SpaceX (general discussion)

[flanker]

They would have proved first stage reusability through all the flight profiles.

Not really no. They would have proven the ability to land it - reusing a stage is an entirely different story. I am still having hard time to believe that Chris isn't at fault here, maybe he got it from the webcast or something, i dont know. Obviously i would love to be proven wrong but landing with multiple engines is radically different from landing on one having a 30 second burn which is difficult enough obviously. Oh well, we shall see.

PS: They have pulled OG2 core engines out and plan on using some of them on future missions;

The stage is currently housed at the new HIF at 39A, albeit now with its aft end somewhat dismantled for inspections along with – according to sources – some “potential” harvesting for future vehicles – which would play into the goal of initial reusability of flown hardware.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/02/spacex-falcon-9-static-fire-ahead-ses-9-launch/

 

[sferrin]

Just gone live.

 

[TomS]

Just gone live.

Are you seeing just the SpaceX logo and an animation of stars? Because that's all I've got on both the main feed and the "technical webcast"

Edit: Never mind, they just went live.

 

[sferrin]

@#$^@$%^!!!!!!

 

[flanker]

I swear this is bloody hilarious. No issues whatsoever with the rocket or ground systems, 7 seconds past the previous hold time - some a-hole decides it is a good idea to travel into the keep out zone with a bloody ship. ;D

 

[merriman]

How long can they hold before things start freezing up?

 

[sferrin]

I swear this is bloody hilarious. No issues whatsoever with the rocket or ground systems, 7 seconds past the previous hold time - some a-hole decides it is a good idea to travel into the keep out zone with a bloody ship. ;D

Hope they fine them within an inch of their fiscal lives. I wonder how many minutes before there is no longer enough fuel onboard to complete the landing.

 

[sferrin]

:'( :'(

 

[flanker]

?? Sferrin. Time reset - all good. What a thriller.

 

[sferrin]

?? Sferrin. Time reset - all good. What a thriller.

They said "29th" figured they'd bumped it to tomorrow but then times zones. . . I hope they still have enough O2 on board to do the landing. :-\

 

[flanker]

Well they are obviously continuing to feed it and "top it off" but yeah, it is certainly a challenge.

 

[sferrin]

Well they are obviously continuing to feed it and "top it off" but yeah, it is certainly a challenge.

Hopefully they're topping it off. Thought I'd heard them shutting the lines down.

 

[sferrin]

SMH.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Well, poop. Flashing back to the early 80's, me sitting on my ass in front of the TV waiting for a Shuttle launch, about to pop out of my skin when the SSME's start up... and promptly shut down.

 

[sferrin]

Scrubbed.

 

[flanker]

I am not mad or annoyed or anything, just amazed. They had everything against them lol. Aaaand in the end the issue of the shutdown was because of the damn boat:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/704102461766676481

I am still chuckling for myself.

 

[sferrin]

I am not mad or annoyed or anything, just amazed. They had everything against them lol. Aaaand in the end the issue of the shutdown was because of the damn boat:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/704102461766676481

I am still chuckling for myself.

Just impatient I guess. I want to see them land on a barge. :-[ These guys (Space X, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic) are all making progress. NASA? Well, they're going to spend the next decade or two designing a behemoth that might get launched once a year. Maybe. I fully expect SpaceX to leave SLS in the dust.

 

[Arian]

These guys (Space X, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic) are all making progress. NASA? Well, they're going to spend the next decade or two designing a behemoth that might get launched once a year. Maybe. I fully expect SpaceX to leave SLS in the dust.

That's the job of NASA. If SLS were to be a viable commercial program, it would have been done by SpaceX or ULA. It's precisely's NASA's job to invest money in projects which otherwise would not be done by private companies. If SLS remains on schedule for 2018 first launch, it will have SpaceX's lunch. And SLS is in a totally different class from Falcon Heavy anyway. Not that spaceX isn't impressive, but these are apples and oranges.

 

[merriman]

No. It's NASA's job to investigate the many a varied problems of aerospace travel; to do the RESEARCH private industry can not afford to do -- on behalf of the private aerospace companies/American people.

NASA was supposed to be this place where rocket-scientist went to conduct scientific research. It got derailed the moment the commie's put a man in space. NASA's been a political play-thing ever since.

And it's a govenment employer. The kind of environment that hires conservative, life-long emploee's -- the type of guys who play it safe, not agresively. Fine for wind-tunnel operators. Not fine if you're looking to develop heavy weight launchers that won't be throw-backs to ammunition type vehicles.

It's not supposed to be a frig'n travel agency.

NASA was supposed to be the NACA of the space-age.

NASA's supposed to gather real-world vehicle and engine data. The only thing this institution should fly are X-craft, dammit!

David

 

[sferrin]

"A fuel problem forced the sudden delay, following a postponement -- known as a hold -- earlier in the evening due to a ship that ventured into the waters off Cape Canaveral, Florida, said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

"Launch aborted on low thrust alarm. Rising oxygen temps due to hold for boat and helium bubble triggered alarm," Musk said on Twitter."

Yep. Boat owner should be fined. That's a lot of money down the drain because somebody couldn't be bothered to pay attention to where they were going.

 

[Arian]

No. It's NASA's job to investigate the many a varied problems of aerospace travel; to do the RESEARCH private industry can not afford to do -- on behalf of the private aerospace companies/American people.

NASA was supposed to be this place where rocket-scientist went to conduct scientific research. It got derailed the moment the commie's put a man in space. NASA's been a political play-thing ever since.

And it's a govenment employer. The kind of environment that hires conservative, life-long emploee's -- the type of guys who play it safe, not agresively. Fine for wind-tunnel operators. Not fine if you're looking to develop heavy weight launchers that won't be throw-backs to ammunition type vehicles.

It's not supposed to be a frig'n travel agency.

NASA was supposed to be the NACA of the space-age.

NASA's supposed to gather real-world vehicle and engine data. The only thing this institution should fly are X-craft, dammit!

David

We're saying the same thing. But things like sending people to Mars (or the moon) falls under basic research and has little if any commercial application. And people who do basic research, scientists etc, are generally very conservative low-risk people, and people who want and need "life-long" employment to get that sort of work done. So either way it seems to me that this is NASA's job, not SpaceX or ULA's job. Which is reflected in the very different types or rockets and missions they are focusing on. SLS is more than twice as capable as Falcon Heavy, and isn't something that would be useful for any commercial purposes. Its only reason for existence is inter-planetary travel. SpaceX may have ambitions on that too, but I'd bet anything that NASA is going to beat them to Mars by a decade.

 

[sferrin]

No. It's NASA's job to investigate the many a varied problems of aerospace travel; to do the RESEARCH private industry can not afford to do -- on behalf of the private aerospace companies/American people.

NASA was supposed to be this place where rocket-scientist went to conduct scientific research. It got derailed the moment the commie's put a man in space. NASA's been a political play-thing ever since.

And it's a govenment employer. The kind of environment that hires conservative, life-long emploee's -- the type of guys who play it safe, not agresively. Fine for wind-tunnel operators. Not fine if you're looking to develop heavy weight launchers that won't be throw-backs to ammunition type vehicles.

It's not supposed to be a frig'n travel agency.

NASA was supposed to be the NACA of the space-age.

NASA's supposed to gather real-world vehicle and engine data. The only thing this institution should fly are X-craft, dammit!

David

We're saying the same thing. But things like sending people to Mars (or the moon) falls under basic research and has little if any commercial application. And people who do basic research, scientists etc, are generally very conservative low-risk people, and people who want and need "life-long" employment to get that sort of work done.

Tell that to the Apollo and X-15 people.

 

[merriman]

For nearly three decades the otherwise conservative government agency, NASA, had 'go fever'. A headlong, risk taking effort to move the technological ball ahead of the Soviet's.

Like war, the space-race worked to motivate government employees to take risks in a competitive spirit.

Survival, be it national or personal, is a powerful catalyst.

However, today, in the absence of a space race lethargy has set in over at NASA. The pace slowed by both risk adverse institutional thinking, and inconsistent and niggardly funding. Today institutionally sanctioned job security (safety!) trumps radical efforts to advance the state-of-the-art. That's why NASA has reverted (SLS) back to the ammunition-age of rocketry. And to what end? Job security; a 'reason' for NASA's existence. Same old, same old.

Let the profit motivated private sector determine if there is a buck to be made by going to the moon (again!) or Mars. If they do, they'll find a way to get there. And they'll do so exploiting the engines, structures, and orbital mechanics worked out by NASA. In the private sector money is the catalyst. Let those rockets ride on investor dollars. Stop with the government rockets shot off to who knows where using my tax dollars as reaction mass.

David

 

[Arian]

For nearly three decades the otherwise conservative government agency, NASA, had 'go fever'. A headlong, risk taking effort to move the technological ball ahead of the Soviet's.

Like war, the space-race worked to motivate government employees to take risks in a competitive spirit.

Survival, be it national or personal, is a powerful catalyst.

However, today, in the absence of a space race lethargy has set in over at NASA. The pace slowed by both risk adverse institutional thinking, and inconsistent and niggardly funding. Today institutionally sanctioned job security (safety!) trumps radical efforts to advance the state-of-the-art. That's why NASA has reverted (SLS) back to the ammunition-age of rocketry. And to what end? Job security; a 'reason' for NASA's existence. Same old, same old.

Let the profit motivated private sector determine if there is a buck to be made by going to the moon (again!) or Mars. If they do, they'll find a way to get there. And they'll do so exploiting the engines, structures, and orbital mechanics worked out by NASA. In the private sector money is the catalyst. Let those rockets ride on investor dollars. Stop with the government rockets shot off to who knows where using my tax dollars as reaction mass.

David

Yes, in the absence of a space race, things slow down because there isn't a motivation for them. But that's neither here nor there. It's not very relevant to the discussion. I agree with you that there is little risk taking going on. But that's the nature of the beast. Basic research is about the least risk-taking endeavor there is, and the people who do it are naturally very risk averse people.

Your second statement, however, contradicts your previous statement. You first said that the job of NASA is to do the sort of research that private companies do not want to do (either because its too expensive, or because they see no value in it). Now you're saying, let the private companies determine what should be done. These are contradictory requirements.

There is no value in going to the moon, or mars. I personally think its a waste of money either way, but what I think doesn't matter. It's still NASA's job to do these sort of missions, if we (we as a country) decide that's what we want to do. Private companies aren't going to do it. As for your criticism of SLS, where is the alternative equally capable system designed by private companies? Nowhere. Because its a system which has no other purpose other than inter-planetary travel, which is not going to happen outside of NASA.

Tell that to the Apollo and X-15 people.

Tell them what? You're talking about the astronauts and pilots? Those are obviously risk-seeking people. But to get a ride on a spacecraft or X-15, it took decades of research by people who were diametrically the opposite of them. Plus there was the space-race thing going on which gave impetus to be more risk-taking in projects. In either case, that doesn't change the fact that no one else is interested in doing this stuff outside of NASA, and NASA is still doing it better than everyone else.

 

[sferrin]

Tell them what? You're talking about the astronauts and pilots? Those are obviously risk-seeking people. But to get a ride on a spacecraft or X-15, it took decades of research by people who were diametrically the opposite of them.

"Decades"?

 

[fredymac]

The SLS architecture is rendered obsolete if in-orbit fuel depots are established. These depots could be orbited and then fueled by Falcon Heavy class launchers. The fuel depot idea has been around for a long time but held back by safety concerns. There is some research on the ISS which is testing fuel transfers in space so perhaps these concerns might be resolved.

The whole notion of manned planetary expeditions using Apollo style architecture (which SLS represents) is financially nonviable. The problem with SLS is that it costs so much it prohibits the very missions it is supposed to enable. I will not be surprised if a second “Augustine Commission” eventually terminates the program after a few test flights.

The other problem has to do with NASA’s bureaucratic culture. The overhead, G&A rates, and staffing levels loaded onto NASA programs make them extremely expensive (look at the current cost of the James Webb Space Telescope). This problem is basically intractable since it is inherent in the NASA DNA. The usual solution is wholesale replacement of the managerial strata all the way down to technical leads. It would be interesting to test the applicability of the DARPA model of minimal bureaucracy to large scale projects. With interconnected networks allowing instant and total oversight, is it still necessary to have large, permanent government agencies?

 

[sferrin]

Any word? There was talk they could make another attempt as early as today but then nothing else.

 

[Hobbes]

The webcast is counting down for a launch later today (around midnight GMT), now at T-10 hours.

 

[sferrin]

The webcast is counting down for a launch later today (around midnight GMT), now at T-10 hours.

Cool. (That bit is blocked out here.) I wish them well. Can't wait to see them make that landing attempt. If they stick this one that should really be a boost considering it's even more difficult than what they've been trying.

 

[flanker]

The SES-9 drama is ongoing, todays attempt is scrubbed due to 70m/s winds;

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/704770247769722880

 

[Arian]

make them extremely expensive (look at the current cost of the James Webb Space Telescope).

As compared to what? That's the real issue. Yes they are expensive, but they are also done by NASA because they are so expensive that no one else will do them. So its a circular argument.

 

[sferrin]

make them extremely expensive (look at the current cost of the James Webb Space Telescope).

As compared to what? That's the real issue. Yes they are expensive, but they are also done by NASA because they are so expensive that no one else will do them. So its a circular argument.

Maybe with space telescopes - for now. Launch vehicles? Nope. It won't be long before commercial entities, and their launchers, are putting up astronauts far more often than NASA.

 

[merriman]

make them extremely expensive (look at the current cost of the James Webb Space Telescope).

As compared to what? That's the real issue. Yes they are expensive, but they are also done by NASA because they are so expensive that no one else will do them. So its a circular argument.

I did not authorize NASA to fling hardware to the planets. I want NASA to get its head out of the stars (doing so on my back) and to stick with technology refinement. If someone wants to count the rings of a gas-giant, let them foot the bill and/or entice other like minded people to build the probe and hire a ride from SpaceX or the like. If this means changing the NASA charter, so be it.

NASA is not supposed to be an unstoppable juggernaut looking for missions for old-style rockets yet to be built (the SLS designed to dump re-usable engines into the Atlantic). It's time for we voters to start questioning the activities of this Managers wet-dream and haul back on the reins.

Let the commercial launch businesses take it from here. NASA, you had your day ... and thanks for all the fish.

David

 

[Hobbes]

If someone wants to count the rings of a gas-giant, let them foot the bill

I disagree. A world where NASA limits itself to aeronautical research is a far poorer world. The other planets in our solar system would still be tiny dots in a telescope rather than treasure troves of information. We'd know far less about our origins and how the universe works than we do now. You'd have missed out on the massive advances to society that came from the Apollo project.
If you're consistent, you'd also have to stop spending in other areas of research. No more particle physics beyond simple cyclotrons. No more large astronomical observatories.
Expensive research with no immediate return is exactly what governments should do.

 

[merriman]

Expensive research with no return is a waste of money. I invite anyone with the want and means to 'explore' to explore away, and God speed. Just don't do it on my dime.

Curiosity and knowledge seeking has to linkage to Federal spending. Government should do three things: raise an Army, protect the boarders, and insure interstate commerce. That's about it. I put NASA in the 'raise an Army' category. But, today, NASA is way out of hand.

David

 

[Hobbes]

So you'd advocate a return to 15th century society? Because that's what a world without government-funded research would look like. 'No research without immediate applications' is extraordinarily shortsighted.
One example: it took 20 years for the internet to become commercially viable. With your favored policy in place, we wouldn't be talking right now.

 

[TomS]

It's an interesting perspective, but not one shared by most Americans. Expeditions of exploration have been part of the government's mission since the founding of the nation. So has hte development of scientific knowledge.

 

[sferrin]

So you'd advocate a return to 15th century society? Because that's what a world without government-funded research would look like. 'No research without immediate applications' is extraordinarily shortsighted.
One example: it took 20 years for the internet to become commercially viable. With your favored policy in place, we wouldn't be talking right now.

The internet (ARPAnet) was a military program so yeah, it would still be a go. Same with GPS. While I'm not quite with Merriman on this, I do think NASA is squandering a lot of money. If they're going to build SLS at least have a friggin' plan. They don't even have any payloads lined up for it.

 

[flanker]

Maybe with space telescopes - for now. Launch vehicles? Nope. It won't be long before commercial entities, and their launchers, are putting up astronauts far more often than NASA.

To where? Don't say Bigelow because until that company gets a new CEO and management it is a complete and utter mess.

If they're going to build SLS at least have a friggin' plan. They don't even have any payloads lined up for it.

Well, that is hardly NASA's fault is it now? Congress wants a big rocket to have something to show, they are not interested in funding any actual payloads for it. But we are wildly off topic now.

 

[Arian]

Well, that is hardly NASA's fault is it now? Congress...

Agreed. NASA takes the path of least resistance with projects like SLS because Congress (at the behest of an extremely short-sighted public, and even more short-sighted and ignorant politicians) keeps canceling anything that remotely smells of risk. So, they get something totally non-risky.

I get your concerns and sentiment merriman. I really do. But ultimately, you're saying the same thing as me: invest in research that one day might find applications in industry. You only seem to disagree with me as to whether sending rockets to the moon or Mars is part of that mission. Maybe, maybe not. Realistically, these things costs peanuts compared to the rest of the stuff the government wastes money on. $8 billion is what the government spends in a weekend. And few things have given us more return for the buck than NASA and military R&D over the decades.

Anyway, sorry for the off-topic.