SpaceX vertical landing attempt on the 16th

Jim_R said:
True. But this mission was originally scheduled for launch in Feb, and all the other slips were for SpaceX issues.
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So? How many people launch homebuilt aircraft on any kind of schedule? And space craft are about ten million times more complex.
 
Dav8or said:
Doesn't Florida have some sizable fresh water lakes? California is much tougher. Closest is Lake Cachuma, but it's a drinking water supply, so I doubt that will be approved. Same for Lake Casitas. Closest agricultural reservoir I can think of off the top of my head is Lake Lopez, but it's pretty small.
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They won't even let you SWIM in Cachuma (although people have been known to fall off my ski boat :dunno:) - can't see them allowing a nasty smelly rocket in there :hairraise:
 
Yep, sure did. Drinking water doesn't always equal "no contact"
 
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JimNtexas said:
Actually, SpaceX is an 'anti-consortium'. Musk brings every single thing that he can into his Hawthorne factory. SpaceX has genetic programming against 'consorting' with anybody if they can possibly avoid it.
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To mix up the vertical integration and the military-industrial consorcium sounds like completely unrelated nonsense to me, if not an attempt to muddy waters.

Fact is, Elon Musk is perfectly willing to plug into the consorcium if it advances his goal of making humans multi-planetary by settling Mars. Back when Obama tried to cancel Ares, he proposed a program, mostly remembered for its hardware sketches of Falcon XX. However, its key point was to make SpaceX subservent to Marshall Center, with MSFC goons driving the "exploration" architecture. Surrendering Ares and relocating government emploees to space tech would let us (that is to say, U.S.) mount meaningful expedition at least.

Note that this continued the full employment at Marshall, only made them do something useful instead of waste they are doing now. In a sensible world, Congress would've come along easily.

In the event, Marshall people were unwilling to let go of their unnecessary and worthless megarocket, and persuaded their pocket Senator, hence the Senate Launch System (SLS). Just like Mike Griffin planned, when he built program so massive that it reconstitutes itself in the face of all cancellation attempts.

As far as ULA goes, what do you think bidding on NRO contracts is except plugging into the military-industrial complex? It matters not if you build your engines yourself to accomplish that.
 
Pete, SpaceX really isn't any sort of "consortium". They are a private company that takes metal and chemicals in to the door of their factory and push rockets out the other side. They don't have the complex web of supplier and partner relationships that characterises a typical defense contractor.

They bid on government launch contracts, and on private sector launches.

It's just ridiculous to compare the SpaceX approach to space vehicle development with that of Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup, etc.

I'm not sure what your point is about SLS. As far as can tell even the guys building it don't really see the point either.

It's easy to see the point of SpaceX. They have a very lean, vertical system for making rockets cheaper and better than anyone else. They launch rockets, they make money. They put the money back into larger and more sophisticated rockets. For which they sell for a profit.

Repeat until Musk leaves Earth for Mars permanently. The stated goal of SpaceX is to facilitate Musk's desire to die on Mars. "But not on impact".
 
JimNtexas said:
It's just ridiculous to compare the SpaceX approach to space vehicle development with that of Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup, etc.
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Really? Why do you say that? Space X builds vehicles to lift stuff into space for the government. If it weren't for the NASA contracts, they would not exist. Space X would be nothing without NASA. Musk would love to have those Defense Department contracts and maybe he will someday, but he needs to prove his company's worth and make the needed backroom "connections" first.

Remember, Werhner Von Braun schemed to get to space on the back of the military. Musk is trying to do the same sort of scheme. He recognizes that governments are the only good, reliable source of venture capital for new unorthodox ideas. Regular investors require a nice payoff in a short time frame. Not conducive to radical ideas, or truly revolutionary concepts.

Having said that, I want to state for the record that I am not entirely against government subsidies, government investment in new tech, or private companies living off government contracts. I also will say that Space X isn't employing any revolutionary ideas. VTOL, reusable spacecraft were envisioned back in the '30s, maybe earlier.

What Elon Musk has been able to do is assemble teams of motivated experts, inspire them to think freely, make full use of the digital revolution and solve the problem from a different perspective. I find Musk personally pretty annoying when I see him in an interview, but wealthy, visionary industrialists, willing to spend their own money if necessary is just what we need right now IMO. We need people willing to build new physical things here in this country again. Dot Com, Pharma and hedge funds only go so far.
 
Dav8or said:
Space X builds vehicles to lift stuff into space for the government. If it weren't for the NASA contracts, they would not exist. Space X would be nothing without NASA.
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By my count, of their first 9 Falcon 9 launches, 1 was effectively a test for themselves, with 4 of the remaining 8 carrying payloads for customers other than NASA or the U.S. government. (One carried 2 payloads, so the government had payloads on 5 of the 8.)

Of the 39 future missions listed on their current manifest, I see only 13 that list NASA or the DOD as customer.

So without NASA or the government as customers their customer base would be reduced by 1/3 (or 1/2 if long term trend is for more government contracts.) At most this might require them to double their launch prices. I believe that such prices still puts them at the low end of current going rates, so would still attract non-government customers.

The numbers and facts don't seem to support your breathless and emotion-laden assertion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_launches
http://www.spacex.com/missions
 
Jim, I agree with your analysis. But let us not overlook some critical facts.

-NASA is the governments space agency up to this point in time and if you want to do space business with the USA you do it through NASA or you don't do it. You might have a launch contract with the Pentagon, or a satellite TV company, but NASA is in the loop.
-Space-X started/competed for awards from NASA by proving it could launch to orbit successfully. I don't feel like doing the search for the articles but I remember NASA holding out the carrot to stimulate the commercial race that Space-X won. In my failing memory there were three competitors that started out.
-All launches so far have used NASA facilities with their preexisting regulatory authority to launch these things. For Space-X to create a new commercial launch facility is gonna cost big bucks and require lots of hoops-jumping. The tree huggers will wait until it is almost complete to then snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I expect to see the EPA, DNR, and myriad other regulatory agencies demanding environmental studies up the ying yang before Elon ever gets to launch from a non US government owned chunk of ground. And as far as aiming a Mach 17 chunk of metal at a landing point within a couple of miles of population - hoo boy. Never underestimate the political power of the tree huggers. And I might speculate that if it suits the likes of the good-old-boys, Boeing, et. al. there will be aid and comfort given to the tree huggers, quietly.
- The biggest problem I foresee is that Elon is engaged in multiple legal and publicity battles with various governmental regulatory agencies - with the partisans (his competition) whispering in the governments ear. This is a time, energy, and money sucking war. The problem with going to war with bureaucrat idiots is that eventually they wear you down to their level of stupidity and then beat you through experience. And be very aware that the actual military officers and NASA people who have the authority to approve/reject this and that, expect to go to work, handsomely paid, for one of the big military-industrial corporations after they put in their 20 years of near starvation wages with the government. They know that will not happen with Elon.

Last comment - I understand that launches are done in perfect weather (up to now) and the booster should return to land in the same conditions. But any commercial trucker has to be able to deliver the cargo, day or night, fair weather or foul, or the customers will not be there. Up till now it was all government/NASA and only 'life or death ' was involved, so launches waited on the weather. In the near future launches will be predicated on something vastly more important the mere life or death - money.

I have no crystal ball. I do, after a long life, have some experience in watching the wondrous workings of government. I may be wrong is some of these off the cuff ruminations - but not by much.
I do wish Elon god speed in his quest to change the nature of the beast known as the military-industrial complex.
Roosevelt could not do it.
Eisenhower could not do it.
Truman could not do it.
Perhaps Elon can :D
 
Russian joke: "United States tested a two stage, dual purpose rocket. While the upper stage delivers payload into orbit, lower stage strikes maritime assets of potential adversary".
 
I had never heard the term "RUD" before and it really makes me laugh.


Me- "damn thing blew up"

Elon Musk - "we experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly"
 
James_Dean said:
I had never heard the term "RUD" before and it really makes me laugh.


Me- "damn thing blew up"

Elon Musk - "we experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly"
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Musk didn't originate the acronym - I know it has been around a while, at least in amateur high power rocketry, where RUD events are are a bit more frequent.
 
That was one thing about model rocketry, you were always torn on whether you wanted it to work or blow up, because when they blew up, it was pretty cool.:lol:
 
@Elonmust:
Next rocket landing on drone ship in 2 to 3 weeks w way more hydraulic fluid. At least it shd explode for a diff reason.
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Also, because Elon Musk has so much free time on his hands he's decided to build a hyperloop test track here in Texas.

He's also starting a Satellite Factory so he can darken the skies with space based internet routers. He wants to do for satellites what he's done for rockets.
 
Henning said:
That was one thing about model rocketry, you were always torn on whether you wanted it to work or blow up, because when they blew up, it was pretty cool.:lol:
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lol that's funny.....and spot on!
 
Henning said:
Blow them up?:confused::rofl::lol:
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Metaphorically, yes.

Look, if not for Musk, Europeans would've built the Ariane 6 with an all-solid first stage. He deserves a monument in Brussels just for preventing that travesty.
 
zaitcev said:
Metaphorically, yes.

Look, if not for Musk, Europeans would've built the Ariane 6 with an all-solid first stage. He deserves a monument in Brussels just for preventing that travesty.
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Oh, no worries, I harbor praise for his initiative and understand what was meant metaphorically, I just though that the literal parallel was too good to pass up.;)

I do think he is misguided with Mars, extremely large space habitats will be a more effective start. It's the asteroid belt we need to get to first.
 
ARFlyer said:
Scrubbed with 2 mins left because of a tracking issue. :(
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Power failure at the Eastern Range tracking radar, but it would have been scrubbed anyway due to the loss of the telemetry radio on the first stage.

Since it was an instantaneous launch window, there is literally zero margin to figure out and fix the problem. They have to launch within seconds of the scheduled launch time.

--Carlos V.
 
A new term that I get to use: Full RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) event.
 
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