SpaceX's Falcon 1 Destroyed During Maiden Voyage

legolas writes "SpaceX's Falcon 1 is the world's first privately funded satellite launch vehicle. After a successful static engine test on Wednesday, it was launched today. Unfortunately, the rocket was destroyed shortly after launch."

Comments

Early days

[SteelFist]

Sounds a bit like the early days of our space program.

Re:Early days

[susano_otter]

Sounds like the early days of any space program.

I noticed from TFA that SpaceX was touting this as the first totally new rocket design.

On that basis alone I'd expect it to be plagued with problems for several more iterations.

I'm pretty sure originality is not a desireable feature in rocket science.

Re:Early days

[Illbay]

Good point. I was a bit too young to witness the actual event, but the explosion of the Vanguard satellite on its launch pad was ahuge blow to the fledgling U.S. space effort, coming right on the heels of the successful Soviet launch of Sputnik.

Yet ten years later, the U.S. astronauts walked on the moon.

Often great things arise from the ashes of early failure.

Re:Early days

[Anonymous Coward]

i wouldnt put 'well organized' and government in the same sentence... ...perhaps organized...

Re:Early days

[XxtraLarGe]

Yet ten years later, the U.S. astronauts walked on the moon.

Or did they? ;-)

Re:Early days

[kjs3]

Of course, the early days of our space program (and the Soviets) had essentially unlimited money, talent and national will at it's displosal. These guys don't.

Re:Early days

[Basje]

I'm pretty sure originality is not a desireable feature in rocket science.

Of course originality is a desireable feature. I'd go even further and say it is a _required_ feature for any science. Without new and original ideas there's no progress at all.

Re:Early days

[susano_otter]

Sometimes originality is unavoidable; you have to come up with a radically new solution to some radically new problem.

That doesn't mean it's necessarily desireable.

What you want in a rocket design is something stable and proven; something that's known to get the job done and not known to blow up.

Maybe the problem is that "science" isn't really the best term for what SpaceX is doing. Their ultimate goal isn't to invent a new rocket, but rather to profit from selling rocket launch services. Designing a new rocket from scratch, isntead of building on existing designs, will delay achievement of that goal.

But hey, I'm not a rocket scientist. I could be wrong. We'll see in about a decade or so. NASA's new rocket design is based on the SSME, which is based on the Saturn V's F-1 engine. It'll be interesting to see which design ends up being more influential and more widely used... Who knows? SpaceX might be onto something. It's obvious they think so, even if I have my doubts.

Impact or RSO destroyed?

[sconeu]

Anyone know if it crashed or the RSO destroyed it?

Of course, it's never a good thing when your downward-pointing cam shows sky and clouds - spinning...

Re:Impact or RSO destroyed?

[wronkiew]

It crashed. The rocket had a thrust termination system, not a self-destruct system.

Re:Impact or RSO destroyed?

[nacnud75]

I think the RSO terminated the thrust due to excessive rolling (there is no 'self destruct' on the faclon 1, then engin just awitches off)

Re:Impact or RSO destroyed?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Robert Stigwood Organization? Goddammit, the Bee Gees! I shoulda known...

Re:Impact or RSO destroyed?

[Pike]

It's probably just like in that great volume of prophecy, the Tintin book Destination Moon ! In which a foreign power overpowered the rocket's control radio signal with a more powerful signal, with a view to stealing the rocket and its secrets. Luckily Tintin and Calculus put a device on the rocket that allowed them to blow it up remotely before anyone else could get their hands on it. Probably a similar situation here.

I had wondered...

[Shadow Wrought]

I thought it a bit odd that the static test was for only three seconds and took place the day before the launch. I would not be surpised if the accident was a by-product of them pushing their schedule.

Re:I had wondered...

[Intron]

Just as bizarre was that they had a payload on their first launch attempt. That's like trying to ship the Beta! That would never happen in software.

Re:I had wondered...

[roystgnr]

Just as bizarre was that they had a payload on their first launch attempt.

The payload cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, true, but lifting it into orbit costs millions. As long as they had a better than 10% chance of success, it was a good risk to take.

Re:I had wondered...

[david.given]

Just as bizarre was that they had a payload on their first launch attempt.

The payload massed 20kg (the Falcon could have lifted about 700kg) and was built by Air Force Academy cadets. I suspect it was being launched, er, would have been launched for free. After all, you have to test rockets with something, and you may as well launch something useful rather than a dumb telemetry package.

Re:I had wondered...

[interiot]

Well, the payload was a microsatellite, so the actual hardware didn't cost a huge amount really (~$100,000?). Anybody have any idea how much the USAF Academy paid for the launch?

Also, a large part of satellite cost is in the R&D, so if there are further funds, then building a duplicate would cost a fair bit less than the first one, right?

Re:I had wondered...

[shawb]

TFA put the satellite at $750,000. A lot of money, but not an insane amount as compared to the cost of actually putting the rocket up.

Re:I had wondered...

[iamlucky13]

Since the payload was a student project, it has no doubt already accomplished it's primary mission: to give engineering and science students experience in a large-scale, real world project designing and building a satellite and it's experiments. It's sad that they won't get to see the final fruits of their labors and the product of their effort was destroyed, but this doesn't really affect their overall education. The science loss is pretty small, as I'm pretty certain other satellites have studied similar phenomena in the past.

I think the Air Force giving SpaceX a launch contract was partially throwing them a bone to help get another launch provider off the ground (no pun intended), and partially saving money. No doubt had SpaceX not happened to be up-and-coming as they are, this would have gone up on a Pegasus or piggybacked with another satellite on a bigger rocket, like I believe the first Falcon-Sat was.

NASA's first failed attempts at orbit also had payloads on board.

Re:I had wondered...

[iamlucky13]

The on pad static fire was just a chance to confirm that all the systems worked together. It was not a proving for the engines or the flight software (which has to be exposed to a myriad of conditions you can't replicate during a static hold-down fire). In fact, firing the tanks dry with the rocket still on the ground receiving back blast probably wouldn't be a good idea. Over the past two years, however, SpaceX has tested the engines thoroughly on stands in the desert, logging several times what it takes to reach orbit on single engines. As Elon has said, they are pretty confident in the capability and reliability of the engines. I think faulting the schedule, especially when they've already been willing to delay a couple times for relatively small issues, is premature and a little unfair.

They have also thoroughly simulated the flight software, I believe with the hardware hooked up under simulated loads, as well. Of course, it's impossible to truly predict every contingency that the software will have to deal with, and given that the rocket began to exhibit uncontrolled roll rather than loss of power or anything like that, I suspect the problem does ultimately lie in the software rather than the power plant. We will have to wait for them to discuss their analysis to find out. I understand they have a relatively small code base, so hopefully they will be able to track it down quickly.

One other possibility I think fairly likely is vulnerability of their communications inside the rocket. Supposedly this is the first rocket to rely principly on ethernet, which reduces cost significantly over propriety methods. This is untested in flight, and interference or vibration may have caused problems.

I'm pretty bummed out by this, but their progress in the last couple of years is still impressive, and I'm looking forward to their eventual announcement of a second launch date. I wonder if it was a non-issue the recovery ship was out of position...or a good thing they moved it.

Re:I had wondered...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why launch a dumb telemetry package at all? Sandbags would be cheaper.

Re:I had wondered...

[NitsujTPU]

Dollars and cents for a research objective though, $750,000 to put together a satellite, from research objectives to fabrication and everything between, minus the cost of the launch, is a bargain.

Re:I had wondered...

[NMerriam]

you may as well launch something useful rather than a dumb telemetry package.

I am a telemetry package, you insensitive clod!

Re:I had wondered...

[DerekLyons]

I thought it a bit odd that the static test was for only three seconds and took place the day before the launch. I would not be surpised if the accident was a by-product of them pushing their schedule.

Pushing the schedule? This launch is eighteen months behind schedule.

Re:I had wondered...

[DerekLyons]

They have also thoroughly simulated the flight software, I believe with the hardware hooked up under simulated loads, as well. Of course, it's impossible to truly predict every contingency that the software will have to deal with, and given that the rocket began to exhibit uncontrolled roll rather than loss of power or anything like that, I suspect the problem does ultimately lie in the software rather than the power plant.

OTOH, it's entirely possible that the fault lies with the power plant components that contribute to roll control but not to thrust. There's no reason to suspect software over hardware on the basis of "it didn't lose thrust". (And given their hardware track record, there is much reason to suspect hardware. Watching the launch video shows that the 1st stage insulation blanket failed to seperate at launch as it should have for example.)

One other possibility I think fairly likely is vulnerability of their communications inside the rocket. Supposedly this is the first rocket to rely principly on ethernet, which reduces cost significantly over propriety methods. This is untested in flight, and interference or vibration may have caused problems.

Vibration is unlikely to have been a problem - if the proper connectors were used. Nor should interference have been a problem - as there should not have been a major change in the RFI enviroment.

Re:I had wondered...

[thrillseeker]

As long as they had a better than 10% chance of success, it was a good risk to take.

Now zactly how would they have any idea of their chance of success having never flown this design before?

Re:I had wondered...

[timeOday]

Pretty much the same way NASA knows the true risk of a shuttle mission... they don't.

Re:I had wondered...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the launch failed, do the students fail the course? Or will they get an incomplete until they actually launch the satellite?

Re:I had wondered...

[ThreeE]

Real men build hardware -- they don't write software.

Re:I had wondered...

[Ed Avis]

I suppose that if they thought the chance of success was less than 10% they wouldn't have flown the mission at all.

(It's not necessary to know anything about past missions in order to estimate a chance of success. A bookmaker can offer odds on a horse that has never raced before.)

Re:I had wondered...

[Andy Dodd]

Also, a good portion of that satellite's cost was probably NRE. Making a second one would probably be cheaper.

Although it's a student satellite, which drops NRE costs WAY down. (Students USUALLY work for free in exchange for course credit on projects like this. In fact, in many cases the students are effectively paying to work on the project. :)

Re:I had wondered...

[Andy Dodd]

FYI the Boeing 777 uses an onboard network that is Ethernet-based - Not sure how far they deviate from Ethernet spec, they may just be using uprated cabling and connectors. There are ARINC standards for Ethernet cabling and connectors on aircraft, the connectors specified are incredibly beefy and the cables are well shielded.

I also wonder whether SpaceX did their redundant backups Boeing style (define the interfaces, have independent hardware and software teams design and build each of the redundant boxes so the backups are different) or Ariane style (all boxes are identical, which has resulted in at least one Ariane launch failure because the bug that caused the primary flight control system to fail killed the backups within seconds of them coming online.)

Re:I had wondered...

[jayteedee]

Actually vibration and shock are HUGE issues for rockets. The qualification environments are pretty severe and a lot of trial and error goes into designing all the components. I've seen so many failures due to new reasons it would make your head spin. But shock and vib are the real culprits. Most of the other environments (heat, cold, vacuum, etc) are easily tested and resolved, but just TRY to agree on what a "good" vibration or shock spectrum SHOULD look like. Nobody completely agrees and therein lies some of the problems. The connectors can also be a big problem because of vib and shock, but also because of too many connect/re-connect cycles on the ground due to pre-flight testing.

Cheap and turbo-pumps have never been successfully used together. Someday our material science will catch up and truly make a "cheap" turbo-pump, but it might still be a few years off. Most start-up companies come out with all sorts of neat charts, but the big cost savings is always in the engines and particularly the turbo-pump.

In response to another comment, the flight was paid for (mostly) by DARPA and the Air Force through their Falcon program. The Falcon program by DARPA and the Falcon name were just coincidence. Of course, hardly any of the actual development of the hardware was paid for by DARPA or the Air Force, which certaily exceeded the actual flight cost.

All in all he had a 50/50 chance of getting a first flight vehicle off the ground. I got bit by these odds once myself, so I certainly feel for them, but they should have also known the odds themselves. I hope they stick to their guns since their claiming that they are in it for the long haul.

In response to another comment. This so-called "new" design is actually 1950's technology. New electronics and new manufacturing techniques maybe (not that I tut-tut those), but certainly NOTHING NEW in terms of design.

Re:I had wondered...

[Anonymous Coward]

Interiot is too stupid to be believed on any account because he is some sort of mentally afflicted retard, and has been known to rate his own posts using other identities.

"partially reusable rocket"

[ds_job]

That will be reusable as in "We are all reused parts of supernovae" or "We all have a billion atoms of Julius Caesar's body incorporated into our own" and not "Just pick it up , dust it off and we're ready to go again!"

Re:"partially reusable rocket"

[Kr3m3Puff]

Actually it is the "partially" in the sense that the first stage should parachute and be reused, but the second stage is space junk.

Re:"partially reusable rocket"

[roystgnr]

Actually it is the "partially" in the sense that the first stage should parachute and be reused, but the second stage is space junk.

This is the right way to do it, too. Lower stages are larger, so you can save more money making them reusable. They're less important for overall rocket performance, so when making them reusable reduces their performance it's not so bad. They don't reach orbital speeds, so you can recover them without reentry shields or even without flyback capability. If we're going to move toward reusable rockets (which could be a very good idea) at a gradual pace (which the Shuttle program has proved is a good idea), the way to start is from the bottom up.

Re:"partially reusable rocket"

[Kadin2048]

That was the sound of the joke flying right over your head ... until you cut its thrust off and it fell back to Earth in a heap of burning un-funnyness.

Re:"partially reusable rocket"

[hyperventilate]

Finances matter. It is more reusable than the space shuttle from a cost standpoint. More of the investment is recovered.

Re:"partially reusable rocket"

[corngrower]

If we're going to move toward reusable rockets (which could be a very good idea) at a gradual pace (which the Shuttle program has proved is a good idea), the way to start is from the bottom up.

If anything, the shuttle program has proven that reusiable spacecraft are a bad idea. They're not cost effective. Maybe like you say, resusing the lower stage would work out ok.

Re:"partially reusable rocket"

[roystgnr]

If anything, the shuttle program has proven that reusiable spacecraft are a bad idea. They're not cost effective.

Just how reusable is the shuttle? The expendable external tank costs about $60 million to build from scratch; refueling a solid rocket booster (particularly one that's been dumped in salt water) is about as hard as building one from scratch, and the orbiter isn't ready to fly again until at least the thermal protection and engines have been pretty heavily rebuilt.

When most people talk about reusable rockets, they're imagining something like the DC-X or SpaceShip One: land it, do an inspection, refuel it and launch it again the next day. Even the Falcon rockets will never quite be in that class, since their landing procedure includes being fished out of the ocean. Their reusability is very much an experiment, too, from what I've read - SpaceX has said that they're pricing launches high enough to make a profit without reusing anything, and if it turns out that they can successfully use the same lower stage for several launches, that's just more profit for now and more room to lower their prices later.

Maybe like you say, resusing the lower stage would work out ok.

Reusable launch vehicle naysayers used to believe that making any rocket conveniently reusable isn't practical. DC-X disproved that for low performance rockets, but maybe they're right and it's too hard to make a high performance rocket conveniently reusable with current materials technology. Well, it used to be too hard to make even expendable rockets with past materials technology, and they got around it by stacking lower performance rockets on top of each other. I hope the same trick will work again.

Re:"partially reusable rocket"

[Kr3m3Puff]

I got the joke, but it doesn't mean I found it funny, as well as I thought I would contribute to the knowledge of the group while I was at it by clarifying the type of "partially" was not as in we are all mode of atoms reusable.

Guidance?

[TopSpin]

Watching the webcast it looked to me like the vehicle had a guidance problem; the on-board view seemed to be spinning. The feed didn't really provide enough to tell, however.

It definitely cleared the pad and I think it got to a few thousand feet.

Re:Guidance?

[twostar]

It also looked like it went unstable with a wobble. Spaceflight Now is reporting that the flame looked funny right before video was cut but this could be due to a weird orientation of the vehicle relative to the flight path. (ie sideways)

Hopefully we get more info soon and Elon flies the next one as soon as they figure it out. Take a page out of NASA's early history and just keep putting them up until you get it right. Luckily at $6 million a pop they're pretty reasonably priced compaired to other vehicles out there.

Re:Guidance?

[quanticle]

Take a page out of NASA's early history and just keep putting them up until you get it right.

That works when you've got essentially unlimited funding, like NASA got in the '60s. However, SpaceX, being a privately funded company has to get it right a lot faster than NASA before its contract pool dries up.

On the bright side...

[moochfish]

Now it's the world's first privately funded satellite crater.

Re:On the bright side...

[Gogo Dodo]

The rocket crashed into the Pacific. There would be no crater. At least not on the surface.

Re:On the bright side...

[BarneyRabble]

Looks like the aftermath of a bad Wile E. Coyote project..."genius, i say, sheer unadulterated genius!!! (KABOOOM!!!)"

Re:On the bright side...

[Paradise Pete]

There would be no crater. At least not on the surface.

Where else could a crater be?

Re:On the bright side...

[Gogo Dodo]

On the bottom of the sea. Probably not much of a crater, but I'm sure the rocket made some kind of dent. Water currents will take care of that in no time.

Woohoo!

[MyLongNickName]

I've got two tickets for the maiden flight of Falcon 2! I guess this means I should get my ride soon, huh?

Re:Woohoo!

[Kjella]

I've got two tickets for the maiden flight of Falcon 2! I guess this means I should get my ride soon, huh?

Sure. It's not like you'll request a refund or anything.

Re:Woohoo!

[MyLongNickName]

Hey! My wife bought the tickets for me. For some reason, though, she isn't able to come with me that day. Said something about this being less expensive than a lawyer. Not sure what she meannt by that.... but I digress.

How could I possibly return the tickets?

Anyone have a link to capture of webcast?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried to capture it but the stream was messed up right before launch.

Mixed day

[Anonymous Coward]

Very bad news, this.
But if the Hein propulsion works, as suggested by the experiment, this setback is very *very* negligible indeed

Re:Mixed day

[BinLadenMyHero]

From TFA:

"Clearly this is a setback," Shotwell said, "but we're in this for the long haul."

Re:Mixed day

[Anonymous Coward]

From your journal:

Sad to see the moderators (and probably Slashdot editors too) mod my comments down as troll just because of my nick, with no other reason at all. Check my comment history and you'll see.

Well, what should I expect on an American site? My nick name looks like a troll after all, but I didn't choose it just to provoke. That's what I really felt like when I saw the news on 9/11 morning.

Amazingly, at this moment I still have "excelent" karma.

It would be quite impossible for you to feel that way on 9/11. It was not until quite a bit afterward that the connection was made between him and 9/11. So, you have proven yourself to be a liar.

And as for choosing someone like him to be your role model? Go blow yourslf up, asshole.

Re:Mixed day

[BinLadenMyHero]

It would be quite impossible for you to feel that way on 9/11. It was not until quite a bit afterward that the connection was made between him and 9/11. So, you have proven yourself to be a liar.

It was a feeling of "they are my heroes!", whoever they were.
It was not a feeling towards Bin Laden. Heck, I didn't even remembered to hear that name until after that.

And as for choosing someone like him to be your role model?

What makes you think I take him to be my role model?
He just had the guts and power (and luck too) to do throw a stone on Goliath's eye.

Go blow yourslf up, asshole.

Heck, why am I replying to such an unpolite person.. :(

Re:Mixed day

[Anonymous Coward]

Must absolutely suck to be you. After the little nick (more people die on US highways each day), the US is now going ape shit on the muslim world. First Afghanistan, then Iraq, next Iran.

But live in your little "glory days" mode.

so *that's* why the webcast cut off...

[markana]

a few seconds after T-0 - it was looking good until then, but then the stream dropped. There was a few seconds of video through a window with water streaming down it - probably one of the pad cameras.

These things happen...

This isn't...

[Tackhead]

C'mon, Elon! This isn't rocket sci... oh, right. Well then, there we are.

And to add insult to injury, we'll link your web server from Slashdot.

Seriously, Elon. Good on you. SpaceX is doing something risky and interesting. Make as many mistakes as it takes to get the job done. Unlike NASA, the bulk of your funding comes from a free market, and you're therefore motivated to learn from your mistakes. The day you build something your investors are willing to let you slap a "man-rated" label on, I'll be in line with tickets to fly on it.

Re:This isn't...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait..you're saying private investors are more likely to have safety concerns?

*boggle*

I mean, we're talking about the same sort of folks who, in other industries, constantly push companies to release products as early as they can in order to start realizing a profit. Go look at the drug industry. As private companies have increasingly gained influence over the FDA through lobbyists, the number of things slipping through has increased. Private companies cannot be relied upon to have the best interests of anything but their own pocketbook.

Re:This isn't...

[Tackhead]

> Wait..you're saying private investors are more likely to have safety concerns?
>
> *boggle*

Yes, that is what I'm saying.

When NASA becomes "Need Another Seven Astronauts", they burn through several billion dollars in funding to fly nowhere, and to change the name to "Need Another Seven, Again".

When SpaceX, or Scaled Composities, or Armadillo, or any other startup blows up a manned spacecraft - twice - and for the same fundamental reason, they'll go out of business.

Out of curiosity -- would you prefer to fly JetBlue, or Aeroflot?

Re:This isn't...

[FleaPlus]

Wait..you're saying private investors are more likely to have safety concerns? ... Private companies cannot be relied upon to have the best interests of anything but their own pocketbook.

Sure, but space launch is a situation where safety has a direct impact on the company's pocketbook, which is why space launch companies are so paranoid about it.

Re:This isn't...

[Kelson]

Wait..you're saying private investors are more likely to have safety concerns?

Not necessarily, but the investors providing the payload will be motivated to minimize their risk. If it's cheaper to improve the launch vehicle's reliability than to replace a lost satellite, you bet they'll work on improving reliability.

Eventually the system reaches a point where the rocket is safe enough that the chances of losing one's investment are very small.

Of course, once it's cheaper to just fly instead of improving safety, the corner cutting will start. But even that is self-correcting in the long run, given sufficient public awareness. Think Upton Sinclair and the meat-packing industry, for instance. Or to use your drug company example, look at all the drugs being pulled from the shelf as evidence comes in that things have slipped through.

Re:This isn't...

[John Miles]

Private companies cannot be relied upon to have the best interests of anything but their own pocketbook.

Exactly the grandparent's point. Whose "pocketbook" is served when a rocket blows up, losing expensive cargo and/or killing passengers? Safety is a market force.

Re:This isn't...

[crotherm]

You obviously have no clue the lengths the NASA contractors go to make safe spacecraft. The two shuttle disaster never had anything to do with the orbiter. It was always the add on stuff. Sure it was part of the whole package, but the contractor that made the orbiter did not make the external tanks and engines.

Out of curiosity -- would you prefer to fly JetBlue, or Aeroflot?

What a horrible example. What would you rather fly, SpaceX, the Shuttle, Soyuz, an Apollo circa 1972?

Re:This isn't...

[MustardMan]

As both a scientist and someone who greatly appreciates the strides NASA has taken to advance the human race... I'd just like to say...

Fuck You.

Re:This isn't...

[Tackhead]

> You obviously have no clue the lengths the NASA contractors go to make safe spacecraft. The two shuttle disaster never had anything to do with the orbiter. It was always the add on stuff. Sure it was part of the whole package, but the contractor that made the orbiter did not make the external tanks and engines.

And the reason the contractor for the orbiter and the contractor for the external tank was... what? Why are pieces of the Shuttle made in all 50 states?

> > Out of curiosity -- would you prefer to fly JetBlue, or Aeroflot?
>
> What a horrible example. What would you rather fly, SpaceX, the Shuttle, Soyuz, an Apollo circa 1972?

I chose passenger airlines to avoid the problem you're trying to bring up. Passenger aircraft have flown in US and Russia for approximately the same length of time. There have been improvements over the past 30 years, but fundamentally, passenger planes haven't changed much. The reason you're safer flying JetBlue over Aeroflot has nothing to do with the quality of engineering done at Airbus vs. that of Ilyushin.

Re:This isn't...

[DAldredge]

Well, Jetblue does fly Airbus...

Re:This isn't...

[EnronHaliburton2004]

they burn through several billion dollars in funding to fly nowhere,

Except they flew to SPACE, didn't they. I think NASA has even made it to orbit once or twice since the Challenger disaster, and I dare say they've had a couple successful experiments while they were up there.

Can private interests do this also? Probably.

Spaceflight is dangerous. Your jokes about the Challenger & Columbia accidents are pretty fucking lame.

Re:This isn't...

[georgewilliamherbert]

Do you have any idea how many orbiter specific safety problems remain with the Shuttle system?

The main engines are still cranky, though probably an order of magnitude better than the early Shuttle launches.

The hydrazine APUs are an issue.

Aging of the reinforced carbon-carbon leading edge panels is still not as well understood as we thought a few years ago, and may leave them much more vulnerable than we would like.

These are just the ones at the top of my head; last rundown I saw including all the age-related stuff they would need to recertify for flight past 2010 had several hundred crit-1 items.

Re:This isn't...

[Stealth Potato]

The day you build something your investors are willing to let you slap a "man-rated" label on, I'll be in line with tickets to fly on it.

Really? Don't let the investors hear you say that. ;-)

Re:This isn't...

[MustardMan]

Ya know, I fully expected to be modded down for my "fuck you"...

but, what fuckwit modded the gp insightful?

Re:This isn't...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you such a Jew-hating piece of shit!?

Re:This isn't...

[Andy Dodd]

You can't blame Morton Thiokol (the contractor responsible for the SRBs) for the first Challenger incident.

They told NASA that the O-rings could fail below 53 degrees Fahrenheit and raised a HUGE stink about it prior to launch. No one at MT wanted to sign off on the launch, but the NASA administration forced them into it, essentially telling MT that they had to *prove* that there would be a problem, as opposed to NASA proving that ther could not be a problem.

Re:This isn't...

[DAldredge]

Who says I hate anyone?

Re:This isn't...

[DerekLyons]

What a horrible example. What would you rather fly, SpaceX, the Shuttle, Soyuz, an Apollo circa 1972?

Shuttle - hands down. It's got room to rattle around in and a safety record second to none.

Re:This isn't...

[Anonymous Coward]

You, with your racist hatemongering posts, you anti-semetic piece of shit!

Re:This isn't...

[DAldredge]

Please provide a link to one such post.

Re:This isn't...

[Anonymous Coward]

Try all the ones listed HERE.

I am confident

[irimi_00]

I am confident that if this is a decent company whose mission is positive and positive things will come from their success, then in the long run they will succeed despite short term failure.

Re:I am confident

[Anonymous Coward]

I am confident in our plan for victory. I am confident in the will of the Iraqi people. I am confident in the skill and spirit of our military. Fellow citizens, we are in this fight to win, and we are winning.

First flight with a paying customer?!

[AnonymousPrick]

What's the deal? I'm not a space flight engineer or anything like that, but why didn't they have a test flight with a test package or something - not a customer's satelite!? That satelite was an Airforce Academy (taxpayer money - OUR money) experiment. Who's going to pay for it?

And this The 34-year-old South African native made his fortune in the dot-com world by co-founding the PayPal electronic payment system, then selling it to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.

Considering all the consumer complaints I've heard about PayPal, I don't think I'd want to do business with one of the people who started that company.

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[Donut2099]

State Farm Rocket Insurance, obviously.

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[Manhigh]

Its not uncommon in the commercial launch business. Launches are so expensive that full-up testing is usually infeasible without a paying customer.

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[twostar]

insurance. It's not costing them a dime and since it was a student satellite it's not that important. Plus at $6 million it's pocket change for the DARPA and a hell of a lot cheaper then how much they put into the other rocket programs for development.

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[Quaoar]

It was 6.7 million bucks for the satellite, a whopping 6.7 / 300 = 2.2 cents per person in the United States.

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[hitchhikerjim]

$6 Million rocket. $800,000 payload. The cost of the payload is pretty small, all things considered. It's worth the risk to go ahead and fly the payload the first time. Saves you $5 million if it works, and cost you less than $1 million if it fails. ...and when you add in that everything's going to be insured, it makes finantial sense.

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[susano_otter]

It was 6.7 million bucks for the satellite, a whopping 6.7 / 300 = 2.2 cents per person in the United States.

Which would be totally fine with me, if this was the only place in the budget where this kind of bureaucratic math was being applied to falsely imply justification for incompetence or corruption.

I'm sure this sum total of this kind of thinking adds a good several hundred dollars to my annual tax burden.

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[nelsonal]

This post devoid of any meaningful content as a sorry attempt to get my money back.

Not my two cents.

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[cyclone96]

In general, I agree with everything you've got down except one thing....

and when you add in that everything's going to be insured, it makes finantial sense.

You sure about that? The US government normally does not insure launches. It's self insured and eats the cost of failures.

Even private entities do not always insure launches, since the premium is a good chunk of replacement cost (sometimes as high as 25%). A new launcher may not even be able to secure insurance, which is why I suspect SpaceX pursued government customers initially (DARPA is interested in funding development and swallowing the cost of failure to build national launch assets, while a commercial customer would not be).

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[iamlucky13]

Since the satellite was a student project, most of its value comes from the education and experience they get designing and building the satellite and its experiments. Not actually getting data of a phenomenon that has no doubt been investigated in some depth before is a small loss.

Paypal has its ups and downs. I for one haven't had any problems with them, but I don't use them very much. It's also the first major service of its kind, and given the number of customers it has, a very small percentage of problems translates into a lot of total complaints...I think they're still behind Microsoft in that department though.

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[JPriest]

and when you add in that everything's going to be insured, it makes finantial sense

I can picture it now: "Hi, we are a new company and we'd like to test launch a 7 million dollar rocket, will you foot the bill if it explodes?"

And I though my car insurance was expensive.

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[tuomoks]

"The US government normally does not insure launches." Maybe today ( I wouldn't know ) but I can tell that they used to - the insurance company I used to work did end up paying A LOT - "a software glitch" ( I love the term !! - e.g. a management fuck up !! ) caused us to take too big chunk of a shared insurance ( a normal routine ) and the rocket blew up. Actually used to be profitable insurances but as I said, it's years ago..

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[Sean Riordan]

Not so uncommon elsewhere either.

University Nanosat was detroyed when the Delta-4 heavy failed to place it anywhere close to a real orbit. Fact is they took the ride they could get, risky or not. With their original ride grounded until further notice after the last shuttle accident it was about the only chance for a low priority payload to fly.

Best wishes to the Navy for better luck with their payload on the next Falcon attempt.

Re:First flight with a paying customer?!

[Anonymous Coward]

"insurance. It's not costing them a dime"

(phone rings): "hello, I'd like to get an insurance quote, for my $800,000 satellite, which I'll be sending on the maiden flight of a new type of spacecraft."

Not a dime?

What a bad day at the office...

[mcguyver]

...servers crashing sucks but at least I don't have to worry about millions of investment dollars going up in flames. Ouch.

Re:What a bad day at the office...

[winkydink]

No? I guess you need more servers then. :)

Re:Oops?

[Mikkeles]

This is really sad. (Obvious, I know, but I've been looking forward to everyday rocket trips since 1957.)

More info on the failure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like engine failure or some kind of catastrophic tank or plumbing failure.

Quoting Spaceflight Now (a real space news site!)

http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon/f1/status.html

326 GMT (6:26 p.m. EST)
Here is the official statement from Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX:

"We had a successful liftoff and Falcon made it well clear of the launch pad, but unfortunately the vehicle was lost later in the first stage burn. More information will be posted once we have had time to analyze the problem."


2250 GMT (5:50 p.m. EST)
A further look at the imagery seen from the onboard camera mounted to the Falcon 1 shows a noticeable change in the color and shape of the flame coming from the Merlin first stage main engine as the vehicle seemed to roll. It was at that point the webcast provided to reporters covering the launch immediately stopped. Repeated efforts to reconnect to the feed were unsuccessful.

Re:More info on the failure.

[twostar]

the change in plume could have just been because of a change in the orientation of the vehicle relative to the trajectory (ie turned sideways). Nothing really points to an engine malfunction yet. Could have been avionics, which have been known to cause problems for rockets in the past.

Whoa

[Mad Ogre]

That was one big and expensive bottle-rocket.

More details of the flight

[nacnud75]

Live video was shown of the vehicle's ascent from an onboard downward pointing camera. Within a few seconds the feed started to become intermittent. The small amount of imagery available showed a bright yellow glow protruding away from the normal exhaust pattern, as the rocket began to roll violently. The ascent profile also appeared to be more horizontal than what would be expected for that stage of the ascent. The video then cut out completely - with SpaceX confirming the rocket had been lost just moments later. - http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?id=4394

Early days?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds to me more like three out of the last six mars probes this decade...

Geeze, not like it's rocket science or anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so it IS rocket science. Still, kind of strange that my feed blipped out with 5 seconds to go before laungh.

Zefram Cochrane: Be of Good Cheer!

[Anonymous Coward]

2063 is the year that Zefram Cochrane will finally succeed at creating the first warp drive. The present failure of SpaceX does not mean the end of space exploration. Rather, SpaceX is merely 1 stepping stone on the 60-year path to the ultimate development of warp drive. Be of good cheer, fellow earthlings!

See you in 2063!

-Yoda

Re:Apparently

[MS-06FZ]

Call it "Star Wars". People like Star Wars, so they'll like SDI more if it's called by that name.

Name change?

[Skiron]

Perhaps they should have called it 'Vista'.

Re:Name change?

[electronerdz]

Yeah, but at least the rocket _actually_ launched.

Re:Name change?

[birge]

I think you'll have to wait to see if they're still crashing in 2007 to call it Vista. Maybe XP SP3 is a better name for something that crashes this year.

Space Aint Cheap

[Ash Vince]

Its interesting to compare this with the scram jet trials currently scheduled by Qinetic (British Defence Contractor thats just been privatised)

Qinetic are about to test fire a £1 million scramjet directly into the ground. If it works it will fire for 6 seconds before it hits earth at mach 7.

The problem with seeking venture capital is the the investors usually want a return of their investment within a specified (Probably too short) time frame.

Successful space exploration takes man decades not man hours.

Re:Space Aint Cheap

[AndrewSmith1969]

Qinetic are about to test fire a £1 million scramjet directly into the ground. If it works it will fire for 6 seconds before it hits earth at mach 7.

You see, this is the British way of making technological progress - define the experiment so "crashing in flames a few seconds after launch" = "Success"!

Andrew ;-)

Re:Space Aint Cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps their business is to televise interesting accidents: first nuclear rocket to explode in space, and other such firsts. It will be much cheaper than a remake of the Right Stuff.

Re:Oops?

[macdaddy357]

When building a rocket intended as a launch vehicle, it should not include a report. Those are for bottle rockets!

Anyone know?

[jafac]

Did it impact the ground before Range Safety got to it? Inquiring minds want video!

Re:Anyone know?

[cxreg]

A mirror of video the launch is at http://cxreg.genericorp.net/

Re:Anyone know?

[iamlucky13]

"...before range safety got to it?"

That reminds me of an interesting talk I attended by an X-ray astro-physicist back in college. He had been involved in several launches. Not surprisingly, they are very personally invested in the payloads, since they spend quite a few years fighting for budgeting and designing and building, and plan to spend several more years analyzing data. He said there was one launch where the rocket went off course and the Range Safety Officer gave the order to blow it, but the lead scientist jumped on the guy in charge of the button in a rather desperate attempt to save his project (which was doomed anyways). Since then, the customers have been kept in a seperate room from the RSO's.

Smells of a tall tale, but probably based on fact.

Obligatory Chuck Norris comment

[atari2600]

Unconfirmed reports state that Chuck Norris was seen leaving the scene of the accident with a blow-pipe in his left hand.

Re:Obligatory Chuck Norris comment

[drinkypoo]

I seem to always be at the rear (as opposed to the forefront) of what's new. When did we start this Chuck Norris meme?

Re:Obligatory Chuck Norris comment

[FleaPlus]

When did we start this Chuck Norris meme?

Probably about the time this site started up:

http://www.4q.cc/index.php?pid=top100&person=chuck

A few samples:

Chuck Norris once visited the Virgin Islands. They are now The Islands.

Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting implies the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.

Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

Chuck Noris puts the "laughter" in "manslaughter".

If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.

Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes ever.

Chuck Norris thought up some of the funniest Chuck Norris facts ever, but he hasn't submitted them to the site because he doesn't believe in any form of submission.

Re:Obligatory Chuck Norris comment

[atari2600]

WoW - 4 hours ago - this was modded +4 funny. Now it's a -1 troll. Go moderators - you guys rock.

Re:Obligatory Chuck Norris comment

[anzev]

One of the more appropriate ones for this occassion:

Outer space exists because it's afraid to be on the same planet with Chuck Norris.

I suspect he tried to sneak himself out there to beat the crap out of it and the rocket exploded.

Darn

[FleaPlus]

I'm pretty bummed out about this, but hopefully they'll figure things out and the next flight will go better. My sentiments are pretty much the same as this commentary from Clark Lindsay:

Well, this is fairly typical for the first launch of a new vehicle. I hope they will figure out the problem soon and be ready for a second attempt not long after. Elon Musk has said he can afford up to three straight failures before he will decide if they should give up or not.

Also, an interesting comment from that page:

According to Astronautix, the Ariane 1 had failures on the 2nd and 5th launches and Aerospatiale spent a lot more than SpaceX.

Both SpaceflightNow and the forum on NasaSpaceFlight are speculating it was an ablative engine failure. If so, I would imagine they'll hold off on any more launches until the regen Merlin 1B is ready. According to an SpaceX update in mid-2005, they should already have a dozen 1Bs by the end of the 2005. Or it could be the turbopump which according to SpaceX engine page is also responsible for roll control. That might explain why it started to roll after launch.

Re:Darn

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and the first Ariane 5 blew up (well, was blown up by RSO) thanks to an overflow in a part of the code which was only used while on the ground. Said code was not disabled on the switch to flight mode. Worked great on the Ariane 4, but the 5 was faster. The ground software was something to do with identifing to the flight software exactly where in space* the craft was directly before launch. Not exactly certain of all the details anymore.

I am incredibly pissed at all the news stories that are implying this was some grand failure. It wasn't. Yeah, it was a failure in that the satellite isn't in orbit, but as far as I am concerned it was simply a first full-scale test, and there was an 'anomoly'. From the looks of it the engine chamber gave out, or perhaps the nozzle did. We will know soon.

No matter what, SpaceX will get their first craft to orbit more cheaply than any other entity *ever*. Even if they have 10 failures.

*(which is to say, you know where on earth you are, but not where that spot is in relation to the final orbit, because you don't know exactly what second you will be launching)

Or Engine

[amightywind]

Spaceflight Now observed:

A further look at the imagery seen from the onboard camera mounted to the Falcon 1 shows a noticeable change in the color and shape of the flame coming from the Merlin first stage main engine as the vehicle seemed to roll. It was at that point the webcast provided to reporters covering the launch immediately stopped. Repeated efforts to reconnect to the feed were unsuccessful.

Seems to be a problem with the engine, a leak, or pump failure. A turbopump that has seized could induce a sharp roll.

Re:Or Engine

[faqBastard]

It seems an engine problem would be more worrisome than a guidance problem. If there are structural integrity or turbopump problems, then that's a more fundamental problem than debugging the guidance software.

Re:Or Engine

[amightywind]

True. I would think that they could debug guidance software pretty well seperate from the integrated rocket unless the sensor inputs were screwed up. I don't know how the first stage is guided, whether it uses gimbal mounted engines or vernier thrusters. Thrusters would be simpler, but I didn't see them. As for a structural problem, remember that the previous launch was scrubbed because of a tank overpressure. Who knows if it was really fixed.

Re:Or Engine

[Anonymous Coward]

The RSO shut off fuel. Engine shutoff is not instant. I would wager this is the actual cause of the color change.

Re:Or Engine

[Plunky]

A further look at the imagery seen from the onboard camera mounted to the Falcon 1 shows a noticeable change in the color and shape of the flame coming from the Merlin first stage main engine as the vehicle seemed to roll. It was at that point the webcast provided to reporters covering the launch immediately stopped. Repeated efforts to reconnect to the feed were unsuccessful.

Seems to be a problem with the engine, a leak, or pump failure. A turbopump that has seized could induce a sharp roll.

Well, I think its more likely that somebody just pressed the button and turned it off. I mean, how many webcast servers have turbopumps anyway?

This is exactly why I love software on the web

[Heembo]

You just dont have problems like this when writing code for the web.... that is unless you are coding for a bank and and use 1...2...3...4...5.. as your session numbers! :)

Re:This is exactly why I love software on the web

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, that's my luggage combination!

Re:Zefram Cochrane: Be of Good Cheer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Meesa thinking youssa confused. Yoda eesa Star Wars, not Star Trek!

Or...

[CarpetShark]

Hook the afterburner remains up to ten powerful batteries, and you may be able to toast a light snack.

It was the first stage blanket!

[nacnud75]

According to the video it seems the first stage thermal blanket added to reduce LOX boil-off, the casue of the first two launch delays, didn't release proberly. In all likleyhood it was this that cause the roll and loss of control.

Re:It was the first stage blanket!

[flowerp]

I think you're lying!

The first delays had different reasons, including structural damage to the fuel tank because of a valve failure. Previously the company did not have enough O2 on site, so new one had to be shipped in.

SpaceX's Falcon 1 Destroyed During Maiden Voyage

[yermoungder]

I hope they have enough flight data to re-create (virtually) what happened in the lab. I'd be very interested to find out if this was a software error... and if so, what could have prevented it - different language (Ada95?), better test tools (www.polyspace.com?)...

Not completely correct...

[everphilski]

Thats $6M to a paying customer, not $6M in cost to SpaceX. SpaceX is built to be a profitable entity. I think Elon jumped the gun.

The other important thing to note is the Falcon system sports a reusable first stage and a disposable second stage. However the first stage has never been tested as to its reusability. You would think a resuable system would be tested for... reusability. Maybe stick a dummy load on it and try to fire it, let the dummy upper stage ballistically reenter, recover the first stage and see how the reusability works. Long story short he was trying to check off too many points on his checklist in 1 flight and I think he paid the price. Of course its easy to say this from the armchair, and even easier in retrospect...

Plume

[everphilski]

There was a plume coming out the side of the rocket in the last few frames of the SpaceX feed, normal to the body of the rocket - not the direction of flight. Most likely due to an engine/turbopump failure. This could possibly cause adverse roll/pitching. It looks like a physical problem; I doubt it was a guidance problem.

Re:Plume

[twostar]

how can you tell it was not normal to flight? I was watching and couldn't tell orientation of the vehicle relative to anything else at that point.

Re:Plume

[everphilski]

The camera was pointing straight down along the body, from the nose to the tail.

Re:Plume

[georgewilliamherbert]

He meant normal as in at right angles to.

Flames are supposed to come out the bottom, sometimes downwards out of side nozzles, but not out of the side of the rocket.

Re:Plume

[Penguinshit]

I thought flames were supposed to come from Anonymous Cowards...

Re:Plume

[Lehk228]

no no no you've got it all wrong, we are expected to direct flames AT anonymous cowards.

the anonymous cowards are expected to attept to TROLL us.

Re:Plume

[J05H]

and the flames were gushing out the side. It looked like it's in the same spot as where the blanket was flapping.

Hi George!

- Josh

Nope

[kitzilla]

Falcon defaults to engine shutdown, not auto-destruct.

WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS???

[ferrellcat]

1) Collect $100,000,000.00

2) ???

3) Profit!





* = Blow up fake rocket

Re:Zefram Cochrane: Be of Good Cheer!

[Drooling Iguana]

No, we'll have to wait a bit longer than that. The Centauri won't give us jumpgate technology until 2155.

Told ya

[Propaganda13]

You laughed at me, but I told you the Star Wars program works.

Re:Apparently

[DroppedPacket]

Actually, it was the feeble minded press that started calling it "Star Wars". They had to have something they could belittle the project for so they tied it in to a well known movie title.

Now don't get me started on the press and their inability to actually report factually correct information... But think of each instance of something you heard on the news (or read in a paper) that you have actual independent knowledge of. How many errors did you notice. Now realize that every single article you read or hear has that level of competence. :-(

Something strangely ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

"We did lose the vehicle," Gwynne Shotwell, the company's vice president for business development, told reporters from SpaceX's headquarters in El Segundo, Calif.

Re:Apparently

[MightyMartian]

Darth Griffin, I thought I told you to remain on the Command Ship. Patience, my friend. In time, SpaceX will come to you.

FalconX will come to me?

Yes, FalconX will come to you, and then you will blow it up and bring the pieces to me. All is proceeding as I have foreseen it.

Crash and Burn Testing

[Doc Ruby]

Rockets explode on launch. OS'es are cracked and crash upon release. But CPUs and other logic chips rarely make headlines with such spectacular failures once tested and distributed in products. Are logic design tools that much better than other engineering? Are their operating conditions that much simpler and more predictable? Or are their failures just so much more boring that we never hear about them in the media?

What can other engineering learn from the apparently more stable designs?

Re:Crash and Burn Testing

[mrchaotica]

But CPUs and other logic chips rarely make headlines with such spectacular failures once tested and distributed in products.

Oh really?

Re:Crash and Burn Testing

[FleaPlus]

There's actually a quote from an interview with Elon Musk which answers a related question:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?id=4254

'The analogy I've used before is to imagine creating a huge software program that can only be tested in little pieces on a computer that is slightly different from what it is supposed to run on. However, when you do run it as a whole on the actual computer for the first time, it must run almost flawlessly without a single significant bug. When is the last time you saw a software program do that?'

Re:Crash and Burn Testing

[quanticle]

Rockets explode on launch. OS'es are cracked and crash upon release. But CPUs and other logic chips rarely make headlines with such spectacular failures once tested and distributed in products.

One reason could be that microprocessors do so little compared with operating systems. While operating systems have hundreds, or even thousands of libraries, all of which must be debugged and cross-tested, a microprocessor has, at worst, a few hundred instructions whose results are all rather clearly spelled out in the design. Also, in the case that some instructions are found to generate inaccurate results, one can design compilers that work around the issue by not using the affected portions of the chip.

Even still, not all flaws are caught. Look at the Pentium division flaw.

Re:Crash and Burn Testing

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you are right - it's pretty much "right first time" or the last x years od development of the particular IC is down the tubes. It's extremely costly, and as a result, a huge amount of simulation is needed. Some of these chips have a billion components (transistors, etc), each which is not manufactured exactly (though it will be statistically within a certain set of operating parameters), and then must function accross temperature, process and voltage. It's something which takes very advanced simulators (at a cost of almost 100,000 per seat, in some cases!).
Most of all, I think the knowledge that "I can't just patch it later" at design time makes a big difference. Maybe that pressure just is not real enough for SW developers (*dons flame retardent suit*)

Re:Crash and Burn Testing

[MurphyZero]

Shuttle NEVER flies flawlessly. It survives due to redundancy, the efforts of the people working on it, particular the foresight of some engineers, and in no small part, luck. When it fails, it fails due to lack of redundancy, a failure to be creative enough to foresee the failure mode, and an unforgiving environment.

So Elon was absolutely right but the true comparison is with software that may not be perfect but must at least handle problems gracefully (particularly with manned spaceflight) so that maybe the mission is degraded, but not finished. How do you get there? Shuttle still hasn't figured it out, so Elon can't really be faulted for a failure on the first try. He might even survive a second failure. Third time would be a death knell to commercial activity, even if he wanted to try further. It was mentioned elsewhere in the discussions that he'd stop if he got three failures and no successes--it'd be appropriate.

Our office (one of our jobs is to estimate rocket failure probability) pegged the likelihood of failure at 70%, so we weren't surprised. We were hoping he'd succeed, just realistic. Hopefully they'll learn from this one and succeed on the next one, but if you have an even money bet on his next launch, take failure.

Re:Crash and Burn Testing

[NeuroManson]

Technically that first part is true, rockets DO explode on launch. Except it's supposed to be a really controlled explosion, which, ironically, is what causes 90% of, ummm, explosions on launch.

Re:Crash and Burn Testing

[Anonymous Coward]

There are also problems inherent to the massively concurrent environnement chips are. As such a processor is IMHO much more complicated than an OS. There is just a mentality gap beetween "we will patch that later for version 2" and "if the chip isn't working out of the fab, there is no packaging that will sell it"
or
some might say that hardware enginers are smarter than software engineers.

Re:Crash and Burn Testing

[O2H2]

As a designer of very successful rockts I can tell you why making a rocket fly is much harder than making darn near any other machine function properly...you are trying to harness enormous energies which do more than just push the rocket upward. The vibration and shock environments are beyond anything you probably have experienced. A simple connector can see upwards of 300 Grms without even trying. You can reduce polymeric materials to a puddle just with hysteretic heating from vibration. And you cannot simulate and predict everything. Weird system interactions are par for the course. You can only get first flight success with a lot of painful experience. SpaceX do not have this level of experience.

That is why demonstrated reliability cannot be replaced by calculation. Spacex bragged about their high reliability but it is all on paper. Successful rockets have tens of thousands of hours of debugging of problems built into them. You just never see it. Nothing can replace hours in the air. And they come slowly and at great expense.

Elon is now going to learn firsthand why spaceflight is so damn expensive. It is not the lack of innovation or intelligence at Lockheed Martin or Boeing- it is the brutal reality that nature imposes on lack of attention to detail and ignorance. It ain't the metal in the rocket - its the know-how in the people. We have to dig down to root cause on even the most innocuous anomaly - hence we know a lot more about flaws in parts than damn near anybody on the planet. But this knowledge is pricey.

Re:Crash and Burn Testing

[bani]

rockets shouldn't be the only way of getting up there. there should be some better way, and someone should go research that.

Re:Crash and Burn Testing

[O2H2]

It would be great for these primitive reaction motor systems to be replaced with something that just makes a hum.

But know this: the technology for getting to orbit and beyond is not tapped out. There are so many directions for improvement that it represents enough work for thousands of engineers for decades. Structures, engines, avionics, fabrication even aero can all be hugely improved. But they are trapped in near stasis by lack of resources. NASA, who used to take on these technological challenges, has become consumed with making rockets that replicate already existing capabilities and going to the ISS to do ant-farm science. It is basically a jobs program where the jobs are fancy but not too hard. Since they have most of the resources for development and are wasting them on old crap these great advances are stalled. But they are so obvious to anyone with any real insight that they will be addressed slowly and steadily- probably by the Chinese.

Re:Crash and Burn Testing

[bani]

But know this: the technology for getting to orbit and beyond is not tapped out. There are so many directions for improvement that it represents enough work for thousands of engineers for decades.

Yes, but it's still fundamentally rockets -- brute force.

Nobody can be arsed to think outside the box.

And yes the chinese will probably be the first to come up with a practical alternative while all the intellect in the west remains in cryogenic suspension.

Re:Crash and Burn Testing

[cheekyboy]

Blame the

* managers
* accountants
* lawyers
* insurance people
* tax payers
* CONgress
* EVERYONE but the engineers

Theres not enough trust in engineers any more, since everyone is now a backyard engineer and wants to make
their own assessments.

Need more balls to progress, why arent computers speeding up dev time. Or are people writing too many status reports.

Private Space Travel...

[Anonymous Coward]

..is a HUMONGOUS threat to the bottom line status quo of entrenched defense industries, once you take a gander up the food chain a little. Industries who make a lot of money on not only developing "peaceful" technology, but tech designed to kill mass quantities of humans in an efficient manner. A big threat, really large. Hundreds of billions to trillions large. This is part of their entrenched thinking.

Now look at other businesses. Ever see anything....funny...going on just to keep a "business advantage"? Say...the computer industry. Ever see anything...strange occur if some large bottom line is at stake?

Now let's go back to "space" or as described more accurately, really a subset of "the arms trade" even though there's tangential money to be made with "civilian" projects. Look at the arms trade in general. Think back to what the concept of trillions of dollars is. Look at human nature and past historical parallels.
Sure, "accidents happen". And sometimes...not.

Re:Zefram Cochrane: Be of Good Cheer!

[Eric Smith]

The Centauri won't give us jumpgate technology until 2155.

Yeah, and probably only because they want to enlist our aid in keeping those darn pesky Narns under control.

RIP Andreas Katsulas, May 18 1946 - Feb 13 2006

"I believe that when we leave a place a part of it goes with us and part of us remains. Go anywhere in these halls, when it is quiet, and just listen. After a while you will hear the echoes of all of our conversations, every thought and word we've exchanged. Long after we are gone, our voice will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains. But I will admit that the part of me that is going will very much miss the part of you that is staying." -- G'Kar

maybe NASA can help

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they should ask help from people who have been doing this sort of thing for years. Sure, NASA had some failures too, but they certainly have more experience. At least hire some of NASA's engineers or something. Makes you wonder if budget also had something to do with the failure.

Re:maybe NASA can help

[dnixon112]

Boy, you're a real smart one. It's not like most of SpaceX's employees are from NASA/Boeing/TRW or anything.

http://www.spacex.com/index.html?section=aboutus&c ontent=http%3A//www.spacex.com/profiles.php

Video URL

[antdude]

2.3 MB WMV.

Re:Video URL

[Anonymous Coward]

mod this up..

Re:Video URL

[d474]

Looks like from the video and the comments from the rocket buffs at SpaceX comment thread, the thermal blanket didn't completely come off during the take off. Supposedly, it's attached to the rocket with velcro and a lanyard of some sort is supposed to pull it off at launch. But if you watch the video, you can clearly see something flapping or moving around that looks like a blanket. Then there is a puff of dark gray smoke, flames start shooting off in some weird direction, and the rocket starts going sideways, then the video cuts out.
Bogus.

Re:Oops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently this rocket science stuff isn't as easy as we thought...

last transmittion from final transmission

[Anonymous Coward]

officials release the final message received from falcon 1 with the hope that someone will be able to decode it:

4 8 15 16 23 42

Duh!

[rspress]

If you have only tested the mounted engine for three seconds how did they know if it could even run long enough to reach orbit? It makes me wonder if they even ran the engine in a test bed mount for the full time to orbit that it had to burn.

Re:Duh!

[dnixon112]

Do you really think they only tested the engine for 3 seconds? They've been testing the engine for 3 years now. From all accounts the engine was not the problem either.

Re:Duh!

[rspress]

There on pad test was three seconds. Visiting their site does not really provide much information other than they were sure it would work and the rocket failed during the first stage burn.

If you have a link to information of when and were they tested the engine on a test bed like those at vandenberg were they run them through the launch program and burn time please feel free to post them.

Re:Duh!

[everphilski]

They have done longer tests. The last run was merely to test the sequencing of the system as a whole. What you are trying to quantify with this type of a test is that your countdown sequence works (you've done hundreds of dry runs, yes, but with the real thing its always different) and that the thing is igniting / pumping / lighting / moving appropriately.

Re:Duh!

[major_clanger]

Uh, the SpaceX website at http://www.spacex.com/? There's even a video of a full-length static test.

Re:Duh!

[rspress]

Uh, I said I have been to their site and did not see much in the way of anything there. Yes the big 3 second static test but I had already seen that.

They say it may take month to find out what went wrong with it but usually during launch that can be narrowed down very quickly. Usually engine failure, software failure or structural failure. Usually in that order.

When you build a new rocket motor it has to be tested quite a bit. It is usually strapped down and tested for the length of time it has to run and for the program actions it has to take such and moving the gimble to steer the rocket. The Russians did not do enough testing of their N1 motor for their moonshot missions and they lost a few rockets in the process. They had to go back to their old motor design. Scaled Composites did a full burn test of their motor and it worked flawlessly. Of course it was a much simpler design.

Re:Duh!

[major_clanger]

Try looking in their media gallery and in particular at the videos called, for instance, 'Merlin Engine Full Duration Firing'.

Re:Duh!

[rspress]

That was the link I was looking for! Thank You!

I looks like it did well in the full mission test. For some reason I missed that when I was looking at the videos.

This ain't expensive yet

[roystgnr]

Elon Musk has said he can take up to three ruined launches before having to reconsider his financial support... but if he had a budget the size of, say, the suborbital X-33 project that never got out of the hangar, he'd be able to afford a couple hundred more launch attempts first.

Privately funded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article:

The $6.7 million cost of the launch was covered by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

That's $6.7 million taken from tax payers.

Re:Privately funded?

[Biff Stu]

I don't see what this private funding hype is all about. As far as I can tell, I don't see a significant difference in their business model from other contractors. Perhaps we should respect the past 45 years of government funded rocket research and the government contractors in the established launch business. I know that the space shuttle has turned into a boondoggle, but the real rocket business is in satellite launches, and the space shuttle hasn't handled routine satellite launches since the 80s. In the US, rockets have traditionally been made by private companies under government contract like Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and Rocketdyne (now part of Pratt & Whitney). I can understand why we should be excited at the prospect of re-usable rockets at 1/10th the price, but I don't understand why we should be so excited that a bunch of dot-comers have raised some VC money and entered the game. I don't see anything wrong with the fact that the current generation of rockets have been developed under government contracts. Let's face it, government funding is responsible for a lot of cutting edge research, and if you wanted to be in the rocket business the government is going to be a big source of funding that's too big to pass up. For that matter, you can be certain that the DoD would love to launch spy satellites for 1/10 the price, and it's in the DoD's interest to invest in technology make it happen. If these guys at SpaceX are serious about getting the job done, they would be crazy not to take money from the government. So, I had a look at their web page. If you go to the customer list, under the company tab, their customers base pretty much matches the customer base of Boeing or Lockheed-Martin. The first non-test launches are US DOD--DARPA and OSD/NRL. There's another unnamed US government launch early in the schedule, and there's also mention of a $100 million USAF contract through 2010. So yes, their start-up money was private. What's the big deal about that? I don't see how they're any more private than any other contractor.

Re:Privately funded?

[iamlucky13]

Boeing and Lockheed developed their rockets under contracts from the government, then commercialized them. SpaceX developed the rockets (granted most of their talent came from the big companies), then got the contracts. They paid their own money as they went along, as opposed to charging all their expenses to a contract. You are right though, the big deal is that the launch costs are 1/2 as much per pound. Their independent development is just fun trivia for fan-boys like me to rave about. Their business model is somewhat different too, because they generally make as many of their parts as possible themselves instead of sub-contracting them. They also focus more on lean management and low-cost rather than performance. Also, they are currently seeking funding from a NASA program to develop an privately run servicing capability to service the ISS. This is more in line with how Boeing and Lockheed do these things, as there less risk to their own money.

Re:Privately funded?

[DSP_Geek]

Which is a fart in a hurricane if it gets DoD competitive launches. Hell, $FEDGOV pissed away $1.2 billion on X-33 and it never got off the ground, so a few test flights at $6.7 million a pop is a drop in the bucket.

Re:Privately funded?

[O2H2]

For the recent EELV development contract both Boeing and LM had to ante in hundreds of millions of their own money. I think the total for Boeing was something like $2B due to the development of the RS-68. LM developed the Atlas I & II substantially with company money- nearly a billion was invested by General Dynamics. Atlas III also required more company money. So Elon is scarcely alone in supplementing government contract money with company money.

The bottom line on space flight is that if you plan on moving enough mass to orbit to make a profit the machine cannot be a performance pig. WIthin the engines and most other systems are objects that are highly stressed- and simply adding mass is normally not a solution. You are compelled to make elegant and efficient designs. That will cost more than the hardware in your espresso maker.

BTW Atlas V reduced costs to LEO by 50% from previous vehicles. A little known fact. And you can actually buy one and launch it next year if you want. Whether Elon can even match that is yet to be seen.

Lets be realistic- Elon is yet another rich guy who has a fascination with an expensive hobby. He is an outsider who had no prior spaceflight experience. And like most newbies he confused the booster operation with serious spaceflight. The smoke, noise and flames always does that. Yes a booster is necessary but it is only a first step. Reinventing it with some mediocre rocket engines will not push us to another level.

True progress in spaceflight is all about the performance of the upper stage and its in-space capabilities. If you don't make progress there then all the wonderful space missions we all want to see done are out of reach. Elon should have picked up the phone and called the Atlas team. For a fraction of the money he has spent he could have gotten a long-duration Centaur that could have opened up commercial manned missions to lunar orbit. His kind of money and attitude could have really made a difference. And he wouldn't have to create a new team to do it. He could have stood on some shoulders. You get farther that way. You just have to readjust your pride settings and focus on the real goal.

Every damn "space entrepreneur" does the same damn thing- and they mostly piss away hundreds of millions of dollars to do what has already been done. There is not a thought about what to do next. This is mostly because it is much, much harder to do. If these guys gave it a moment's thought they would just go see the experts. We are as smart or smarter than they are- but don't have the luxury of millions in VC or buyout money burning a hole in our pockets. If you add money, an enthusiastic customer and a mission trust me- we will deliver some amazing machines. Essentially they could add their innovations and ideas to ours- and get something better than either could do alone

And its not like we are sitting around doing nothing- the next four generations of launchers and upper stages are already in conceptual design. But there is no mission yet that needs these new capabilities. Cost reductions to $1300/lbm to LEO can be done with present technology but the investment is significant. With present launch rates there is simply no business case. But if you wanted to make a commercial lunar orbiter that could be done in less than four years for less money than you think.

The weird and perversely funny thing is that another newbie- Mike Griffin - is doing exactly the same thing as Elon but with taxpayer money to build a few more mediocre vehicles with a virtually newbie team that has never designed a rocket. It is highly probable that they too will follow this painful path. But education is a good thing I suppose. But we could have gone so much farther as a NASA-industry team. Sad.

Re:Privately funded?

[FleaPlus]

That's $6.7 million taken from tax payers.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that in the event of an unsuccessful launch, the launch costs are refunded. After all, Musk has stated that he could afford up to 3 launch failures; if he was able to just pocket the full price after each failure, I'm sure he could afford far more.

But...

[shaedee]

What happened to Han Solo and Chewie...
its gotta be asked!!!

Re:But...

[BiggerBoat]

That is so last millennium.

Re:But...

[shaedee]

yeah... i guess it was kinda millennidum
Do ya get Millennidum,, ha ha coz of the dum part and .. oh forget it

Re:Oops?

[Anonymous Coward]

No it isn't at all obvious to me that you have been looking forward to everyday rocket trips since 1957. Actually, that is one of the least obvious things I can imagine.

Hard/Expensive lessons

[nurb432]

Going to space is hard, and risky. To get it right will take a few brusies. Thankfully no one had to die to learn todays lesson.

LOX blanket problem Re:Guidance?

[WolfWithoutAClause]

If you're looking for it, you can see the LOX blanket didn't detach properly. So that would have been thrashing around in the chaotic airflow behind the vehicle, and trailing into the exhaust plume. Seriously not good.

For example, if the blanket wrapped around a feedpipe for the engine and then got tugged by the plume or the airflow it could easily have disabled the engines.

Blankets like that are a known reliability issue, that's why the Shuttle has spray-on insulation on it's ET (not that that's been exactly briliantly reliable either, but it's probably more reliable than it would have been if it had had external blankets.)

Ariane 5

[JonBuck]

Consider for a moment the failure of Ariane 5's maiden flight in 1996.

Aboard Ariane 5 was Cluster -- a $500 million set of four identical scientific satellites that were designed to to establish precisely how the Earth's magnetic field interacts with solar winds.

The unmanned rocket was on its first voyage after years of intense development by some of Europe's leading scientists. The explosion was a setback for Arianespace, whose previous models of the Ariane rocket had been some of the most reliable vehicles for satellite launches.

The European Space Agency estimated that total development of Ariane 5 cost more than $8 billion.

Maiden flights are perilous things. They got a full minute of flight data that they didn't have before. I'm sure the next one will be a success.

Re:Ariane 5

[O2H2]

Just because they get to fix a huge failure that showed up almost immediately on flight 1 does not guarantee success on ANY subsequent flight. Look up the flight history of the now-defunct Delta III. Or the subsequent failures of the Ariane V. Believe me this team is just starting on a long and winding road that MIGHT lead to success depending on the inherent capabilities of their designs. If they made slap-dash design decisions they will pay for those over and over again. It could easily cost $100M or more to get to reliable operations.

A launch a day keeps the high costs away

[Baldrson]

One of the things that John Carmack does correctly is lots of small flights with the possibility to scale upon success. John Walker wrote a paper about this approach (restricted to expendables) called "A Rocket a Day Keeps the High Costs Away". It's good advice. It's too bad more people (to be fair, such as John Walker himself) don't take it to heart.

Re:A launch a day keeps the high costs away

[Anonymous Coward]

We're looking at two efforts here. One of them builds small toys which might one day reach space, if they're lucky. One of them built a rocket which stood a decent chance of reaching orbit today. It puzzles me that you believe we should listen to the one with no product. It's entirely possible that this is the right approach, but trotting out somebody who builds small toys on the weekend as proof that it works is rather counterproductive.

Re:A launch a day keeps the high costs away

[Anonymous Coward]

In defense of the linked article, a "Rocket a Day" refers to reducing the overhead costs of existing rocket designs, not to a modified design process.

Re:A launch a day keeps the high costs away

[Teancum]

A point to consider here is that launching dozens of rockets is not necessarily going to help you out on the scaling issues for creating a more powerful primary launch engine, such as what SpaceX has been doing here.

The Falcon I is using a prototype for a new engine that is one of the first such new rocket motors for a couple decades now in that level of power that it can deliver. Smaller engines unfortunately don't scale very well and it takes some incredible engineering skill to build a new high-power rocket motor that can get you to orbit.

The goal here is that once they work out the bugs with this motor, it can be used for the much larger Falcon V and Falcon IX, which will be surprisingly man-rated (at least that is the long-term goal). There are very few man-rated rocket motors that have ever been built by anybody, including NASA. It is also potentially one of the first that has been put up for general sale to anybody who wants to put the money down and use it, as the others were all either of Russian origin (with political ramifications) or required a special act of the U.S. Congress before you were going to be allowed to even buy them.

The real gem that NASA has right now is the Shuttle Main Engine, which is a marvel of engineering and the fact that it has never failed dispite many, many flights and that it has even been resued on many occasions with only occasional refurbishment. (failed flights, but nothing that was directly related to the engine itself). Unfortunately SpaceX is not going to be able to purcase this engine shy of an act of God.

Re:A launch a day keeps the high costs away

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the SSME had its bad day ... quote from wikipedia on Shuttle Fligth 51-F:

Five minutes, 45 seconds into ascent, number one main engine shut down prematurely due to a spurious high temperature sensor. This was the only in-flight main engine failure of the shuttle program. At about the same time, a second main engine almost shut down from a similar problem, but this was observed and inhibited by a fast acting flight controller. The failed SSME resulted in an Abort To Orbit (ATO) trajectory, whereby the shuttle achieves a lower than planned orbital altitude.

This was not a failure!

[Jafafa Hots]

This was how it's supposed to work - the rocket had never had this large an amount of activity before, so when their systems detected a sudden surge in activity, the rocket was flagged for suspicious behavior and frozen.

The customer assures us that they were launching a legitimate satellite, but they have been unable to get a response from SpaceX customer service.

Early Days?

[BHopkins]

Ya...not today's space program at all...

Mod Up Parent.

[iamlucky13]

Yes! Thanks for the video. Mods, give this guy some points.

I have said it before

[Anonymous Coward]

and I'll say it again:

Engineers are morons.

If I wanted to I could build a space vehicle that would walk all over these dumbasses. We need more companies that actually make good stuff working on projects like this. Companies like Scaled Composites.

here's a hint

[penguin-collective]

Much as I enjoy Star Trek as fiction, here's a hint: it's not real. Warp drive isn't in the cards. In fact, even manned space travel beyond the moon isn't in the cards any time soon. Even once we manage to put people on other planets, colonization is centuries off.

We're stuck on this rock for the foreseeable future; deal with it.

Re:here's a hint

[raider_red]

'That whole Jules Verne thing about underwater ships and traveling to the moon is just science fiction. There's no way we'll be able to build a rocket with enough delta-v and payload capacity to send men to the moon...'

One of my college professors passed out a paper which made roughly the above argument. They made what seemed like very reasoned, mathematical arguments to that effect. Of course, the naysayers were wrong.

Re:here's a hint

[TroyM]

The original plan for sending a man to the moon assumed that one ship would lift off from earth, land on the moon, then take off and return to earth. The required size for the rocket at liftoff from earth was staggering - many times larger than the Saturn V. The paper you're talking about was probably assuming the same thing. Then someone at NASA came up with the concept of having a small lander that would seperate from the main craft, then later dock with the craft in lunar orbit. At the time, the idea of getting two spacecraft to dock in orbit seemed way too difficult. But they finally decided that was the only way it could be done. One of the main reasons for the Gemini program was to learn how to get spacecraft to dock in orbit

Re:here's a hint

[timeOday]

Therefore... what? Everything is possible? It doesn't follow.

Re:here's a hint

[AlterTick]

Therefore... what? Everything is possible? It doesn't follow.

No, therefore the Empire kicks the Federations ASS!

Yeah, one guy produced figures that were wrong once, therefore we can do anything. Excellent logic.

Re:here's a hint

[carninja]

Please, a few Quantum Torpedoes to knock out their shields, then beam an overloading Matter/Antimatter reaction chamber (Warp Core) into the middle of whatever Starfleet feels like making go boomsies. Game, Set and Match, Starfleet.

Re:here's a hint

[penguin-collective]

Actually, "underwater ships" already existed by the time Jules Verne wrote his story.

As for traveling to the moon, that's just not comparable. The physics for going to the moon were well understood and within reach; that was just a question of technology and engineering.

For manned interplanetary and interstellar travel, it's not so much that we can make a reasoned argument against it, we don't even have a hint of the physics needed to make it work; current reactor, propulsion, and shielding technologies are many orders of magnitude away from what they would need to be for manned travel. And the technology being developed by SpaceX is completely irrelevant; it's a commercial launch vehicle, and an inefficient one at that--it has nothing to do with interplanetary or interstellar travel.

It's a different thing for unmanned interstellar travel: technologically, if we devote enough resources to it, we can probably send a small interstellar probe to a neighboring star system within the next century--it would be hugely expensive, but feasible.

Actually, I think the most likely path to manned space exploration is to reengineer people: radiation hardening, hibernation, vacuum resistance, and changes to the skeletal system, among others. If you do that well, you could send people in small pods and they might be able to work when they arrive. But I give it a century before people overcome their squeamishness to permit genetic engineering with people, and another century to do it. But you and I are never going to set foot on another planet.

Re:here's a hint

[deaddrunk]

To be able to say that something is impossible, you need absolute evidence of the fact otherwise someone with more vision will make a fool of you in the future. Saying for example that FTL is impossible just because nothing in nature does it is a fallacy. There are plenty of things humans do that are 'unnatural', how many other creatures on this planet deliberately take drugs, cook their food, kill other animals for any other reason than food or pack dominance. The whole history of humankind sees ingenious people going against the accepted wisdom and coming up with new ideas. It would be better to say something's "impossible with our current technology" than to say "it can't be done".

Re:here's a hint

[Iron Sun]

Actually, I think the most likely path to manned space exploration is to reengineer people: radiation hardening, hibernation, vacuum resistance, and changes to the skeletal system, among others.

Bravo! Somebody give this person some mod points.

Space is far too hostile and Homo Sapiens is far too frail and squishy for any large scale space travel. Somebody during the Apollo program made an estimate (conceivably pulled out of their butt) that there was a 10% chance per flight that there would be a solar flare large enough to kill the crew or at least abort the mission. There actually was a lethally large flare between Apollos 15 and 16. (Note that this doesn't mean it was all a hoax and they didn't go: it means they were heroes).

I firmly believe that intelligent life from Earth has a great future ahead of it in space. I just don't think it will be human life.

Re:here's a hint

[Andrzej Sawicki]

Somebody the Force forgot to take into account?

Re:here's a hint

[Drunken Priest]

Wow, I never imaged engineering people for space travel.

But when you put it that way, why would anyone want to go?

Suppose you find another Earth... but your body isn't capable of living and being happy on it.

Or you float around in interstellar blackness for a lifetime? That would get depressing. So you engineer the hybrids never to get depressed so they don't kill themselves. The cynical governments in charge of such efforts might as well engineer people not to think critically while they're at it.

So I always wonder... why do people want to leave Earth? There is no other place than this. What are we trying to accomplish? Really... the only thing anyone can do is live and love... that's done just fine from here.

(And BTW, I'm not a curmudgeon... I just hate Star Trek :)

Re:here's a hint

[Kjella]

For manned interplanetary and interstellar travel, it's not so much that we can make a reasoned argument against it, we don't even have a hint of the physics needed to make it work; current reactor, propulsion, and shielding technologies are many orders of magnitude away from what they would need to be for manned travel.

Say again? Interplanetary travel is quite well understood. It'd take some months but hardly out of reach. Now interstellar is a completely different ballgame. The solar system (diameter of Pluto's orbit) is about 80 AU wide, the nearest sun is 272000 AU away.

It's a different thing for unmanned interstellar travel: technologically, if we devote enough resources to it, we can probably send a small interstellar probe to a neighboring star system within the next century--it would be hugely expensive, but feasible.

As in arrive in the next century? Nope. With current tech we're talking about 75000 years or so. Even the most theoretical scenarios I've seen using ungodly amounts of antimatter as fuel takes about 20 years.

Actually, I think the most likely path to manned space exploration is to reengineer people: radiation hardening, hibernation, vacuum resistance, and changes to the skeletal system, among others. If you do that well, you could send people in small pods and they might be able to work when they arrive. But I give it a century before people overcome their squeamishness to permit genetic engineering with people, and another century to do it. But you and I are never going to set foot on another planet.

Interplanetary I don't see any reason why we couldn't do today. As for interstellar, I think it's far more likely we'll not actually send humans per se. Even with all the genetric modifications you suggest, sending humans is horribly inefficient. I think we'd send fertilized eggs and artificial wombs, or even just a DNA sequencer to do it on-site.

Re:here's a hint

[Hawke666]

Yup. There's no other place out there. The sky is actually a curtain with lightbulbs stuck to it.

Re:here's a hint

[rapierian]

I think interstellar travel will be achievable in the next century or two. Just about all the theories we have for what gravity actually is allow schemes to manipulate space time to achieve effective FTL (saying effective because you never actually travel faster than light, but you end up covering the distance faster than light could). The problem right now is we hardly have any evidence about which theory is correct.

Re:here's a hint

[Cerberus7]

There is exactly 1 good reason why humanity should try to spread out from the Earth. Bears. They'll kill us all!

At some point in the future, this planet will become inhospitable to human life, and probably a good number of other species. Be it environmental catastrophe, a big rock from space, or ourselves, it's only a matter of time. The only way to ensure that humanity, and perhaps other forms of life from this planet, survives beyond such a catastrophe is to colonize other worlds. The human species is the only one, so far as we know, that has the capacity to avoid extinction.

Re:here's a hint

[bigtrike]

Even the most theoretical scenarios I've seen using ungodly amounts of antimatter as fuel takes about 20 years.

How much time would pass for the occupants at those speeds? A couple of minutes?

Re:here's a hint

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Everything is possible?

Thats about the size of it. I remember the motto of the BBC special effects department, circa the early Doctor Who era; if it can be imagined, it can be made. To say something is absoloutely impossible, you need absoloutes in science, which don't really exist.

Re:here's a hint

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

I firmly believe that intelligent life from Earth has a great future ahead of it in space. I just don't think it will be human life.

Actually human life has proven itself immensely resilient and adaptable to new conditions, by virtue of our intelligence. Eskimos didn't grow white fur and sharper fangs to survive in temperatures that would kill a naked ape in minutes, they used their minds. IMHO genetic engineering would be a step backwards, depending on locking ourselves into one mode of existence, which might be every bit as disadvantageous in some future arena as space is to us now.

The Apollo crew were tooling along in the spacecraft equivalent of a hollowed out log. All we need are bigger ships, and for that all we need is an economical way to get to orbit. Not mention the tremendous advances in materials science since then. It so happens I think I have such a system, but I'm too tired to fill you in now. There mght be some details left in my posting history, or you can wait till the pending story gets posted to slashdot.

Re:here's a hint

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

As in arrive in the next century? Nope. With current tech we're talking about 75000 years or so. Even the most theoretical scenarios I've seen using ungodly amounts of antimatter as fuel takes about 20 years.

Could you post a link to support this please? One would have thought that with the amount of redundant nuclear warheads floating around here, we could do a little better than 75,000 years.

Re:here's a hint

[mdwh2]

Who said that something was impossible?

The earlier poster clearly was talking in terms of our current (or near-future) technology.

Re:here's a hint

[cvd6262]

The solar system (diameter of Pluto's orbit) is about 80 AU wide, the nearest sun is 272000 AU away.

Actually, I think the nearest sun is about 1 AU away (from Earth, anyway).

Re:here's a hint

[penguin-collective]

Interplanetary travel is quite well understood. It'd take some months but hardly out of reach. [...] Even the most theoretical scenarios I've seen [for interstellar probes] using ungodly amounts of antimatter as fuel takes about 20 years.

You're still thinking about moving chunks of mass around, not "travel".

Yes, with an enormous effort, you can move a small habitation module and a couple of occupants to Mars (might as well make it a one-way trip, since they're going to be sick anyway). But that's not the same as "interplanetary travel" in the sense that Star Trek fans are thinking of. With current technology, every single manned interplanetary trip is going to be a huge, multi-nation effort; unlike Game Boys or PCs, it doesn't get much cheaper because you make more of it. In order to have anything resembling manned travel requires new physics: new power, new shielding, etc.

Sending a small interstellar probe is also going to be a huge multi-nation effort. The antimatter generation would be hugely expensive, and there would still be a lot of engineering to be done. But such an effort wouldn't claim to be anything other than a one-time expensive science experiment--it's not about travel, mining, or colonization, it's about knowledge.

Re:here's a hint

[penguin-collective]

Suppose you find another Earth... but your body isn't capable of living and being happy on it.

Why wouldn't it? The kinds of changes I was talking about don't prevent you from living on a planet, they just keep you from deteriorating in space.

Also, even if you had to give something up for those extra functions, there is plenty of stuff in the human genome that simply isn't relevant anymore, stuff related to surviving in a world of poisonous plants, parasitically infested meat, and prowling carnivores.

So I always wonder... why do people want to leave Earth?

Well, I don't mind people exploring as long as they don't see it as a way of fixing things back home. Because, as we have seen in the US, moving to another place, you just take your problems with you. The US is even more "Old Europe" these days than Old Europe.

Re:here's a hint

[AlterTick]

Please, a few Quantum Torpedoes to knock out their shields, then beam an overloading Matter/Antimatter reaction chamber (Warp Core) into the middle of whatever Starfleet feels like making go boomsies. Game, Set and Match, Starfleet.

Heh. Sorry, but no:

The DS9 TM states that quantum torpedo yield is roughly 50 isotons, while photon torpedoes are limited to a theoretical maximum of 25 isotons. Since the theoretical maximum yield from a photon torpedo is roughly 2.7E17 joules, this would suggest that a quantum torpedo's yield is roughly 5.4E17 joules...Star Destroyers should be able to withstand roughly 1000 photon torpedoes or 370 quantum torpedoes before losing shields. This estimate is based on the ISD shield strength of 1E20 joules

Look, any argument that the Federation could ever even match the Empire is ridiculous. They're both space operas, but that doesn't mean their tech levels are necessarily at all comparable. Since they're entirely fictional, the power and advancement of their tech was set arbitrarily. Star Trek takes place a few hundred years in our future. Star Wars is set in a place where the Empire rules over a galactic state with millions of member worlds that have had interstellar travel for thousands of years. The matter simply admits no rational argument. Pitting the Federation against the Empire would be like sending a single Roman legion from 15AD to fight the 101st Airborne Division from 2006AD. the Empire would utterly cream the Federation.

If the whole stardestroyer.net is too much to read, try the 5 minute synopsis. It sums it it exquisitely.

Re:here's a hint

[gstoddart]

The solar system (diameter of Pluto's orbit) is about 80 AU wide, the nearest sun is 272000 AU away.

No, the nearest is one AU away. You're thinking of the next nearest one. ;-)

(Yes, it's a joke)

Re:here's a hint

[realTremens]

http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/ex tra/nearest.html Nearest sun: Proxima Centauri, distance 4.2 lightyears http://www.google.com/search?hs=37y&hl=en&lr=&rls= en&q=4.2+lightyear+in+AU&btnG=Search 4.2 lightyear = 265 606.621 Astronomical Units

Re:here's a hint

[Kjella]

Could you post a link to support this please? One would have thought that with the amount of redundant nuclear warheads floating around here, we could do a little better than 75,000 years.

Certainly. Mankind's fastest space probe is the Voyager I space probe. You can read that the speed is about 3.6 AU/year. Divide 272000 / 3.6 = 75000 years. You can find it on other sites too like this one that quotes 73,000 years. Of course, these are all chemical rockets.

It's been quite a while since I took basic physics in school, but if I remember correctly nuclear powered rockets didn't add any significant (in this context) amount of power. It'd probably still take >10000 years, though I don't have a quote on that.

Re:here's a hint

[Anonymous Coward]

1AU = Distance between Earth and its nearest Sun.

Re:here's a hint

[ultranova]

Yes, with an enormous effort, you can move a small habitation module and a couple of occupants to Mars (might as well make it a one-way trip, since they're going to be sick anyway).

Sick from what ?

With current technology, every single manned interplanetary trip is going to be a huge, multi-nation effort; unlike Game Boys or PCs, it doesn't get much cheaper because you make more of it. In order to have anything resembling manned travel requires new physics: new power, new shielding, etc.

Actually, no. If you are going to make regular trips between Earth and Mars, you build a spacecraft that moves between the two with solar sails and never lands. That spacecraft is expensive to build, but once built, it can stay in use for decades.

The expensive part is getting stuff to the orbit.

Re:here's a hint

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

You cannot seriously take voyager as any way indicative of current technology. Thats like saying hurling a message in a bottle into the sea proves that it would take decades to cross an ocean with what we have now. And they were able to cross interstellar space in reasonable time periods back in the 1950s, with enhancements and refinements to the idea right up until recently. All this is technically possible with what we have right now, and could reach the closest star in forty odd years.

Re:here's a hint

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

The expensive part is getting stuff to the orbit.

Yes indeed, you are exactly correct, and I think I have the solution to that.

Re:here's a hint

[penguin-collective]

Sick from what ?

Radiation.

The expensive part is getting stuff to the orbit.

Yes, indeed, you got it.

Re:here's a hint

[ultranova]

Sick from what ?

Radiation.

A craft that doesn't land can have thick, heavy radiation-protecting walls. Besides, the people who have spent a long time in space stations don't seem to be having any particular health problems.

Re:here's a hint

[srussell]

Space is far too hostile and Homo Sapiens is far too frail and squishy for any large scale space travel.

Meh. You wouldn't last too long at the South Pole without technology, either, but we've got people living down there for a year at a time. You'd probably die no more slowly unprotected at 900 feet below sea level than you would in a vacuum, but people regularly tool around down there in submarines.

I suspect that we're more capable of fashioning a livable, reasonably safe habitate than we are of engineering humans for the environment. At least, historically, we've proven better at modifying our environment than ourselves. We just haven't applied ourselves as rigorously to the task as we have for other environments.

--- SER

In comparison...

[matt328]

A minor setback at most.

How many shuttles full of people have NASA lost? Two too many, IMO.

Re:last transmittion from final transmission

[stuuf]

"last transmittion from final transmission" You deserve a -1 Redundant just for that subject line...

Well, on the upside

[holysin]

The good news is that our missle defense system works flawlessly ;-)

No space for you!

First Privately Funded Launch Vehicle?

[Ahotasu]

I thought the Pegasus rocket by Orbital Sciences Corporation was the first privately funded launch vehicle? Or does corporate money not count?

Better than I'd thought.

[jd]

First time through, I thouht it said it had been destroyed in a Maiden concert. I always knew there was something suspect about the bass settings.

I was reading the SpaceX comment thread - LOL!!!

[d474]

Read these comments from the SpaceX comment thread as the rocket is launched...(LOL)

Go Falcon 1

All the best Falcon 1.

Good luck SpaceX!

God speed Falcon 1.

Auto sequence start....This is it. Good luck falcon 1

In autoseq mode

T-60 seconds....Board is green.

Off we go

Here we go!

Darn, no video.

lost the feed :-(

Oh my, she was spinning out of control before the webcast cut out?? Only got a few glimpes.

I'm about to turn blue holding my breath... is it climbing or is it in bits???

OK, what just happened??? This is going to hit SpaceX very hard.

Oh, the human condition.

Hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, the concentration of four-five digit uid's on this thread is amazing. Is this what it's always like on Friday nights? The veteran slashdotters all come out of hiding?

Re:Hmm..

[Threed]

The real veterans are busy on Friday night. We get back to /. after sleeping in on Saturday morning.

Yes, but...

[Goonie]

If I'm not very much mistaken, you sound very much like you work for either Boeing or Lockheed Martin.

If I understand the general critique of the space establishment from the "rich hobbyists" is that you may well have any number of very bright engineers, but your corporate masters make a hell of a lot of money off cost-plus contracts using the same old stuff and have no incentive to actually build anything new and better. Even if somebody like Musk had have come along you wouldn't take his money because the tech that gets developed would ultimately reduce the value of future government work.

Re:Yes, but...

[O2H2]

Yes I do work for one of the two companies you mention- I do this stuff on a daily basis

As for the corporate "masters", your assessment, while totally understandable, is absolutely wrong. First of all no one is making much money on launching rockets. LM and Boeing management would love to get rid of the space launch divisions. They are packed with risk and produce very little money. Boeing has not made a cent on the Delta III and IV. They are billions in the hole. LM just had their first year in recent memory where Atlas broke even on operating costs- but they are still hundreds of millions in the hole.

The space launch business has nearly dried up. There are a few commercial launches but those mostly go to the Russian- built vehicles like Proton or Zenit. You can have a decent capability and pay the engineers a few hundred a month. The successful American vehicles are left with government business. Profits on government services are strictly limited- no one would ever invest a lot of money on that biz given the poor rates of return.

The ability to develop new machines is then strictly limited by small amounts of money that are available. We make slow but steady progress - but only because the financial math doesn't justify much more. It is extremely annoying when folks out of the blue come up with hundreds of millions and then piss it away on showboating ( Spaceship 1- what a joke) or repeating the past (Conestoga, Roton, Beal, SpaceX et al).

We are all space enthusiasts and would love to see some next steps made. It is within our grasp to make vehicles that can make real lunar exploration an economic possibility. And believe me the NASA CLV and CaLV vehicles are NOT the way to go. You could scarecely pick a less effective path. It will be a miracle if even one makes it to first flight. So instead of making educated next steps all the major resources are squandered on crap. Wouldn't you be a little pissed off too?

I personally would like to see some people on Mars before I die. At the present rate of development that is not going to happen. It could though. We could be on Mars in 15 years with a serious exploration effort if we took the right paths. So keep all this in mind when you get all excited about some newbie's attempt to lift 1000 lb to LEO.

Re:Yes, but...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

I would like to ask your opinion of an idea I have... With all the talk lately about a space elevator, I got to thinking after a not so recent slashdot discussion, just what advantages would a space elevator offer over a tower launch? I contacted the man responsible for a similar idea, the skyramp (warning: hideous javascript menu may break firefox), Carlton Meyer, and had a dialogue in which he pointed me to a tower launch archive.

The ideas I see bandied about there are similar to what I had in mind, which would be essentially an 11km tall tower (think pylons rather than skyscrapers, based at sea), with evacuated airless launch tubes, using nuclear reactors to power a maglev or pulley system to accelerate vessels to escape velocity. These would then emerge above the end of the troposphere, with it's associated weather and air pressure, and have little to no fuel needed to reach GEO, meaning you could do a lot more while you were up there. I originally estimated reaching escape velocity with this system, but it turns out I got the numbers wrong and that would only be suitable for electronics and things that could withstand insane G-forces.

Not only would this enable multiple launches daily, it is, unlike the space elevator, readily achievable with today's technology, and financially viable as well. Consider the big dig in Boston has cost about 12 billion so far... Given NASA had an annual budget of $16.2 billion for 2005, and a nuclear power plant costs a cool billion to build, give or take, we could have this up and running in a few years.

Re:Yes, but...

[O2H2]

I personally think that eventually some type of ground based launch system will be built since you can eliminate the booster which is the biggest pain in the launch stack. However launch demand will have to increase enormously to justify the investment. Basically the economics are like those of the Chunnel- which took centuries to justify.

I would shoot for a terminal speed at exit of 10-15,000 ft/second with the exit ambient pressure as low as you can get. The object you are launching has to have some sort of propulsion on it so it is pointless to make the thing just the payload. Besides this makes the system much more flexible ( one presumes you might want to go to slightly different inclinations too) and the size of the launch tube and energy delivery is much smaller. To make this really effective you do need to be able to launch about 60-160 mT to this velocity though.

Remember that very light cylindrical structures, when pressurized, can take enormous axial loads so long as they are not subjected to big bending forces. UNfortunately you get those bending forces from the aeroloads you generate on a regular rocket. Your ground cannon may not. Lets say it doesn't. So take a structure 18 ft in diameter. Pressurize it to 100 psia. It can take in excess of 20 G's axial without too much trouble. The vehicle you are pushing scarcely is bothered. Humans might need a load alleviation system. If you can hold 20G's the tube is only like 20 miles long- not too horrible for the folks in the late 21st century to make.

Anyway I think something like this will come to pass- probably past mid century though. BTW the use of pressurized structures is also a good thing for the launch tube supports- it can cut mass enormously. No practical rocket for example can fly without the benefits of internal pressurization.

Re:Yes, but...

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

However launch demand will have to increase enormously to justify the investment.

Well the way I see it, there are numerous groups that would have an immense interest in such a project. For example, take Dubai. The city-state has very few natural resources, and no oil, but it is a main pipeline route for a lot of the oil in the middle east. Being keenly aware of the limited amount of oil that there is available, they have been trying to diversify their investments as much as possible, including a "spaceport" which would be more like the space-X effort, and the Burj Dubai, a giant sail shaped hotel.

This operation would be more of an extension on their traditional income (channelling resources through their borders), and the resources are there, albeit not easy to reach at this time. There was a lot of discussion about a trillion dollar asteroid a while back, composed largely of iron, and containing abvout 5 tons of that metal for every man, woman, and child on earth. I have a few more ideas as to the exploitation of space based resources, but thats another days work! :D Besides I think that the lack of interest in launches these days is something of a catch-22; it costs too much to get to orbit, so there is no interest, and there is no interest, so there aren't enough space flights.

You are right about the vehicle requiring some sort of propulsion, it would need that in any case to maneuver in orbit. To be honest I am neither a physicist nor an engineer, so a lot of the equations are something I am just catching up on now (or trying to). What kind of a load alleviation system would be of use for people in this case? I believe astronauts take about 5 gs during a launch, according to another discussion I had, that would be enough for GEO...

and the size of the launch tube and energy delivery is much smaller.

Yes, but the more we can leverage earth-bound energy sources, the more we can launch, and cheaper per kilogram as well. The bigger the tower gets, the harder and more expensive it is to build, but thats a once off challenge which would reduce the cost for every launch made. Ideally I'd like to see a minimal rocket propulsion requirement for that reason.

Anyway I think something like this will come to pass- probably past mid century though.

Well if I can gather enough information to support the concept (or get negative results that can be overcome), there is no reason why I can't go ahead and start a feasability study on it, and see if there aren't a few groups that might not be interested in the idea! No time like the present hey. Thank you very much for your thoughts on this, especially about the effects of pressurisation on axial loads, I was not aware of that. It is much appreciated.

Re:Yes, but...

[Goonie]

Thank you for your informative comments. A few follow-up questions; if you're able to answer any of them it would be much appreciated:

• Is there a good public critique the weaknesses of the CEV plans that details the weaknesses you describe?
• Did people in your company put together a better proposal/s?
• Any hints as to the broad outlines?
• Did it make it outside your company?
• If so, why did NASA choose the plan they've adopted? Boeing and Lockheed Martin both have excellent connections in Washington, as I understand it - isn't that what your company pays its lobbyists for?

Re:Yes, but...

[O2H2]

You are quite right about the destructive circle that results in reduced access to space. It is probably the reason I am most annoyed by the waste of money by folks like Musk.

Many successful businesses could not have been bootstrapped without a source of exterior funding that did not demand immediate returns. This is of course the reason for existence for VC companies. But their resources are almost entirely devoted to software and consumer product companies which have shown explosive growth in the past decades. The space launch business, even we could deliver payloads to LEO at $1000/lbm, does not show the signs of such explosive growth and hence does not normally warrant high risk investment. In fact the reasons for going to space, unless you are the military or a scientist, are pretty limited at present. Perhaps the only real growth potential is space tourism. This may be a pretty limited thing for many decades to come. But in any event the limited amount of this "blue sky" money is never used to make real progress. Instead it repeats the past. Gah!

Now if you had say $20B burning a hole in your pocket you could totally revolutionize the entire launch infrastructure. Heck even $7B would get you a very long way. That kind of money would allow true next generation vehicles to be built that would blow your mind. They are not more elaborate- they are simpler than what flies now. Its just that they leverage what we have learned over the past decade and translate it into real machines. You would not believe how small they can be.

These next generation vehicles permit economical exploration of the moon and set the stage for Mars. Architecture studies that we did showed that in less than three years after start of the project you could place a complete lunar base capable of supporting dozens of full time staff with two or more peripheral exploration bases and multiple orbital bases in different inclinations or occupying L1. That kind of architecture permits real exploration. Not like the anemic and downright unimaginative stuff coming out of NASA these days.

BTW the NASA vision for exploration is just about the opposite of where we should be going. Those vehicles are incredibly inefficient and expensive. But because no one wants to criticize NASA for fear of losing some other contract the entire industry is mum. On the inside everyone knows that the designs are total crap. This should not be surprising since they too were "conceived" by people who had no previous experience with designing rockets! They will use the term "manrated" to defend their crummy designs- that is a total smoke screen. You can pump costs into a machine by demanding that every molecule of metal that went into it is inspected but that will not make your machine better when it is a bad design. That is the lesson of Shuttle.

The best thing for them really is for someone to supply the man lift and cargo capacity before they finish and show that reasonable precautions on a good design are sufficient for flying a crew. But I suspect that will never happen.

People can take a lot more that 5 g's. Especially if they are transient. Pilots can remain concious and in control of an aircraft at 9 G's for extended periods measured in many tens of seconds. If you are a passenger and don't mind blacking out for a few seconds you can take much more. And this is with minimal work to reduce the overall height of the person so that pressure head problems are minimized.

What is a "computer glitch"?

[G3ckoG33k]

From the article

The first countdown, last November, was called off with just minutes to go due to a computer problem and a stuck liquid-oxygen valve. The second attempt went awry in December when a fuel tank was dented due to a faulty depressurization valve. The third time, computer glitches encountered during a test countdown forced a delay. "

What could a "computer problem" or "computer glitches" be in an event like this? I mean what kind of tests are performed? And how come they are discovered just a few hours or minutes before launch? I cannot see what kind issues it may be. Anyone with a clue?

Re:Zefram Cochrane: Be of Good Cheer!

[Luigi30]

:( Andreas Katsulas

"How long shall we STARE at each other from ACROSS THE NEUTRAL ZONE?" -- Tomalak

"Has Starfleet approved of this plan?"
"...no."
"Hmm. I like it already." -- Tomalak and Picard

tree?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this is someones back yard.
It seems odd that a tree would be some close to the launch pad.

Re:tree?

[Sean Riordan]

No it's here

Yeah...but....and then...

[threedognit3]

There are many of us in the launch community who had high hopes this would work. We monitored the progress simply because this was rocket science at it's best, basic, experimental but mostly guts. Many of us are saddened of the failure but hope and wish Elon God speed in reclaiming a place in rocket pioneering. We know many of the people at SpaceX, their dedication and continue to support them in their quest. Don't stop now...it's only a matter of time.

Re:Yeah...but....and then...

[Sean Riordan]

Amen. Not enough positivity around this thread.

I feel for the academy folks though. Building a satellite is an all consuming affair and generally sucks away a good portion of the lives of the people involved for a while, and seeing all your work turn into twisted chucks of aluminum would make for a very bad day. I hope not to be in the same position anytime soon.

Excellent!

[veeoh]

At least they are as sucessful at launching as Nasa then - thats gotta be something.

No self destruct?

[dalleboy]

What? No self destruct?! What were they thinking? What if an evil genius where to steal the rocket, there would be no way for any super agent to stop him.

Re:Privately funded: cost of successful launch

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the cost of the launch dumbass. Not development costs. Yes, in commercial enterprise, we charge EVEN THE GOVERNMENT to use goods or services.

It failed. Thus, no payment from Gov.

Missle Command

[LittleBigScript]

I guess MSNBC is a reputable site, but I don't see an Airforce and Pentagon(?) funded satelite as private. Sounds kinda like a Private Military Corp, which isn't really all that private. It sounds like Merc stuff.

LOX insulation jacket Re:I had wondered...

[WolfWithoutAClause]

The failure might well have been something to do with the LOX insulation jacket that didn't come off at launch. In the video you can see it dangling and being blown around by the airflow and seems to get into the exhaust jet. It could easily have wrapped around some of the pipes and broke them or something.

Re:last transmittion from final transmission

[nietsch]

Isn't that the fibonacci sequence used in that Dan Brown book?

Re:Zefram Cochrane: Be of Good Cheer!

[tengwar]

Give? Technology costs. How much can you afford?

Master Blasters

[tekrat]

How come on the failed Sci-Fi show Master Blasters, they could shoot a Mini-Cooper 1000 feet successfully with a week of construction, but these guys, with a real rocket, built over months, couldn't do any better?

Is there something I'm missing here?

We have very well-known research that dates back to Goddard and a little later, the V-2, which launched successfully from cruder facilities.

Why is it that we continue to have a non-bulletproof system after all these years of engineering? This is like building cars 50 years later that still only go 12mph and sputter and smoke and backfire, and have to be cranked to run. How is it that we have cars that go 100mph easily, that are comfortable, fairly safe, and affordable by the average person?

Re:Master Blasters

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mini Cooper was a dumb chunk of metal. It wasn't expected to accelerate to Mach 20 and go into orbit. And Goddard did a massive number of experiments, many of which failed.

Don't underestimate the complexity of what they're trying to do. Hundreds of millions of cars are driving around and every new model has ten times the money poured into design than just one of these rockets.

Once we've launched even a hundred thousand rockets into orbit, then you can start trying to make a comparison.

Re:Master Blasters

[cr0sh]

I would guess it is because a large part of the relevant expertise and knowledge is considered "classified" or at least "off limits". Basically, if you can create a controllable, liquid-fueled rocket, you now have a stable, and possibly long distance (up to intercontinental), launch platform for any number of destructive devices (NBC and conventional explosives). Since just about every country knows this, those people able to design and develop such systems tend to get sucked into the military-industrial complex of their (or other's) country, and virtually never let out of sight.

So, in a way, every private enterprise that attempts to do this is starting from scratch. Perhaps one of these days, we as a species will learn that killing each other is not the answer to our problems, and only leads to other issues. Until that time, I personally don't expect much change to occur in the development of very large-scale rocketry...

Re:Oops?

[mnemonic_]

Oh sod off.

Ethernet? Indeed much to wonder.

[MickLinux]

Supposedly this is the first rocket to rely on ethernet...

Are you implying that the slashdotting DOS'd the inertial active control system, resulting in a pulse thruster jamming open?

Or do you think that this was more the result of WinCE, or our good friend Ralsky attempting to push SEND on the next million spams?

The article does mention development

[Baldrson]

Suppose we translate these figures, almost incomprehensible by modern standards (three hundred launch vehicles expended in the development program!) into quasi-modern terms. Consider an orbital launch vehicle two-stage, say, clean and green thanks to LH2/LOX propulsion in all stages. Engines: J2 or RL10s or follow-on uprated versions (we'll have plenty of opportunity to develop them and phase them in). A simple two stage cylindrical stack like Titan II, with GPS or ground-commanded navigation. Payload interface is a big ring with bolt-holes and a standard fairing with plenty of volume inside.

The habits of the development program carry over to production/operation. The only way you can afford 300 launch vehicles is to make them small and if those are the basis of your development for orbital craft then you have to make sure the entire process, for manufacture to launch operation is scalable.

Ambiguity of "normal" when tumbling

[Anonymous Coward]

He meant normal as in at right angles to.

It's worth noting that a plume coming out of the side of the rocket is normal to the direction of flight only if the rocket is not tumbling or has not yet acquired any significant speed. In this case though, tumbling was present, although we don't know how fast it was tumbling.

The direction of flight is determined by the momentum that a rocket has built up in a particular direction, versus its thrust in all other directions during a tumble. In other words, its inertia can keep it going along its previous path for a while, and the faster it tumbles, the less it will deviate from that path.

Of course there are severe limits to this. Most rockets break up very quickly when their bodies are not aligned with the direction of inertial flight, since the forces involved can be huge.

No Physics Yet? I disagree!

[RabidTrucker]

You wrote:

"For manned interplanetary and interstellar travel, it's not so much that we can make a reasoned argument against it, we don't even have a hint of the physics needed to make it work; current reactor, propulsion, and shielding technologies are many orders of magnitude away from what they would need to be for manned travel."

http://www.newpath4.com/millenialdawnpowerandlight secure21.htm
will provide the answers you now see lacking in the current offerings.
Real-time power, real-time thrust, forget large fuel tanks & batteries.

Lightweight spaceships being designed NOW at NASA: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/25aug_plas ticspaceships.htm
and if you read that article it says the lightweight foam resists radiation penetration. Gee, we're about 3-5 years away from Mars! Don't throw in yet.

The Dog ate my Homework

[ghoul]

So now all the grad students get As on their project.

"Professor ! My experiment would have worked perfectly but the satellite got destroyed at launch!!"

"Oh! You poor guy. OK you get an A"

" See I told you! You could have joined me in Cancun for Spring break instead of actually creating a working experiment.. We both got As"

Fuel leak identified, next start planned...

[random name 6721]

see http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon/f1/060325leak .html - appearently, a fuel leak has been identified in preliminary analysis of images. The articel quotes Elon Musk: "I cannot predict exactly when the next flight will take place [...] However, I would hope that the next launch occurs in less than six months." I think that this is, if confirmed, good news (both the fast and analysis, and the optimism that the program gets not indefinitely delayed). Also, the analysis seems to be consistent with what many people on /. and otherwhere guessed.

Re:Zefram Cochrane: Be of Good Cheer!

[bill_mcgonigle]

RIP Andreas Katsulas, May 18 1946 - Feb 13 2006

Now that should have warranted a Slashdot story. For shame, the best actor in modern SciFi will be missed.

Scalability

[Baldrson]

Well, of course, if the engine isn't scalable to any great degree then the approach talked about by Walker would have to, during development in order to keep costs down, decouple vehicle from engine development.

Cause of failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Cause of failure was due to a fuel leak that occured shortly after takeoff (within seconds) that ignited and burned through the helium hydraulic system. The rocket didn't explode, it crashed into the ocean. Everything else on the rocket worked as hoped.

Build an assembly line then....

[cheekyboy]

Just as in the 60s, build one rocket every 3 weeks, as each one is completed, launch, go bang, decode the data
they get back, re-implemnent bug fixes in the previous 90% completed rocket, relaunch and test every 3-4weeks.

Thats how USA did it in the 60s. But sometimes they built too quick as noted bugs didnt get implemented into
the assembly line quick enough.

Musk says he thinks they've found the cause

[iamlucky13]

I just checked the SpaceX website, and their updates page more information about the failure. This is preliminary, and they can't speak officially until they've gotten some feedback from the government investigators they have to work with, so it doesn't seem worth a new article at the moment.

According to Musk, a fuel leak cause a fire at T+25, damaging the pneumatics and causing an engine shutdown at T+29. They haven't figured out the cause of the leak yet, but he says everything was going "picture perfect" until then. He also mentioned that the insulating blanket many people pointed out flapping in the onboard camera view does not seem to have played a role. There's a couple pictures of the rocket lifting off and looking beautiful except for that small flame coming from somewhere above the combustion chamber. It's too soon to say when the next launch will be.

Oh, and this quote is golden: "A friend of mine wrote to remind me that only 5 of the first 9 Pegasus launches succeeded; 3 of 5 for Ariane; 9 of 20 for Atlas; 9 of 21 for Soyuz; and 9 of 18 for Proton."

sort of, but not quite

[SonicSpike]

As mentioned in another post, safety IS a market force. Airlines take a loss when one of their planes go down obviously. So does Amtrak, and so do drug companies.

And on that subject, drug regulation by the FDA (which has no legal grounds for existing in the first place; but that's another subject) actually causes more deaths than it helps. First off, it artifically increases the cost of R&D of a drug to delivery through excess regulation. Secondly, many people need a specific drug, but can't get it because the FDA hasn't approved it yet even though the drug co is confident that it works.

And while you are right, drug companies, or any industry for that matter, is indeed in business to make a profit. That's the nature of the beast. However, they don't tend to stay in business very long by ripping off the customer, or worse killing them. Companies like that tend to get sued or go out of business in short order.

Or we could try Project Orion again

[denjin]

Voyager is only traveling at 38,400 miles per hour. Project Orion is theorised to...
"the top cruise velocity that can be achieved by a thermonuclear Orion starship is about 8% to 10% of light velocity. An atomic (fission) Orion can achieve perhaps 3%-5% of the speed of light. A nuclear pulse drive starship powered by matter-antimatter pulse units would be theoretically capable of obtaining a velocity of from 50% to 80% of the speed of light."

That still ends up taking us 44 years or so to Alpha Centauri I guess, but quite a bit faster than your 75,000 years.