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SpaceX Gets Operational License For Cape Canaveral
FiggyOO writes "For those of you who witnessed the launch of SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket, launch 3, you will be glad to hear that SpaceX has received a license to launch from space complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the Florida coast. This Launch complex is just south of launch pads 39A and 39B which have been used to launch the space shuttles, and will continue in that role for a few more years. This launch complex will enable SpaceX to launch the much-anticipated Falcon 9 rocket, which will eventually carry the Dragon capsule. In doing so, SpaceX hopes to fill the void between the end of the shuttle program and the coming of the Constellation. They have already begun moving into the launch complex, including moving a 125,000 gallon liquid oxygen tank on the back of a semi." We've been following Elon Musk's SpaceX for years.
I hope that I can get to see them launch a successful flight.
In nothing else it should be a lot cheaper than to launch from Florida than the middle of the Pacific.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Let me just be the first to say OH, THAT LOOKS SAFE! Seriously, I hope he doesn't have to take a corner. And also I hope they drained it first lol.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Yay. I might actually have a good reason to go back 'home' (as my dad puts it). Wanna see this kind of stuff in persn.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
I hope nobody falls in that or he'll drown!
Is this so that when it explodes again everybody gets to watch?
I keed, I keed.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
...I've ever seen. They didn't even bother to antialias the selection around the legs.
Looks real to me. The thing's almost definitely empty and likely made out of a light (relatively speaking) material. I don't doubt at all that a semi could carry the thing, as long as you're not too concerned about fuel efficiency. My only real question regarding transportation would be how they got the tank TO the road (ie railroads, boats, or was it built right next to a road?) (Note: I'm still not completely sure if you're trolling or not)
Joy! Beautiful spark of the gods!
... a construction worker hanging on to the right side of that tank? The resolutions a little too small to tell for sure, but it sure looks to me like some guy wearing one of those orange vests & a hard hat to me.
Hope he doesn't throw off the balance of that thing. It'd suck to cause it to roll off the truck. (Kidding!)
If we must spend public money on a new multipurpose rocket (Ares) system to carry future payloads and capsules then why not fund the SpaceX guys, who at least have had some modicum of success thus far and are well on the way to building a reliable and quality launch vehicle, instead of pouring billions of dollars down the drain to build the Ares design which appears, due to political considerations, to be well on the road to suffering the same design setbacks (and the attendant expensive engineering efforts required to correct them) that beguiled the Shuttle program for many years. If NASA really wants to get the most bang for their buck in the space program then they ought to hire some economist(s) to help evaluate their spending and check claims of "this will save money" when in fact it will not. Projects like the Space Shuttle were interesting from an engineering standpoint but one of the main goals, save money with a re-usable vehicle and launch components, turned out to be a dud (and economists might have been able to tell them that by studying the launch industry and giving their advice before NASA just went ahead with the design).
Very Major Tom to ground control. My kind of video. Beat it Michael Jackson.
Summary should be tagged Major Nerd Alert:
SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket, launch 3, space complex 40 (SLC-40), Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, space shuttles, Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon capsule, launch complex, a 125,000 gallon liquid oxygen tank on the back of a semi.
All that's missing is the Myth Busters.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
There's a lot of good to this.
One: NASA uses public property to allow private commerce, encouraging it in fact. (I remember they were quite impressed with SpaceShipOne.)
Two: NASA keeps private rocketry from injuring themselves or others by using an wide, secure area intended for rocket flight
Three: The location is a tourist area, giving the business an opportunity to gain needed funds from spectators.
Robert Goddard hardly had any of this and was still working out the whole liquid-rocket thing as well. Good luck, guys. And no smoking by the LOX tank.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
If NASA really wants to get the most bang for their buck in the space program then they ought to hire some economist(s) to help evaluate their spending and check claims of "this will save money" when in fact it will not.
When has any US government agency ever tried to save money or get bang-for-the-buck?
Joy! Beautiful spark of the gods!
Beep beep
they ought to hire some economist(s)
Yes I'm sure there is a shortage of bean counters in their organization.
I can't wait private sector upstage hugely inefficient government NASA
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
i bet the nuke weapons design got the best bang-for-the-buck.. but then again... they did such a large bang that it didn't matter the number of bucks
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Boy that Dragon capsule sure is interesting.
It's gonna be awful tough for NASA to ask Congress to fund the development of a government space capsule for billions of dollars when SpaceX has one for sale a lot cheaper.
This is my sig.
My only real question regarding transportation would be how they got the tank TO the road (ie railroads, boats, or was it built right next to a road?)
Space-X Photo Gallery has a picture of it being loaded.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Let's imagine you're working on some kind of open source project, like a program which draws really cool pictures of bumble bees. And for some reason, a giant government agency decides that bumble bee pictures are critical to their success. They drop $10 million on your lap to make your bumble bee picture drawing program into exactly what they need.
Six months later, your program is somehow no further along than it was. Every working hour has been tied up doing paperwork, reports, meetings. Your work area is aswarm with government suits, each one with a different list of things to be checked off. You begin to wonder if your bumble bee program will ever make any more forward progress.
Now why, exactly, would you wish this fate upon a company you appear to like?
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
If we must spend public money on a new multipurpose rocket (Ares) system to carry future payloads and capsules then why not fund the SpaceX guys
They are.
...Projects like the Space Shuttle were interesting from an engineering standpoint but one of the main goals, save money with a re-usable vehicle and launch components, turned out to be a dud (and economists might have been able to tell them that by studying the launch industry and giving their advice before NASA just went ahead with the design).
At the time the space shuttle program was started (January 5, 1972) economists could not study the "launch industry" because the launch industry, as we know it, did not exist.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
...including moving a 125,000 gallon liquid oxygen tank on the back of a semi.
You'd be better off rear ending a pinto!
...I've ever seen. They didn't even bother to antialias the selection around the legs.
Don't be that guy. The joke is old!
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Um, so why doesn't a tank that large have a shadow. Is it made of some space age material I've never heard of?
I think you might also be underestimating the number of bucks spent on that particular endeavor.
Random and weird software I've written.
Please pay attention, because this is very important: economist IS NOT EQUAL TO accountant
Is there any reason to believe SpaceX would do a better job than NASA? Other than OMG PRIVATE IS BETTER!!!!11 that is.
So far they have made a very small rocket that hasn't been able to reach orbit yet. I'm sure they will, and it's great that there is private interest in space flight. However, you can't just dump money dump a big load of cash on a small company and see moon rockets start flowing out.
It's not like NASA builds everything inhouse anyway. Most of the hardware are built by private companies and bought by NASA. Also, what's wrong with Ares exactly? Of course there are people complaining, but that doesn't mean much.
then why not fund the SpaceX guys, who at least have had some modicum of success thus far and are well on the way to building a reliable and quality launch vehicle
Wait, is this the same SpaceX that has flopped on every one of their attempted launches?
At the time the space shuttle program was started (January 5, 1972) economists could not study the "launch industry" because the launch industry, as we know it, did not exist.
That is a good and valid point, but now that we can study what went wrong with the Shuttle and what we did well, there is really no excuse to make the same kinds of mistakes and mistaken assumptions with the Ares or any other subsequent launch program. We should learn the lessons, what to do and what NOT to do, that the Shuttle program has to teach instead of repeating the same steps and expecting different results.
You can tell from some of the pixels and from seeing quite a few shops in your time?
They are just working out the kinks. The Russians did the exact same thing with their Soyuz program (with real people who met some unfortunate ends while the bugs were worked out) but now they have one of the most reliable launch programs in the world. SpaceX will get there while the Ares is still vibrating itself to pieces in virtual launch simulations.
Exactly. Foreign meme is foreign, apparently.
SpaceX proudly brings us back to when a nice big capital "X" on the end was the way to go for making words seem edgy, hip, and futuristic. We've well and truly escaped the reign of those posers, the prefix lowercase "e" and his redheaded spawn the little "i".
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Ah, but read the fine print. The Orion currently developed is for LEO only in the first cut, which is "block 1". Block 2 is a next release, for lunar use, and therefor a second design phase. Dragon could do the same thing.
This is my sig.
"Mr. Syndrome, your Omnidroid is here."
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
We should learn the lessons, what to do and what NOT to do, that the Shuttle program has to teach instead of repeating the same steps and expecting different results.
So, I can only assume you have evidence or references to suggest that this isn't precisely what NASA has done?
The wikipedia article on the Shuttle solid rocket boosters discusses the proposed re-use of Shuttle components (segmented solid rockets with O-rings in this case) in the Ares program. The article itself has references to external sources where this re-use is discussed. The NASA press release also mentions the re-use:
"This vehicle will be carried into space by Ares I, which uses a single five-segment solid rocket booster, a derivative of the space shuttle's solid rocket booster, for the first stage."
While it just my opinion, a proposal to re-use substantial parts from the Shuttle program exactly or almost exactly the same as their current configuration does not strike me as "learning the lessons" (or at least not the right ones) from the Shuttle program.
While I agree that dumping money beyond the scope of COTS on SpaceX isn't going to make the situation better, I'll explain what I see as wrong with Ares.
Ares is not what it was supposed to be. It was to be a shuttle derived system capable of returning man to the moon at a reduced cost by using already existing infrastructure. Unfortunately, shuttle-derived seemed to be mostly ignored except enough to keep congress happy, by making it look its cobbled together from shuttle parts. However, they have changed every component so that they are having to re-engineer every component.
For instance, the current architecture has everything but the manned component on the massive Ares V. In order to make it powerful enough to do that, they had to add an extra segment to the SRBs. That doesn't sound too hard, except it changes all the combustion thermodynamics and fluid flow in the engine, forcing a complete redo of the design. Granted, the experience from the original SRBs will make them safer, but putting the LEM with the Orion capsule and launching only the Earth Departure Stage (EDS) on the V would have reduced the thrust needs. Similarly, the huge amount of thrust needed also made it so that the external tank is now 5.5 meters rather than 4.5 for the shuttle. This means thats the Michoud plant in New Orleans will have to be completely retooled, (with the roof raised or floor lowered as well) for something that's supposedly 'just the same.' The retooling will take 2 years, helping cause the gap thats gotten so much press, and also requiring massive layoffs that will be followed by massive hirings. If it weren't for the fact that the engineers and floor hands are going to require money in the meantime, this would be a great plan.
And of course, they keep underestimating the thrust needs; they recently had to add an extra engine to Ares V, and everytime I see something about Ares I, the Orion capsule is way over mass-budget. Granted, I can tell you immediately that my idea of moving the LEM to the capsules LV has issues with having to man-rate a larger vehicle, but its more for illustration that there were other architecutres that work around the issues. I really feel mostly that the current architecture is fine if you were starting from scratch, but it seemed to ignore any idea of working off of what we already have to get the best, cheapest system while minimizing the flight gap. If only Jupiter could get a chance...
Is there any reason to believe SpaceX would do a better job than NASA? Other than OMG PRIVATE IS BETTER!!!!11 that is. So far they have made a very small rocket that hasn't been able to reach orbit yet. I'm sure they will, and it's great that there is private interest in space flight. However, you can't just dump money dump a big load of cash on a small company and see moon rockets start flowing out. It's not like NASA builds everything inhouse anyway. Most of the hardware are built by private companies and bought by NASA. Also, what's wrong with Ares exactly? Of course there are people complaining, but that doesn't mean much.
Wait, so why doesn't NASA both develop their own vehicle, and also fund Space-X to develop their Falcon-9 and Dragon, betting that they'll be able to solve their problems? I mean, it doesn't make sense to bet the entire space program on Space-X, since they've never actually successfully flown a rocket, but their projections are good enough that it makes sense to put at least a down payment worth of funding their way, hoping that they'll make good.
Oh... that's exactly what NASA is doing.
While it just my opinion, a proposal to re-use substantial parts from the Shuttle program exactly or almost exactly the same as their current configuration does not strike me as "learning the lessons"
Umm, why? Are you saying there's something wrong with the shuttle booster system? I mean, yes, there are problems with the shuttle itself. It's wickedly expensive to maintain, it's tiles are a problem, the insulation on the external tanks is a problem, etc, etc. But since when has the booster system been an issue?
Do you have specific complaints about the shuttle booster system? If so, what are they? Because, in the absence of such complaints, reusing the shuttle booster system is incredibly *smart*. Why waste time designing a whole new system when the existing one will suffice?
And I love the guy just sitting on the far edge of the bottom of the tank. In my company you get fired for such unsafe behavior :D! I also note he isn't wearing his seatbelt!
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
Because, in the absence of such complaints, reusing the shuttle booster system is incredibly *smart*
It might seem that way at first glance, but remember that the parts of the shuttle were designed to work together when put together as the shuttle. For example, excess vibrations from the solid rocket boosters were negligible when attached to the large mass of the main fuel tank and the orbiter, but they become a problem when one attempts to perch a lighter vehicle in a top-heavy configuration on top of a single SRB. The shuttle designers never intended the SRB to be used in this way so they didn't add anything to the SRB to null out the excess vibrations, probably because they didn't need to in the context of the shuttle launch assembly. Now, there are proposals to add heavy counterweights or shock absorbers to the SRB to make it suitable for an Ares-1 launch as covered in a previous Slashdot article. I too once thought that this was not a big deal, but reading the threads in that article changed my mind.
While it is difficult to be certain in advance I feel that Ares program funding could have been better spent adapting either the Delta built by Boeing or the Falcon being built by Space-X to manned spaceflight standards rather than attempting to adapt shuttle SRBs. This has been done before when NASA adapted the Titan-II ICBM to carry astronauts during the Gemini program, but with just minor improvements (they used the Titan-II design basically intact from the ICBM profile) to improve safety and make it suitable for manned launches. The shuttle SRB, from the recent reports, seems to be less suitable to start out with and requires more extensive modifications to adapt it to the proposed new role in Ares-1.
As far as I know there have never been manned rockets which employ solid boosters exclusively for the first stage (making the Ares a more radical design then either the Delta or Falcon rockets). In fact the shuttle was the first manned space launch vehicle anywhere to use solid rockets during the launch phase for primary thrust (not counting capsule escape systems used by the Russians on Soyuz or the Americans on Apollo). Solid rockets are powerful and accelerate quickly, but they vibrate and generate very high G forces (from the accelerations involved) whereas liquid fueled rockets produce a smoother acceleration and power curve and can be throttled up or down (much more suitable when soft and squishy humans are riding atop them instead of warheads). The SRBs were appropriate on the Shuttle because of the huge liftoff masses and the need for extra power to get the whole thing moving from a stationary start (the proverbial kick in the pants) but they seem to be less so on the Ares-1.
It might seem that way at first glance, but remember that the parts of the shuttle were designed to work together when put together as the shuttle. For example, excess vibrations from the solid rocket boosters were negligible when attached to the large mass of the main fuel tank and the orbiter, but they become a problem when one attempts to perch a lighter vehicle in a top-heavy configuration on top of a single SRB.
Yeah, but that's a newly discovered fact. The shuttle program couldn't have taught them that. So your complaint that they haven't "learned their lessons" isn't supported by this particular issue. Had they known, a prior, that this was going to be a problem thanks to experience with the shuttle, then yes, absolutely I would agree with you, but since they didn't know that in advance, making use of the SRBs made perfect sense at the time the decision was made.
So, do you have any other evidence that they haven't learned their lessons from the shuttle program?
The SRBs were appropriate on the Shuttle because of the huge liftoff masses and the need for extra power to get the whole thing moving from a stationary start (the proverbial kick in the pants) but they seem to be less so on the Ares-1.
On the Ares-1, perhaps. But the final goal, for which Ares-1 is only the first step, is a much larger launch vehicle with a much greater mass, in which case the SRBs may very well be a logical choice.
Don't get me wrong, I have great hopes for SpaceX with COTS and commercial opportunities and am quite impressed with their efforts and plans, but you're defining a modicum of success as three failed launches of a rocket that's just barely big enough to get one astronaut in a spacesuit into orbit (but not back again), and then ranking that history above an organization that has conducted 145 successful manned missions involving over 850 crewmen, and plus I don't know how many unmanned missions.
Ares is not perfect. There is a lot of fair criticism that has been directed at the system. At the same time, however, it is better suited to NASA's plans than the Shuttle, which despite itself being often and fairly (and just as often unfairly) criticized has launched more people into space than every other manned system in the world combined. However, the shuttle was a jack of all trades (in LEO that is) and a master of none.
I apologize for that digression. Back to why Ares (or perhaps Direct, but that's unlikely due to politics and differing capabilities) is what NASA wants for it's current plans. NASA has a stated and congressionally-supported goal to create a transportation system capable of returning to the moon and, if desired, going onward to Mars.
SpaceX is very much an unproven operator. NASA is not willing to bank the success of Constellation on that when they have the know-how, technology, and foundational infrastructure to succeed with near certainty. This is not saying NASA isn't interested in SpaceX or that SpaceX isn't cheaper. They very much are, which is why NASA contracted them for under COTS. That alone is almost completely maxing out SpaceX's resources at the present moment. I doubt even Musk himself thinks they could realistically create a system equivalent to Ares 1/Orion by 2015. Yes, SpaceX could potentially save money, but they have a much greater risk of failing, in which case all the money spent on them is wasted. Some would argue that they just need the appropriate resources to succeed. That is delusional. At best, throwing money blindly at them would just lead to another Boeing, Lockheed, or ATK. They would probably succeed, but be no better than what we have currently.
To be clear, the Falcon 9 is not capable of lifting the Orion capsule and the Dragon does not have the operational capabilities to replace the Orion. Orion has more delta-V, more life support capability, more interior volume, higher fault-tolerance, a much higher re-entry capability, and the ability to dock itself with the ISS as well as reside there for extended durations as a lifeboat.
It can be pointed out that the Falcon 9 Heavy has about the same lift capability as the Ares 1. This is true, but it's a further development from an unproven rocket whereas the Ares will use shuttle-derived technology and benefit from NASA's technical experience. Furthermore, Ares 1 will develop many of the components used by the Ares V, which is a rocket nothing in SpaceX's current or proposed plans can come close to, and a key to NASA's plans to returning to the moon.
Of course, others also criticise the whole goal of going to the moon in the first place, but that's another discussion. Suffice to say, the nation is fed up with stagnation in space.
By the way, NASA has economists, accountants, etc. That wasn't why we ended up with the shuttle we have. Besides, economics is an arguably less precise endeavor than engineering.
All of SpaceX's rockets have exploded. This does not qualify as a, "modicum of success."
However, NASA's Saturn rockets which sent people to the moon as well as their Delta rockets which are used to launch satellites regularly are pretty successful, which just goes to show that they have plenty of experience in the area.
Also, Ares is capable of delivering a much greater payload to a higher orbit than anything SpaceX has AFAIK.
I don't know for sure if this is how they did it but there is barge access to the area. That is how they get the ET's in from LA. From there it's a short drive to the pads.
Also around the space center there are ways to get large objects around. So no overhead powerlines, all of the traffic lights are set up not to interfere, ect.
One time someone was moving a large dewar and it rolled off the flatbed and into a drainage ditch. The outer wall was breached and the vacuum in the annulus sucked in a bunch of swamp water. Nice.
Of course, they merely have to follow NASA NPR 7120.5 rev D for Program and Project Management, then follow NPR 7150.2 NASA Software Engineering Requirements (for Class A software), etc.
http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?Internal_ID=N_PR_7120_005D_
http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir.cfm?t=NPR&c=7150&s=2
As it says at the top of the document "Compliance is Mandatory": This NPR applies to all current and future NASA space flight programs and projects..
Nothing to it. Whip it out in a few seconds.
Let me summarize my thoughts before I respond:
Question: Is it possible to adapt the shuttle components to new vehicles as proposed by the Aries program?
Answer: Maybe
Question: Is it better or cheaper to adapt the shuttle components instead of starting with fresh or adapting another existing platform (Delta or Falcon for example) which more closely fits the Ares launch profiles?
Answer: Probably neither better nor, due to likely unforeseen needs for additional modifications as problems crop up, cheaper. The primary shuttle components were very specialized to the shuttle design so I don't think that the shock absorbers on the SRB will be the last of the kludges required to radically modify their mission profiles.
The shuttle program couldn't have taught them that.
They should have known from general solid rocket experience what the well known disadvantages of solid boosters are (i.e. vibrations due to imperfectly molded grains of fuel, high acceleration and force but little control over either...once you light it then it goes all out, etc) before going down that road with Ares. The shuttle designers almost certainly knew about the disadvantages of SRB, but they probably also knew that the disadvantages wouldn't come as much into play because the enormous mass of the shuttle would make a few more relatively minor (compared to the large mass of the shuttle) vibrations moot AND they needed the advantages (high thrust right away) because of the large shuttle mass. In short, the shuttle engineers almost certainly knew that flying the SRB as the first stage in a vehicle besides the shuttle probably wouldn't work (if you had been able to ask them back when they designed the shuttle), but they didn't care because they knew that it would work in the special circumstances of the shuttle (they were designing parts for the shuttle not for re-use in other vehicles decades later).
So, do you have any other evidence that they haven't learned their lessons from the shuttle program?
I am not a shuttle engineer, so I only know what they report in the press and on NASA or JPL public information websites. I strongly suspect that the answer to that question may be "yes" (or more precisely the engineers have learned the lessons, but are being asked by management to re-use the shuttle parts as much as possible for political reasons...it saves money (which is debatable) and it preserves jobs at existing shuttle parts assembly plants), but I cannot prove that of course. I believe that it would be better to make a clean break with the Shuttle, but I know that not everyone else feels that way.
But the final goal, for which Ares-1 is only the first step, is a much larger launch vehicle with a much greater mass, in which case the SRBs may very well be a logical choice.
Yes, but without the Ares-1, which is intended to launch the crew vehicles for Orion (among other things), the larger Ares is not much use (i.e. the Ares program is really a package deal, both versions have to work and work well for the program to be successful).
There are so many lessons to learn about the Shuttle that I don't know where to begin. One of the problems with a study of the Shuttle and what went wrong is that due to the plethora of mistakes in setting up that launch system, I am afraid that the wrong lessons are being learned.
Among them is a complete and irrational fear of re-usable manned launch vehicles for Earth to LEO spaceflight. While there may be some problems with the implementation of this idea in the Shuttle, this is IMHO one of the things that at least from a certain point of view that the Shuttle did right. Certainly the Space Shuttle has been able to get more people up into space and do useful things than any other manned space vehicle, including the Soyuz spacecraft (which is often mis-characterized as a "safe" vehicle).
For myself, I think the problem with the Shuttle program is that it should have been treated like an X-project with the intention to try a series of successively improved spacecraft that built on the predecessor and became better over time. As it was, the Columbia (aka the "prototype") was treated as a production vehicle, and the earlier prototypes were pressed into service as improved versions when in fact they were the predecessor spacecraft. I dare any major vehicle manufacturing company to be able to get away with something like that unless they are under a government contract.
There should have been a Shuttle 2.0 program some time ago, and unfortunately neither the U.S. Presidents over the past 20 years, the NASA administrators, nor Congress have had the will to get something like that built. And instead we have Apollo 2.0... and a bad rev of that by engineers who weren't even born when the original was under development.
What disturbs me is the notion that NASA does not know how to launch rockets (or ULA or Orbital Sciences Corporation) and that a man who knows nothing about rockets (Elon) is somehow smarter than the thousands that support the space program. To criticize NASA, who is responsible for one-of-a-kind missions that do not fail and cannot fail is laughable when you are referring to a startup garage-shop company that has ping-pong tables 10 feet from flight hardware. I support them FULLY. However, they are trading reliability and risk mitigation for cost. You cannot cheat the system longterm - maybe shortterm. But eventually, the very things that make a Delta II or an Atlas V reliable are the very things that will increase the costs of a Falcon to those levels. There simply are no free lunches.
Additionally, the world is based on specialization, where I want a part machined I go to a place that does it for a living. I don't try to keep 10 machinists in house and try to make them experts - not cost effective. Our economy is based on the exact opposite of what Elon is trying to do. he wants to build his engines in house and magically have the reliability and performance of the big boys using what amounts to college kids / new hires and a few experts in their management.
Grow up, space if the big leagues, and it will kill people and they will kill people if they aren't careful.
You might actually want to tell that to the OP, not the flippant responder. He seemed to be suggesting the sort of work an accountant would do, not an economist.
Because, in the absence of such complaints, reusing the shuttle booster system is incredibly *smart*
It might seem that way at first glance, but remember that the parts of the shuttle were designed to work together when put together as the shuttle. For example, excess vibrations from the solid rocket boosters [...]
There's also the whole O-ring issue, but I guess that can be solved by operating the thing within its design parameters. (Amazing how many engineering issues that can be said of).
What I've been wondering (not a rocket scientist) is, what additional complications/issues might be introduced by changing from 4 segments to 5? Seems if we wanted to really get the maximum design re-use, we should use exactly the same SRB. If the 4-segment SSRB doesn't have the lift capacity we need, we could use two of them and have that much more payload capacity. We're already used to using two of them in tandem, and it occurs to me that the connector struts would be an easy place to add vibration-dampening bits. 'Zat make any sense?
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
What is staring at all of these engineering efforts real hard is the ghost of Von Braun and the rocket engineers of Huntsville that built the Saturn V.
Essentially these engineers are being asked: "if we could do this with 1960's technology, why can't it be done today?"
What should have been done with the Ares rocket system is a clean-sheet design from the bottom up, using lessons learned from all of the previous spacecraft including the Saturn V and the Shuttle. Instead, they have this backward monster based on an improvised design with goals that have absolutely nothing at all to do with manned spaceflight.
I've been handed projects that were just this awful. In a couple of situations I developed prototypes that were so powerful that I was told to run with the prototype and turn it into the production version directly. In another case, I had a simply awful design handed to me by a genuinely incompetent engineer and told to simply make it work. Over time these kind of projects can be made to work, but at substantially more cost (time + resources) and they still seem to exhibit flaws that came from the original design that never seem to be worked out. This seems to be exactly what NASA is experiencing with the Ares system.
I've seen my fair share of oversize loads on the road in my years of a truck driver, but that one take the gold crown of them all.
Man, they almost got to orbit on their second test. I'd like to fail like that every once in a while. :-)
Send your spendthrift head of state this
We're already used to using two of them in tandem, and it occurs to me that the connector struts would be an easy place to add vibration-dampening bits. 'Zat make any sense?
Maybe, but exposed struts and shock absorbers don't sound very aerodynamic and what about the heavy lift version of the proposed Ares (the one that incorporates the shuttle main fuel tank)? Each modification brings more questions which require further modifications and so on...
Among them is a complete and irrational fear of re-usable manned launch vehicles for Earth to LEO spaceflight.
The point of re-usability is cost savings (and the Space Shuttle was sold to the public on that basis). Does it really matter if parts are not re-usable if overall the launches are cheaper? People tend to naturally equate re-usability with cost effectiveness, as if it was a given, and I think that the Space Shuttle very clearly demonstrated that re-usable is not necessarily cheaper. There is something to be said for the sturdiness and robustness of Soyuz (even if it was achieved through trial and error with a few deaths involved). If anything, re-usability vastly complicated the Space Shuttle by introducing the variables (which occurs in all modern aircraft as well) of repeated stresses on the same vehicle and material fatigue that builds up over time necessitating frequent and laborious inspections to insure reliability over time.
I think the problem with the Shuttle program is that it should have been treated like an X-project with the intention to try a series of successively improved spacecraft that built on the predecessor and became better over time.
That, ironically, was one of the main problems of the Shuttle, it was an X-project. Continued operation of the vehicles and attendant accidents have proven that the Space Shuttle was and remains today an experimental vehicle. Even if they had treated the Space Shuttle as such throughout the program, instead of reliable reusable workhorse, modifications and upgrades would have been extremely difficult and costly due to the uniqueness and complexity of the shuttle design and launch profiles. The shuttle was and is inherently more complicated than a single multistage rocket and any vehicle based on the same platforms and concepts was destined to be in the same boat as the Space Shuttle; complex, costly, and difficult to fly and maintain.
I dare any major vehicle manufacturing company to be able to get away with something like that unless they are under a government contract.
The Space Shuttle program was definitely a government operation...oh yeah.
There should have been a Shuttle 2.0 program some time ago, and unfortunately neither the U.S. Presidents over the past 20 years, the NASA administrators, nor Congress have had the will to get something like that built.
The ongoing expense of the Space Shuttle combined with a general public apathy about how "routine" flights of the Space Shuttle were (punctuated by the occasional spectacular accident in which all hands were lost) contributed substantially to the reluctance of Congress to either increase funding for the development of a replacement or even to continue the Space Shuttle program as it was.
And instead we have Apollo 2.0... and a bad rev of that by engineers who weren't even born when the original was under development.
People hold Apollo in very high regard because of the lofty achievements (a man on the moon) and the brilliant save that was Apollo 13 (which burnished and reinforced the gung-ho can-do image of Americans, even under adverse conditions, at that time), but even the vaunted Apollo program had its glitches. I think that the engineers of today could do an adequate job on the Space Shuttle replacement, provided that they are permitted to chose what is best based upon the proposed requirements of the launch system without being forced to re-use the Space Shuttle components or into pre-conceived notions about what is cheaper or better.
falcon 9 rocket, dragon capsule?
This article reads more like an episode of thunderbirds are go!
They're using their grammar skills there.
i bet the nuke weapons design got the best bang-for-the-buck
What about the guy who came up with the Big Bang? Created not only the Big-Bang, but also the bucks.
So basically all the detriments of working off of an existing design, while it seems almost deliberately avoiding any advantage that can be gained by it. Of course, given that it's NASA, at the congressional level, the two goals are to keep/create jobs in certain districts and to maintain national prestige, both of which entail making the most "high-tech" (read complicated) system possible. Efficiency was never really in the equation.
Additionally, the world is based on specialization, where I want a part machined I go to a place that does it for a living. I don't try to keep 10 machinists in house and try to make them experts - not cost effective. Our economy is based on the exact opposite of what Elon is trying to do. he wants to build his engines in house and magically have the reliability and performance of the big boys using what amounts to college kids / new hires and a few experts in their management.
Grow up, space if the big leagues, and it will kill people and they will kill people if they aren't careful.
It sounds like the 'people' it will kill are actually college kids and new hires.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Since you have given a detailed rebuttal, I want to start out by saying that I think we are roughly on the same page here.
As far as reusable vehicles are concerned, I think that takes a little bit of research and a whole lot of effort to make a genuinely reusable vehicle. Unfortunately, the Space Shuttle was just part way there and really didn't get the job done. The refurbishing that takes place between typical Shuttle flights is so drastic that it almost is a whole new vehicle when it goes up again. Also, having a standing army of tens of thousands of workers to get that vehicle refurbished is one of the things that is also killing any sort of cost savings associated with its reusability.
For example, I consider a 747 to be almost as technically complicated as the Shuttle, and surprisingly has similar energy requirements if you consider a flight from Los Angeles to Sydney (something that routinely does happen with 747s nearly ever day). Yet the ground crew responsible for refurbishing a 747 number in the dozens, and most of them are involved with ticket sales and customer service directly related to passengers. Yes, there are mechanics and personnel dealing with consumables (aka fuel, but also emptying the toilet tanks and stocking the galleys) but it is a surprisingly efficient operation.
If, and this is a big if, SpaceX actually gets their act together and starts to send up spacecraft on a regular basis, one of the big selling points for that company is that they are much closer to airline type operations for servicing their spacecraft than nearly any other man-rated vehicle ever designed. Even the Falcon 1 has a surprisingly spartan flight crew given the nature of the vehicle.... and SpaceX has proven it can do an incredibly rapid recycling of the launch operations if there is a need to "tighten down that last bolt" or fix some minor problem on the vehicle before launch.
As far as the Space Shuttle being an X-project: I could only wish it were built with the philosophies of the earlier X-project program that created vehicles like the X-15. There even is a worthy successor of the X-15 that has flown recently, and another even more updated version that will soon be flying: Burt Rutan's Spaceship One and soon to be Spaceship Two. Both of these are completely reusable spacecraft that Rutan openly acknowledges are based from technology developed by the original Air Force X-projects. As to if this could be pushed into an orbital version is something I have debated before, and there are some legitimate doubts along that line. This is more along the line of what I am implying about reusable spacecraft, and perhaps some lessons learned from the Shuttle program could also be applied here. But it won't be a direct successor to the Shuttle.
As for the Apollo project, one of the worst things that ever happened to manned spaceflight was the cancellation of the Apollo Applications program. Von Braun and the engineers who designed the Saturn V intended that line of vehicles to be extended into production volumes of hundreds or even thousands, and the facilities in Huntsville and elsewhere had been built with this sort of intention in mind as well. Using 20/20 hindsight, even though I'll acknowledge that it would have been hard to prove this back in the early 1970's, I argue that every single goal that was accomplished by the Shuttle program... including launching crews of seven or more astronauts simultaneously and building the International Space Station... could have been built with the Saturn V/Apollo technology. Indeed I believe it would have been an order of magnitude cheaper and/or would have resulted in much more in-space infrastructure than actually resulted from the Shuttle program. I would love to see a 21st Century rev of the Apollo space capsule that would have been incrementally improved every year or so since the 1970's... and something that unfortunately will only be the target of science fiction authors at this point.
My problem with Ares is that they are taki
January 28, 1986 to be exact. A little thing called "Challenger."
To be fair, it HAS been 22+ years since one caused a major problem.
May I direct you to www.directlauncher.com which has some specific complains about the Ares program.
Let me summarize my thoughts...
>So, do you have any other evidence that they haven't learned their lessons from the shuttle program?
I am not a shuttle engineer,
I clipped the remainder of this post; that sentence says everything.
It's amazing how much detailed engineering analysis the slashdot engineering team does based on press reports.
There's also the whole O-ring issue, but I guess that can be solved by operating the thing within its design parameters.
And it was solved, and solved twenty years ago-- there's been well over a hundred flights (with two SRBS per flight) since then.
(Amazing how many engineering issues that can be said of).
What I've been wondering (not a rocket scientist) is, what additional complications/issues might be introduced by changing from 4 segments to 5?
Higher thrust. Longer resonating chamber.
Seems if we wanted to really get the maximum design re-use, we should use exactly the same SRB.
This is the essential conundrum of real-world engineering. Yes, it's true, if you never change anything you will indeed be running systems that are well understood... unfortunately, you won't get anything any better, either.
If the 4-segment SSRB doesn't have the lift capacity we need,
You got it.
we could use two of them and have that much more payload capacity.
Two answers here: cost and complexity.
Despite all the analysis slashdot engineers are doing, if everything does work, the Area-1 in principle is a remarkably low-cost booster. But it's cheap by being simple, and having few parts. (*)
We're already used to using two of them in tandem, and it occurs to me that the connector struts would be an easy place to add vibration-dampening bits. 'Zat make any sense?
Sure. But the whole point was to be cheaper than the existing launch system. If you keep backing off and replicating all the features of the way we launch now, it sorta defeats the point.
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* I'll put a footnote here: just a reminder that being cheap "in principle" is not the same thing as being cheap. There are a lot of ways that a system that's cheap in principle can become expensive in practice (but unfortunately, much fewer ways in which a system that's expensive in principle can become cheap in practice).
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Answer: Probably neither better nor, due to likely unforeseen needs for additional modifications as problems crop up, cheaper.
It seems you prefer to ignore the sheer amount of manpower and expense that goes into designing and implementing a completely new booster package. With the SRBs, NASA has, what, 20, 30 years of experience launching and refurbishing them? Not to mention the 20 or 30 years of experience ATK has in building and testing them? Oh, and the entire manufacturing and testing infrastructure that already exists?
Designing and deploying an entirely new booster package is *hugely* non-trivial. Making use of existing components and experience, where possible, is one of the key ways NASA is saving money (and time) in the Ares program. Heck, even if they have to make some modifications (like vibration dampening systems) to make the system work, it'll almost certainly still be cheaper than rebuilding from the ground up.
They should have known from general solid rocket experience what the well known disadvantages of solid boosters are (i.e. vibrations due to imperfectly molded grains of fuel, high acceleration and force but little control over either...once you light it then it goes all out, etc) before going down that road with Ares.
Oh, I see. You're "not a shuttle engineer", but you know what the NASA engineers should and shouldn't have known about the SRBs.
Presumptuous much?
In short, the shuttle engineers almost certainly knew that flying the SRB as the first stage in a vehicle besides the shuttle probably wouldn't work
So now you're telling me that, rather than not learning from the shuttle program, NASA has actually gotten dumber and forgotten the things they already knew? Really?
I strongly suspect that the answer to that question may be "yes"
So you're not a shuttle engineer... you've only read the press releases and so forth... but you suspect the answer is 'yes'.
Well, at least that answers my question. You don't actually have evidence that NASA hasn't learned from the shuttle program, you simply believe it must be true.
I believe that it would be better to make a clean break with the Shuttle
Funny, I've heard people say the same thing when working on a large software project. Usually they're junior programmers who haven't really seen how a real-world project works. "This thing has gotten big and crufty," they say. "Let's start from scratch!" Then, years later, after millions of dollars have been spent, they have nothing to show for it. Why? Because redesigning from the ground up rarely works as well as you'd think.
It's not really a question of intelligence so much as motivation and organization.
NASA's goal is not to launch things into space. Their goal is to obtain greater funding and employ people. Launching things into space is just a technique for doing that. Lately they seem to have discovered that merely preparing to launch things into space works nearly as well for accomplishing their goals, so they don't have to actually launch very much.
SpaceX's goal is, of course, to make money. It's a lot harder to make money without putting things into space, so they have a lot of motivation to do so.
NASA is not organized very well. They require an enormous amount of people to accomplish very little in the way of results. This is because they are management-heavy and suffer from a lot of micromanagement from their bosses in government. SpaceX is, I presume, much better organized by virtue of being a small company which must succeed or die.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
MD5: 05838388cd3debe26d1aec84a7fc2829
It's a space station.
I wonder how they are planning on launching it. I always thought they built those things IN space...
It's not really a question of intelligence so much as motivation and organization.
NASA's goal is not to launch things into space. Their goal is to obtain greater funding and employ people. Launching things into space is just a technique for doing that. Lately they seem to have discovered that merely preparing to launch things into space works nearly as well for accomplishing their goals, so they don't have to actually launch very much.
SpaceX's goal is, of course, to make money. It's a lot harder to make money without putting things into space, so they have a lot of motivation to do so.
And yet, NASA routinely does launch things into space, and with a success rate high enough that when a mission doesn't succeed, it's headline news. While Space-X routinely doesn't launch things into space, with a success rate so low that when they fail, it barely makes page 8 of the paper. Why is that?
NASA is not organized very well. They require an enormous amount of people to accomplish very little in the way of results. This is because they are management-heavy and suffer from a lot of micromanagement from their bosses in government.
Well, in the way of "acomplishing very little," right now NASA has five missions operating on or in orbit around Mars, a mission in orbit around Saturn; spacecraft currently on the way to Mercury, Pluto, the two largest asteroids, and a comet, and spacecraft getting ready to launch to Jupiter and the Moon; not to mention three astronomical observatories (Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer) looking across the universe in wavelengths from infrared to X-ray, and a slew of Earth-observation satellites, too many for me to easily enumerate. They've launched more humans into space than all the other nations combined. The four orbital launch vehicles developed by NASA (Shuttle, Saturn V, Saturn 1, Scout) are respectively the most reliable, second most reliable, third most reliable, and fourth most reliable boosters ever developed, by any country, in history.
SpaceX is, I presume, much better organized by virtue of being a small company which must succeed or die.
And their accomplishments are?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I consider a 747 to be almost as technically complicated as the Shuttle, and surprisingly has similar energy requirements if you consider a flight from Los Angeles to Sydney (something that routinely does happen with 747s nearly ever day). rom the current group of spaceflight engineers at NASA.
A quick calculation will tell you that a flight from Sydney to Los Angeles takes about one quarter of the energy (per kilogram) as getting to orbit.
But that's a little unfair, of course-- in flying from Sydney to LA, you can use atmospheric oxygen, while getting to orbit requires you carry all the oxygen needed to burn your fuel onboard.
Getting to orbit takes about fifty percent more energy than flying around the world unrefuelled... To my knowledge, only two aircraft have ever done that, and when you compute the cost per kilogram, it was as expensive as getting to orbit.
(and even then, those two aircraft did use atmospheric oxygen.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com