin was slightly less a PITA than nowadays, albeit political assassinations of opponents and bullying of neighboring nations were already there).
But Arianespace did not wanted to assume two production lines, plus Soyuz was already in the "place" ( = Europe) with Starsem

Starsem - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Note that a Viking production line still exists in India for PSLV. Maybe they could have tapped into it for an extended Ariane 4.
 
mkellytx said:
LOL, a pure engineering solution it is not, rather it is more of an engineer with an MBA type of solution. Ultimately any business endeavor is a multi-disciplinary thing, Elon definitely has the knack to figure out that kind of optimization which is supremely rare.
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It's why I'm increasingly convinced he's a bad engineer on an individual level and a bad model for engineering in general. It's clear from both Space-X and Tesla, and from the Twitter takeover in multiple different ways, that he sees external rules as onerous and to be worked around when they get in the way of his grand vision (or personal ego). You don't want someone who considers spectacle as competitive with safety, and who engages in fits of spite when told 'no', running a safety critical enterprise.
 
, that he sees external rules as onerous and to be worked around when they get in the way of his grand vision (or personal ego).
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Spot on and mind you, that kind of behaviour is actually an ideology. Musk is a good pal of Thiel, Andreessen, and their rotten ideology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_accelerationism

This very horse manure is the root cause of Musk recent turf war with the FAA, whatever devoted fanboys say.

There is a NASAspaceflight member loudly embracing that ideology, and he is the biggest obnoxious asshole in the known Universe and probably beyond.
Worse than Robotbeat and any SpaceX fanboy, which says something. A giant PITA, an insufferable arrogant idiot.
 
TomcatViP said:
Meaningless? Really? Do you make disdain a style, because It doesn't even hide the fact that you are absolutely refusing to see the stakes at play with an open mind.
Their launch site is bleeding money and, being unused, degrades slowly the competencies that are essential to ensure reliability.
And guess on what point the industry is at war today...
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No, you don't understand the industry
a. it is not bleeding money. It is a state owned and run facility. The costs are the same whether they are launching or not.
b. Having another customer isn't going do any for them. An outside customer (not Arianespace or another European entity) is going to bring in their own people and own infrastructure. Like the Russian launched Soyuz at Kourou (actual Russians do the hands-on and not ESA or Arianspace). Another customer will keep some launch "range" people busy but that is very few compared to who does the work on the actual launch vehicles.
c. Arainespace already deals with high turnover. People come from Europe on 3-5 year contracts. They heavily document all the processes and past them on. This works great with comsats because they minimize requirements (to save cost) and hence changes to operations. This is not the case with science spacecraft and why it was so difficult launching JWST on Ariane. It required atypical operations (like extra cleanliness and more preparation time). It didn't follow the cookbook.
d. Just like shuttle and its stand downs, Arianespace will have to find ways to keep its launch teams busy and trained.
E. Money isn't the issue. Europe will always keep an indigenous launch capability. It might not attract commercial payloads like the past but it will be used to launch EU and ESA payloads. It really burns their balls to have to use Falcon 9 for ESA and EC payloads right now during Ariane 6 teething issues and the Russian embargo.


FYI, Arianespace launches Ariane and Vega, Russia launches the Soyuz. CNES owns and manages the launch site and ESA owns the launch pads.
 
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DWG said:
It's why I'm increasingly convinced he's a bad engineer on an individual level and a bad model for engineering in general. It's clear from both Space-X and Tesla, and from the Twitter takeover in multiple different ways, that he sees external rules as onerous and to be worked around when they get in the way of his grand vision (or personal ego). You don't want someone who considers spectacle as competitive with safety, and who engages in fits of spite when told 'no', running a safety critical enterprise.
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Or put more charitably, he doesn’t see rules as immutable laws to be followed blindly, he’s willing to question established orthodoxy.

As far as safety goes, it’s not a binary of safe/unsafe, but a spectrum. Setting aside histrionics and rhetoric, SpaceX has more practical, recent experience in manned spaceflight than everyone else, and has clearly benefited from that, versus the endless simulations and ground testing by some.

zjz said:
Apologies, but am a noob here. ... Do you care to explain the markings? Thank you!
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It’s 3.14, or shorthand for pi.
 
BlueAbyssal said:
Setting aside histrionics and rhetoric, SpaceX has more practical, recent experience in manned spaceflight than everyone else, and has clearly benefited from that, versus the endless simulations and ground testing by some.
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Can't say that, it is ignores the ISS and its operations. Let's me fix that for you "SpaceX has more recent experience in launching crew missions than everyone else."
 
DWG said:
It's why I'm increasingly convinced he's a bad engineer on an individual level and a bad model for engineering in general. It's clear from both Space-X and Tesla, and from the Twitter takeover in multiple different ways, that he sees external rules as onerous and to be worked around when they get in the way of his grand vision (or personal ego). You don't want someone who considers spectacle as competitive with safety, and who engages in fits of spite when told 'no', running a safety critical enterprise.
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EDS is the new TDS.
 
Desertfox said:
From a recent chat with someone with deep ties to the industry, SpaceX has a money-making problem. The only profitable part is Starlink, with SpaceX's biggest customer being itself.
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That is not new information. But also Dragons and Falcons make money on non Starlink launches.
 
BlueAbyssal said:
Or put more charitably, he doesn’t see rules as immutable laws to be followed blindly, he’s willing to question established orthodoxy.
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Well, he's potentially on the hook for 4% of X's global turnover (probably somewhere in excess of $300m) for 'questioning' the EU's Digital Services Act by refusing to comply even when warned that charges were likely. Elon can afford that, but can X? And does he understand the difference between what he wants and what's appropriate for a CEO?
 
DWG said:
Well, he's potentially on the hook for 4% of X's global turnover (probably somewhere in excess of $300m) for 'questioning' the EU's Digital Services Act by refusing to comply even when warned that charges were likely. Elon can afford that, but can X? And does he understand the difference between what he wants and what's appropriate for a CEO?
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You should educate him. He probably doesn't know how money works like you do.
 
Byeman said:
Can't say that, it is ignores the ISS and its operations. Let's me fix that for you "SpaceX has more recent experience in launching crew missions than everyone else."
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That’s what I was thinking of when I wrote it, thank you for the correction.
 

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