SpaceX (general discussion)

[cluttonfred]

On U.S. government spending....

According to this 2013 infographic from JPL, the NASA budget represents about 0.5% of the U.S. federal budget. Could they spend it more wisely and more effectively? Absolutely. But, as has been said, they often don't get to decide themselves because it's all about what the higher ups and Congress will approve, not always what makes the most sense.

For context, check out these infographics on the 2013 and 2015 U.S. federal budgets. These numbers track with the 0.5% number from JPL. What's really striking is that over 60% of the federal budget is made up of fixed costs, mostly Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Half of the rest goes to the military, and everything else the government does comes out of the other half.

In other words, if you could save just 1% off the fixed costs, about 0.6% of the total budget, you'd already pay for NASA. Want to see human colonization of Mars and beyond? Support medical reforms.

 

[sferrin]

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.

True. NASA gets their marching orders from Congress (to a degree).

 

[flanker]

While weather reports are 90% go, it doesnt look good for a launch today. Still very large winds at altitude.

 

[sferrin]

While weather reports are 90% go, it doesnt look good for a launch today. Still very large winds at altitude.

:'( Still crossing my fingers though.

 

[sferrin]

So close. . .

 

[merriman]

color bars. Not good. A three-engine landing burn. Wow! Film at Eleven!

David

 

[flanker]

Dont know for sure anything just yet. Some very very very low probability rumors that it succeed. Off-center does not mean it failed.

EDIT: Clean sep, looked great. Main mission complete now.

 

[sferrin]

Dont know for sure anything just yet. Some very very very low probability rumors that it succeed. Off-center does not mean it failed.

No but failure of the camera suggests it probably did. (Explosions and cameras don't get along well most of the time.)

 

[flanker]

No, no it does not. JASON-3 camera cut out too and that wasnt because it got killed, according to the guy that is doing the webcasts it was because of the vibrations. This one was twice as long out so even worse connection.

EDIT:

#Falcon9 booster did not survive landing, confirmed by #SpaceX. #SES9

https://twitter.com/MatthewBTravis/status/705908015711518720

 

[merriman]

This is a nail-biter! SpaceX web-cast just signed off without ANY booster recovery status. Nuts! Not good!

Yes! The money's safe (old Alien movie line); primary mission completed successfully. Awaiting word to see if SpaceX gets to eat the cake too.

David

 

[flanker]

Rocket landed hard on the droneship. Didn't expect this one to work (v hot reentry), but next flight has a good chance.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/705917924972736512

Next one is CRS-8, RTLS and should have a long boostback. Aimed for 30'th march, as of now.

 

[compton_effect]

Whelp. It bounced. That it handled the high g-loading during the braking burn is impressive enough.
Primary mission was textbook - so nicely done it will probably get boring.
And we all knew the landing was a long shot.

That it reached the barge and bounced on the first time - with a such a radical flight profile?

That's impressive - the amount of data gathered is priceless.

 

[Michel Van]

It's sad that ship "Just Read the Instructions" got hit again by first stage...

Next chance for ten land landing is with CRS-8, CRS-9, CRS-10, CRS-11, DragonLab 1 and DragonV2 also Falcon heavy in 2016
for rest over 14 ship landing attempts for 2016
means "Of Course I Still Love You" and "Just Read the Instructions" will be hit hard this year ...

 

[flanker]

It was "Of course i still love you" ASDS which is based in Florida, not "Just read the instructions" which is based on west-coast and had its first mission with JASON-3. You are confusing with the original, Marmac 300, JRTI.

Your launch list is a bit faulty too. There is no evidence that DragonLab will launch this year for instance. Not to mention barge will be used for GTO missions, not LEO missions. And they most certainly wont do 14 GTO missions this year.

 

[Michel Van]

It was "Of course i still love you" ASDS which is based in Florida, not "Just read the instructions" which is based on west-coast and had its first mission with JASON-3. You are confusing with the original, Marmac 300, JRTI.

Your launch list is a bit faulty too. There is no evidence that DragonLab will launch this year for instance. Not to mention barge will be used for GTO missions, not LEO missions. And they most certainly wont do 14 GTO missions this year.

my source is german Wikipedia :

On GTO the Falcon 9 has to make landing on Drone ship. it use too much fuel for a return to land landing.
The LEO mission left Falcon 9 with suffice fuel reserve for land landing.
Also the booster for Falcon heavy, while core stage has to land on Drone ship, it simply to far for land landing.
and the Polar orbit mission there will be Land landing at Vandenberg AFB, but some launch here need Drone ship landing.

 

[flanker]

You are telling me things i already know.

 

[Grey Havoc]

This could put a spanner in the works: http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/03/senator-asks-pentagon-to-investigate-troubling-launch-contracts/

 

[merriman]

This could put a spanner in the works: http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/03/senator-asks-pentagon-to-investigate-troubling-launch-contracts/

Bad day for ULA. Crony capitalism personified.

Wonder if Tobey is looking for a gig at SpaceX? Aerojet-Rocketdyne must be livid.

David

 

[sferrin]

This could put a spanner in the works: http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/03/senator-asks-pentagon-to-investigate-troubling-launch-contracts/

Not for SpaceX. Thing is, ULA has the smarts and resources to compete with SpaceX but it would require a cultural shift.

 

[flanker]

Wonder if Tobey is looking for a gig at SpaceX? Aerojet-Rocketdyne must be livid.

David

Full transcript here; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MTGfXjnFPKbd59uP0GaCiq0A6TO8FlbK9CrPtZO6LVs/edit

I haven't read the whole thing but reading bits here and there it is just hilariously unprofessional in every way possible. Never mind SpaceX comments for a second, but his comments regarding Aerojet and BO/Jeff is just... wtf man. Or revealing outright real reason behind not bidding on GPS competition etc. There must have been a dozen ULA lawyers getting heart attack simultaneously reading/hearing those.

And it is obvious the old guard is still unable to understand how SpaceX manages to build and launch as cheap as they do, which is why they continue to make dumb comments like these;

So are you skeptical that they can make a profit off of their launches?

I know he’s not making a profit. He’s plowing through all the people’s money right now. NASA gave him four billion dollars to develop the Falcon 9, so he’s definitely not. At 60 million dollars a launch, he’s spending a whole lot more than that. Every time you watch a Falcon 9 launch, he’s probably losing quarter of a billion dollars or something like that.

Sure sure, keep living in that denial. And as far as i remember NASA funded F9 with like ~330milion USD (for the original v1.0, whether later revisions has been 100% out of SpaceX's pocket is unclear) which is pennies all things considered.

 

[sferrin]

SpaceX just launched. Going to try for a barge landing.

 

[sferrin]

Reentry burn just started.

 

[sferrin]

YEAH!!!!!!!!!

 

[Grey Havoc]

The Falcon has landed.

 

[sferrin]

They might want to make the pad a tad bigger. I wonder if they monitor the relative position of the rocket and barge and roll the rocket for best leg position for stability. ???

 

[fredymac]

I wonder if the barge has active roll/pitch dampeners on it? Any larger pitch amplitude and it might affect landing forces.

 

[sferrin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN3CSgNbf8Y

 

[Gildasd]

I wonder if the barge has active roll/pitch dampeners on it? Any larger pitch amplitude and it might affect landing forces.

The other barge has, no idea if they are identical or not.

 

[sferrin]

I wonder if the barge has active roll/pitch dampeners on it? Any larger pitch amplitude and it might affect landing forces.

The other barge has, no idea if they are identical or not.

Barge is still pitching around quite a bit in the video. I guess there are limits to the motion they can eliminate.

HD of the landing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8y6nANi32U&nohtml5=False

 

[merriman]

gas that thing up and do it again!

Elon Musk, the Hank Rearden of rockets

David

 

[TomS]

gas that thing up and do it again!

Elon Musk, the Hank Rearden of rockets

David

Yeah, they decided not to refly the first Falcon 9 that they recovered but I think they'll have to refly this one to make a point (and to answer Blue Origin's recent flights, even though those were not orbital).

 

[Michel Van]

Congratulation SpaceX

i hear already the whine and howling coming from Arianespace and ULA HQ...

 

[flanker]

gas that thing up and do it again!

Elon Musk, the Hank Rearden of rockets

David

Yeah, they decided not to refly the first Falcon 9 that they recovered but I think they'll have to refly this one to make a point (and to answer Blue Origin's recent flights, even though those were not orbital).

Elon doesnt care about answering BO because BO is irrelevant to what SpaceX is doing. During the post launch conference Elon said they will static test fire the booster 10 times on Pad 39A and relaunch it in June.

 

[Moose]

I wonder if the barge has active roll/pitch dampeners on it? Any larger pitch amplitude and it might affect landing forces.

The other barge has, no idea if they are identical or not.

Barge is still pitching around quite a bit in the video. I guess there are limits to the motion they can eliminate.

HD of the landing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8y6nANi32U&nohtml5=False

Given that they're using a second-hand dry cargo barge with some thrusters bolted on, it's doing pretty well. Getting greater stability would require divorcing the deck's movement from the surface wave action, either with submerged hulls or stilts down to the sea bed.

 

[CiTrus90]

It's an amazing feat, and the SpaceX team must be really proud of what they have been able to achieve!

This said, though, I still think the real breakthrough in space launches will come only when a mass-driver will be built and used.

Regards.

 

[Orionblamblam]

gas that thing up and do it again!

The eventual goal is to gas the thing up *at* *sea* and launch it back to Canaveral, so the barge could remain at sea. I'd think, in that case, it might be better to replace the small barge with a larger one built atop something like a second-hand container ship. Larger, more stable; with the ability to take a whole lot of payload, it could be heavily armored so it could shrug off a direct hit from an errant rocket. Onboard RP storage and LOX generation capability.

Imagine if Musk had had the political clout to buy, say, the USS Enterprise for a nominal $1, and use *that* as the landing pad...

 

[sferrin]

Now yer talkin'

 

[Moose]

Heh, there's a lot more hurdles to anyone buying Big E than just a pricetag. But it will certainly be interesting to see what direction the drone ships evolve in.

 

[sferrin]

Heh, there's a lot more hurdles to anyone buying Big E than just a pricetag. But it will certainly be interesting to see what direction the drone ships evolve in.

Those big container ships are relatively inexpensive. Maybe they could customize one of those. Or do like Sea Launch with the advantage that they could land near the ship (I don't think you'd want to land ON the ship just in case there was a problem).

 

[sferrin]

https://youtu.be/TGXUW_n8-TM

That little slide there at the end could have been disastrous. I wonder if there's a way to improve "grip". On second thought maybe that slide reduces the chances of it tipping over.