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On Fourth Launch Attempt, SpaceX Falcon 1 Reaches Orbit
xp65 writes with the just-announced success of Elon Musk's SpaceX's long efforts to reach orbit with a privately-developed launching craft: "T+0:08:21 Falcon 1 reached orbital velocity, 5200 m/s Nominal Second stage cut off (SECO) — Falcon 1 has made history as the first privately developed liquid fueled launch vehicle to achieve earth orbit!"
dbullard adds "This was a completely new vehicle — it's not using any previously developed hardware. All developed from scratch. No government supplied hardware, Russian engines, or old ICBM motors. My hat's off to the employees of Space X — all 550 of them. (Note — no 'cast of thousands,' just 550).
They've got video of the entire launch."
To the long years of effort still ahead. May SpaceX be there to participate as man finally reaches for the stars.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
May you be the first of many more private space companies; we sure need you guys.
Veni, Vidi, Velcro!
Elon Musk is friggin' Hank Rearden man.
Now he is really gonna swim in the money. Tip my hat to all involved. :-)
Send your spendthrift head of state this
we can't use a telescope and a microscope simultaneously.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
I've been waiting for their success for the past 5 years or so, and I'm absolutely ecstatic.
They have a couple more Falcon 1 flights scheduled for this year, with their first Falcon 9 flight next year. The Falcon 9 is considerably larger, and is the vehicle SpaceX plans to use for delivering cargo and crew to the International Space Station.
I imagine that there's been a number of announcements waiting in the wings for SpaceX's first successful flight. Perhaps we'll be hearing soon about a more formal arrangement between SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace with their private space station plans?
I would say I'm even more impressed by this than by China's manned spaceflight.
This is something new and very interesting. It's relatively trivial for a nation of over a billion people and a strong centralized government to develop a space program. But a privately funded orbital rocket. That's a game changer.
Congratulations to China and especially congratulations to the groundbreaking team at SpaceX!
Right, like that whole gun powder and rocket propulsion thing...
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
To develop? That's proprietary.
Want to buy a launch? $7.9 million.
How we know is more important than what we know.
A few days ago the Washington Post had a pretty interesting discussion/interview with Elon Musk, the CEO/CTO/founder/funder of SpaceX. Some juicy tidbits, which are even more exciting in the context of today's launch success:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/09/24/DI2008092402502.html
Washington, D.C.: If and when you manage to get all the Falcons and Dragon up and running, what's next? Further incremental improvements on these or something more revolutionary? Also, where do you stand on the value of the various X-prizes (and equivalents)?
Elon Musk: Still a long way to getting *all* the Falcons and Dragons flying. We need to get F1 to orbit for one thing :) Then F9, F9 with Cargo Dragon, F9 with crew Drago and F9 Heavy. My interest is very much in the direction of Mars, so a Mars lander of some kind might be the next step. ...
Stillwater, Minn.: Mr. Musk, first of all, I've been following SpaceX via your website since before Flight 1, and I hope to join you all someday (I'm an undergrad ChEg at Notre Dame). Talk about the inherent advantages of your rockets over those designed by Lockheed Martin and Boeing (reusability, smaller size = significantly smaller cost, redundancies on the Falcon 9, etc.)
Elon Musk: The full answer for why SpaceX is lower cost is too long for this forum and I don't like to give soundbite answers if they are incorrect. The cost of a single use rocket is:
* Engines
* Structures
* Avionics
* Launch operation
* Overhead
We are better on every one at SpaceX vs competitors -- by a factor of two vs most international and four vs domestic. That is before reuse is considered, which could ultimately be a 10X or more additional reduction. ...
Cocoa Beach, Fla.: Congress mistakenly took the first step towards extending the shuttle program. Anyone in the know is aware that this is impossible given the cost of re-certification. Why then is this being supported at any level. Why isn't Congress saying anything about privatizing our space effort?
Marc Kaufman: Congress has put up some money for privatizing the space effort, and SpaceX has indeed been the main beneficiary. I think that Congress and NASA are waiting for a successful launch before going more deeply into expanding the privatizing.
Those initial steps taken by Congress regarding extending the shuttle program are a reflection of just how strongly people feel about the five-year gap, during which there are no current clear alternatives to paying Russia for Soyuz transport. Extending the shuttle could close some of that gap, and could also allow some very expensive and promising equipment--now absent from the rest of the shuttle manifests- to be delivered to the station. One grounded, $1.5 billion piece of equipment in particular has become very controversial because scores of institutioins and national space agencies helped pay for it. ....
Urbana, Ill.: Right now you have two rockets based on the same first-stage engine (Merlin). To launch Falcon 9 Heavy, you'll need 27 of those engines to fire simultaneously. Do you have any plans to develop a larger engine in the future so that such clustering is not necessary?
Elon Musk: Yeah, I think there is an argument for a really really big Falcon engine or BFE, as we call it :)
That would be equal or greater to the thrust of 27 Merlin 1C engines. Would be exciting to see that fire! ...
Calistoga, Calif.: Elon, Your business plan emphasis low man power as cost savings method, how does NASA documentation requirements impact your man power requirements? In other words, how many of SpaceX staff are on board solely to deal with NASA
ill bite: i think youre being a little unfair. considering that no other private space-flight company has ever achieved an orbit in space (as opposed to suborbit), this is a monumental achievement. the gemini programs had their fair share of failures too, yet i dont hear anything but admiration and pride in the people involved there.
i say well done, SpaceX! this is a moment in history - no longer is spaceflight limited to governmental agencies. usher in the era privately funded space access, and may that lead to mass produced spacecraft for private use!
I had no luck finding exact numbers, but Musk was worth about $200million when he started this, but there have been some launches paid for by Uncle Sam, so the exact funding gets murky. The test launches cost between $7 to $12 million. I'd think it would be quite safe to say the total budget so far has been under $500 million, that would be Elon Musk's total fortune, plus matching funds from the government, plus considerable outside donations. $500 million is 1/32nd NASA's annual budget for comparison.
We are all just people.
Nice One! Although the press release says this time around it carried a "payload mass simulator" which I'm guessing means "nothing we're gonna sweat over getting blowed up" - no satellites or
When I was watching the webcast, Musk kept on joking about a "RatSat" when congratulating his employees after the successful launch. It sounded like they just had a metal cylinder with a drawing of a rat on the side.
Scotty's ashes or such.
You probably already know this, but just in case, the previous SpaceX rocket only carried a symbolic portion (1 gram or so) of "Scotty's" ashes. Assuming the family is still interested, they'll probably just try launching again on a future flight.
>>Exactly how much did this cost?
You? nothing. Which is precisely why it's so significant. This is private enterprise, vs. a mandatory government space program. You get to choose whether to be a part of this, or not.
Oh, and as far as "cost", I think it's more accurate to consider it an "investment" for soon these space shots will generate income.
Congrats on putting a nice crack in the mismanaged, overpriced, overpoliticised, goverment monopoly. Good Luck!
Looks like the prices are going to drop big if they manage to do what they intend though, from the same page they plan to go from $7.9M for 420 kg now to $9.1M for 1010 kg in 2010. Still not exactly cheap for my paycheck but I guess lower than the competition.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
May SpaceX be there to participate as man finally reaches for the stars.
Let's bring some women too.
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had a few words for his critics last month: "Optimism, pessimism, f-ck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work."
I guess he showed them!
Looking what the Big Nasty State of China just did, private enterprise is looking positively lame. Even with this launch, Musk's rocket still has only a 25% success rate and can only launch a few kilos into orbit.
Uh sure, and to get to this point SpaceX's total expenditures (over 6 years) have been around a half billion dollars. In contrast, China spends around $2 billion every year. China may be ahead of SpaceX for the time being, but it'll be interesting to see where they are a few years from now.
Slashdotters seem more than willing to jump on Elon Musk's "entrepreneurial" cock but at the same time make racist statements when the Chinese government achieves a far more significant space milestone.
Um, what? I didn't see much of that myself, although I usually only read at +3 or higher. Are the people who are congratulating Elon Musk the same folks who were making racist statements about Chinese efforts?
I've seen plenty of launch videos before, but watching this and hearing them cheer when the stages separate... well, it warmed my heart. It's a beautiful example of bright people getting together to do something that people thought was unreasonable my many. That is one very small organization to break free from the surface of our little planet. Congrats to them.
Ah, STFU. They developed it completely from scratch. Lets see how well YOU do under those conditions.
You're not impressed by 550 people pulling off something that took China the resources of 1.3 billion people plus a close partnership with the Russian space agency to pull off?
China's accomplishments are impressive, but no more so than the ESA's -- a government with immense funding learning from partners who already have the technology. SpaceX has pulled off a real, independent first -- more like Russia or the USA did in decades past.
This space intentionally left blank
No one is waiting around for these clowns to get their act together finally. Given their pathetically incompetent history the fact that they finally managed to not fuck up once again is certainly due to pure dumb luck.
Dream on if you think anyone is going to let these nimrods anywhere near something as valuable as the International Space Station.
Both NASA and its Russian counterpart had several failures, some of which claimed lives. What makes you think these guys are any worse?
considering that no other private space-flight company has ever achieved an orbit in space
That's not true: Orbital Sciences been doing this from a long time. SpaceX is the first creating all the stack, from the motors to the launch vehicle. United Launch Alliance also has Delta and Atlas too.
Spaceflight is not limited to governmental agencies since a long time.
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
165kg is just the weight of the dummy module to put into orbit you moron. if you took the 5 seconds itd take to go and check the spacex website, youd see it can actually put around 1 tonne into orbit. and thats before any sort of reusuability is taken into account. so next time, think before you open your moron mouth.
Clustering 9 engines considering the shit they went through getting one to work. Its going to be some pretty fireworks.
Are there any particular failure modes you have in mind that they might be prone to? Do you believe they'll be unable to replicate the procedures which led to success on this past flight? Why not?
If you've got ~165kg to launch, why would you pay $85m instead of $7m?
Perhaps I should take your lead then. Any articles about the Shenzhou programme (which, btw, is doing pretty well to cost only 20 times as much as Musks effort considering how much more they are doing) are dogged with comments about 'chinks' and how they must be faking it because they couldn't possibly grasp high technology, followed by some comments about Tibet by people who get awfully defensive about Iraq. It gets pretty ugly.
Sure, and as we've just seen, apparently stories about SpaceX's successes are dogged with comments about slashdotters wanting to jump on CEO's cocks. Fortunately both sorts of comments tend to get modded down pretty quickly as ignorant and/or irrelevant.
Why am I being so rough? Slashdotters seem more than willing to jump on Elon Musk's "entrepreneurial" cock but at the same time make racist statements when the Chinese government achieves a far more significant space milestone. Don't expect everyone to fall at the feet of this guy simply because he fits in with your ideological predispositions; he is quite far behind.
Vulgarity aside, you miss the point entirely. True, the Chinese have accomplished quite a bit. But they've had thousands of people working on it and spent hundreds of billions of yuan on it. Musk has only a few hundred and hasn't even spent a billion dollars. His project has accomplished a first for humanity -- a privately-financed launch platform. Praising him does not diminish the Chinese accomplishment, but Musk deserves credit for seeing this through to success. His objective was not to duplicate government launch abilities, it was to change the economics of launching. If his success continues, SpaceX -- and others like it -- will change all of humanity by vastly lowering the cost of getting into orbit.
If anything, you could apply your argument to the diminution of the Chinese. They've accomplished nothing that Apollo and Soyuz didn't already do forty years ago. Using your measuring stick, they have a tremendous amount of catching up to do. I don't subscribe to your measuring stick, mind you, but I thought you might easier see your argument's fallacies from a different perspective.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Well, we can point out to the availability of credit practically free of charge from the Federal Reserve since 9/11 - that's a governmental intervention.
The Community Reinvestment Act that mandated banks extend loans to high risk individuals in 'need' while giving them the ability to repackage those high-risk mortgages and sell them in the market as a consolation prize - that's a governmental intervention.
Maybe you should stop quoting Joseph Stiglitz's buzzwords and start educating yourself on what actually IS a free market before blabbering nonsense about it.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
Also, in case other readers aren't sure what I'm referring to:
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/home/spacex_9enginefire.html
August 1, 2008 - Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX ) conducted the first nine engine firing of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle at its Texas Test Facility outside McGregor on July 31st. A second firing on August 1st completed a major NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) milestone almost two months early.
At full power, the nine engines consumed 3,200 lbs of fuel and liquid oxygen per second, and generated almost 850,000 pounds of force - four times the maximum thrust of a 747 aircraft. This marks the first firing of a Falcon 9 first stage with its full complement of nine Merlin 1C engines . Once a near term Merlin 1C fuel pump upgrade is complete, the sea level thrust will increase to 950,000 lbf, making Falcon 9 the most powerful single core vehicle in the United States.
âoeThis was the most difficult milestone in development of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and it also constitutes a significant achievement in US space vehicle development. Not since the final flight of the Saturn 1B rocket in 1975, has a rocket had the ability to lose any engine or motor and still successfully complete its mission,â said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX. âoeMuch like a commercial airliner, our multi-engine design has the potential to provide significantly higher reliability than single engine competitors.â
âoeWe made a major advancement from the previous five engine test by adding four new Merlin engines at once,â said Tom Mueller, Vice President of Propulsion for SpaceX. âoeAll phases of integration went smoothly and we were elated to see all nine engines working perfectly in concert.â
That link may contain a disturbing impressionist view the taxpayer position on the Wall Street Bailout.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
...but I'd feel perfectly safe with a 75% failure rate :)
SpaceX employs about 500 people. There was a crew of about 25 people down there actually handling the rocket. Yes, a 25% success rate sucks badly and SpaceX will need to work hard to stay alive. But they put, as I understand it, almost 200 kilograms in orbit. That's useful and something people will pay for. There's no one else who can get by with that little manpower.
Also consider that SpaceX was started in mid 2002. So over a bit over six years, SpaceX has developed two launch vehicles, the Falcon I and the Falcon V, two rocket engines, the Kestrel and three versions of the Merlin. They're also working on a manned vehicle, the Dragon. They've launched four vehicles with one success.
My take is that SpaceX is doing a hell of a lot with limited manpower. Further, the services that SpaceX provides are valuable and economical. This will be another step to greater commercial activity in space and a commercial manned presence. That outcome is far superior to China's feeble manned efforts.
As long as the record was 0kg in orbit (via non-goverment means) getting anything there is a "giant leap" -- sputnik 1 was only 83.6 kg, and there are not many people who wouldn't recognise that that was a significant step.
$7.9 million? MASA will launch any payload and successfully land it on the moon for two hundred dollars.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
He then Falcon-Punched the reporter into orbit for dramatic effect.
Roughly half my comments are never submitted. You may be reading the better half...
You do know that NASA's satellite launches are almost always done with rockets from outside contractors, don't you? That means that NASA may well (and will) hire SpaceX instead of the current contractor for launch missions, if their capabilities, reliability, and price makes sense.
For those very rare occasions that NASA uses the space shuttle to launch, the reason for it is usually that none of the available commercial solutions will work (payload size, of launch assist from astronauts, etc). And even then, the space shuttle is serviced and prepped by many contractors...
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
Actually it was separation timing. They had it timed to be after the predicted end of thrust but the prediction and therefore the timing was wrong.
How did it get through? The extended thrust period was caused due to the difference in air pressure at the altitude at the end of burn and the sealevel (or nearly) that they did the original test burns at. With the lower air pressure more reaction mass was able to bleed through the system, end result longer thrust than predicted.
To lose 3 consecutive craft before getting the bugs out is regrettable but understandable.
Failures during development are expected.
To achieve a full orbit, the velocity must be 7.8 km/s or about 23 Mach. 5200m/s is not enough to stay in orbit. It more like suborbital flight.
I'm also curious, but at what point would you consider SpaceX deserving of congratulations? Their first successful Falcon 9 launch? Their first manned launch? Their first launch to a private space station? Their first circumlunar navigation? Their first lunar landing? Their first Mars landing?
Would you consider them deserving of kudos at that point, or would you still find something to gripe about them?
Just because it comes from someone else's bank account does not make that 'cost' zero. Ignoring the 'cost' of that up-front investment, irrelevant of some unspecified 'income' that the project will generate, is how Dotcom companies go out of business: don't encourage that kind of sloppy thinking here.
It's also exactly the sort of question potential investors should be asking. Don't just blow it off with voodoo economics.
Grand parent sounded ridiculous with his 'toast' to man finally reaching to the stars...there was, you know, the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo programs, whatever the Soviets called their programs, dozens of probes, satellites, etc...all done decades ago.
I applaud what SpaceX is doing, but I cannot stand when people praise them like retarded donkeys while pretending they are space pioneers. They are pioneers of funding...the stuff they are doing has already been done several times. If you look at what they're doing IN CONTEXT it's still remarkable!
As far as the analogies that the parent is speaking of...let's just drop the BS...you can look right through the 'government does it first' and the 'private industry does it first' counter argument and see its just your standard liberal vs. conservative circular argument.
Sure the military and other gov't agencies have pioneered several technologies (the internet springs to mind...ARPANET anyone?), and private industry has had its successes as well.
We can, you know, have both...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Do I get to choose whether or not I'm part of the $700,000,000,000 Wall Street bailout? That was private enterprise too.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I imagine he'd do pretty badly, since he can't even calculate the failure rate correctly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To-XOPgaGsQ
This shows the fourht launch.
The video on spacex.com is for previous launches. I suppose they are all getting drunk now, instead of updating the website.
I do think there are a number of things that NASA has and is doing wrong in terms of its general attitude toward spaceflight development and its focus towards a useful mission that NASA can play.
NASA can and should be in the space exploration business, not the business of providing space transportation services. Travel to low-earth orbit may have been remarkable back in the 1950's, but it isn't even news any more. Heck, even this launch... which I do believe to be not just newsworthy but down right historic... is just a footnote in science columns right now if it is being covered by "mainstream" news media at all.
Recent announcements by Mike Griffin and NASA that the new Ares V rocket is going to be in the commercial spaceflight business makes me really question what, if anything, NASA really intends to do in the near future. Perhaps that was just a mistake on a power-point slide I was looking at, but the "mission" of NASA certainly not very well defined at the moment.
The Chinese have spent about 20 times what Musk has (going on what my opponents say) and have come out with more than 20 times the value in terms of their results.
The amount spent by the Chinese is undoubtedly large, but no one outside the Chinese government may know the true cost. Given the secrecy surrounding the project as well as the government obfuscation (i.e. only announcing launches after they're successful), I'd suspect the number is a good deal higher than anything they've announced publicly.
Further, your claim that they're getting "20 times the value" is nebulous at best. You're guessing and reaching all at the same time. Do you have some kind of axe to grind that motivates you to so thoroughly abandon logic?
You can't even compare three man capsules and spacewalks to launching microsatellites on the same playing field.
Really? Why not? Both involve similar engineering and scientific feats. Both are fantastically expensive. The difference is in scale and efficiency only. China has the scale, Musk has the efficiency. It's as simple as that. Further, Musk isn't trying to reach the scale of China, Russia, or the U.S. His goal -- the one you're completely ignorant of -- is to make space access affordable.
It remains to be seen whether China can match Musk's efficiency or whether Musk can match China's -- or any other government-sponsored launch system's -- scale. However, in the sense that he's got a working launch platform that met all its design goals, it is huge success.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
$7.9 million? MASA [aol.com] will launch any payload and successfully land it on the moon for two hundred dollars [wikipedia.org].
And how much in taxes does the average taxpayer have to pay to subsidize that $200 launch cost?
There is no free -- or even cheap -- lunch when it comes to any government-sponsored program.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Rocket launch prices don't scale linearly with payload mass. Launching small payloads is very expensive per unit mass. The Falcon 1 variants are a direct competitor to the Pegasus family, but at 1/3rd the price. *Assuming* they can keep their prices down (or even drop them, such as with reuse). This is always a tricky aspect; often what happens is that issues that came up in development or a market that failed to materialize increase prices. Whether that will happen with SpaceX, only time will tell.
One thing I find encouraging is, as Musk notes, how much simpler the Falcon is than the Pegasus. The Falcon is a standard two-stage liquid-fuelled rocket designed ground-up for simplicity and bulk production. Pegasus is partially made of hardware borrowed from earlier rocket programs. You're looking at five stages. The first has to be man-rated, since you drop the rocket from a plane. You have to maintain the plane. The first rocket stage is effectively a hypersonic aircraft, complete with flight surfaces. And so forth. So, I think there's a good shot of them staying cheaper than Pegasus, probably by a good margin.
Also, I just in general like the approach they've taken with the Falcon series; there are a lot of clever design choices. My favorite: the cross between balloon tanks and rigid tanks. Balloon tanks are very light but very flimsy tanks that rely on internal pressure to keep stable. This gives you a better payload fraction but makes them hard to handle on the ground without damaging them; you have to transport them inflated, for example. Rigid tanks are heavier, but easier to handle. The tanks on the Falcon are rigid enough to not have to be transported under pressure, but not to withstand the forces of launch without their internal pressure. It's a "best of both worlds" type situation.
When was the last time you ran anywhere? I mean with your own legs, not by pressing 'X'?
Do remember that Musk is also wrapped up in solar power (SolarCity) and electric cars (Tesla Motors).
When was the last time you ran anywhere? I mean with your own legs, not by pressing 'X'?
That's vaguely funny, but completely wrong. The fat being transformed back to energy is quite inefficient: it's far more effective to send up the fat as food, and not pay the water and oxygen and space costs of storing it as live fat in the body, especially because it will change the size of their space suits. Also, a lot of midgets have a lot of other medical issues, and limited body strength. Sending up all that spare organ space just to get a really short pair of arms up there seems pretty inefficient.
Now, people with their legs chopped off might be more effective. I bet there are quite a few military veterans right now who'd be happy for the ride, and have a lot of upper body strength to bring to their efforts.
$7.9M for 420 kg
I reckon thats enough mass for a partly reusable single person capsule. Add two million for the capsule and operational support and you are still at half the price of a trip to the ISS with the Russians.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
He sure seems to have a streak for investing in 'nice' companies as well as being successful.
I'm very happy to see him succeed.
MP3 Search Engine
So, no. You don't get to choose, and instead of funding a publicly owned space launch capability, we give Elon Musk and other SpaceX investors a cut off the top.
I guess you thought that Titan, Atlas, Delta, Saturn and STS were designed and built by gov't employees, eh, instead of The Martin Company,Consolidated-Vultee, Douglas Aircraft, Chrysler, Rockwell and Morton-Thiokol, plus dozens of other companies.
The bottom line is that the US has NEVER had a "publicly owned space launch capability".
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I would say that it is in just about EVERYbodies interest to see him succeed. Solar City is singlehandly lowering the costs of solar PV installs. Likewise, Tesla motors has renewed the interest in Electric cars AND serial hybrids. In fact, GM says that if not for Elon and Tesla, they NEVER would have done the volt. Of course, they still might not. :) . Unlike Bill Gates, this man is creating all new industries. Even now, Spacex will make bigelow possible. The two should lead to other rockets being finished, for example, Scaled Composites SSIII. That is suppose to be LEO for ppl. But the ONLY way that will be of use is if there is a destination. If simply a rocket ride, then SSII is far far cheaper. Bigelow is the destination. But Bigelow would not happen WITHOUT spacex (or some form of cheap LV).
And WRT Spacex, Musk is changing the game. Many ppl on this site certainly hate him. Surest way to tell if somebody works at lmart, raytheon, Boeing, etc is to find a rocket science guy and ask what they think of spacex. If they work at one of the standard companies, they will RIP spacex. If not, the love them (conditionally). And if person is not rocket science, then they just seem to love them unconditionally
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They were built by government contractors, and paid for by the government. They're as publicly owned as a school building built by a local construction company.
Would we get more bang for our taxpayer buck if we'd just hired engineers and designers directly? Maybe, maybe not. You lose some of the efficiency that competition can bring out, but on the other hand you don't have the stockholders and top management of Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, et. al., taking a percentage off the top.
Who owned the rockets that sent the Apollo missions to the moon? Who owns the shuttles? The United States. Boeing might have made 'em, but we bought 'em. A bunch of moon rockets, or a shuttle fleet, is most definitely a "publicly owned space launch capability".
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp, but the fourth one... stayed up!
this is not an exhaustive defense...at all...not even close
This sounds like a anarcho-capitalist argument against all taxes. I don't have the energy for a political discussion, but I think it's important to acknowledge going in that the core of critics like you is not about how to do science or anything of that nature...you're against all taxes.
don't flame this topic...please. I'm a left-leaning libertarian, just fyi.
I think space exploration should be funded by the government because of the inherent nature of this type of exploration. It's expensive, requires decades of planning and preparation, and has very high stakes. It really is 'the final frontier' and as the original US astronauts liked to call it, "pushing the edge of the envelope."
I advocate government funded scientific endeavor of all types. We're talking about space, but the benefits of expanding our knowledge through space exploration are seen in practically ever scientific discipline.
Here's a ridiculously cursory list:
1. Survival of our species. Depending on who you talk to, we may have already ruined it. Climate change is a recognized fact. Of course there is always an asteroid, war, overpopulation, pandemic, FPS video games, etc. Take your pick. Space exploration as I (and many others) see it is a way to expand the human presence beyond our world, and in doing so dramatically increase our chances of moving past the dangerous times in which we live.
2. Science. I shouldn't have to go into this too much on /. Seriously...this is /. Space exploration lets us look deeper into space with telescopes, which allows us to test our theories about how the universe, and our planet came into being in the first place. It helps us understand how the most fundamental aspects of our existence function...idk, like say, gravity. Like I said, this is /. and I think this point is self-explanitory.
3. Technology. The trip to the moon pushed the US to develop technology that wasn't necessarily 'marketable' at the time, and may not have ever gotten developed. I really don't have time to put up links with specifics, but increased computer capacity for guidance systems and all the communications technology spring to mind. Private exploration can take risks with technology that may not make financial sense at the time but reap huge rewards later.
Corporations are risk averse and profit from defective design (DRM anyone?). Public endeavors have fewer limits on what they can do.
4. Promoting increasing knowledge. I know some hardcore anarcho-capitalist is going to say "it's not the government's job to blah blah blah"...that's a straw man argument. I'm not advocating Soviet style government mandated work programs! I'm saying that because of our space endeavors in the 50s and 60s generations were inspired to get involved in science and engineering. That's priceless.
That's 4...in no way presented to represent all the reasons why public funded space exploration is a good investment.
Now, if you want to talk about how NASA's mission and policies need to be focused and reformed, of course we can improve!...that's a different discussion. This discussion, if you read the parent is not about that aspect. This is about whether the US should even do it in the first place, and the answer is a big fat yes.
Thank you Dave Raggett
It is true that the early history of NASA was obviously targeted towards national defense -- and thus justified. However, the work would have been eventually done using private capital if the end result -- satellite communications for example -- were profitable -- and therefore sustainable.
These clowns have only managed to get 25 percent of their ships to sub orbit and you are babbling about that being some sort of 'accomplishment'???
The US, Soviets/Russians, Chinese have similar numbers at a similar stage of development.[1]
This is a huge advancement. Space just isn't for the elite any more and it is about time! W00t! And hats off to the SpaceX engineers.
[1] How do American children count down? 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0 shit. - joke from the 1950's.
"Optimism, pessimism, f-ck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work."
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=638755&cid=24508563
Interesting to go back and reread those comments now, see who thought the CEO was "a man who gets things done" and who thought he was "a man who can drive your company in to the ground faster than a failed Falcon 1" and "a man who is altogether too comfortable with profanity and who cares little for the problems faced by his team".
Disclaimer: I didn't post in the original discussion, but I was also curious if that attitude would work when launching rockets. I guess he proved it did. :)
Are you implying that public funded space exploration is wrong for some reason? If so you are dead wrong.
I'm not the person you're responding to, but I used to work for NASA in the 1980s and I think that yes, public funded space exploration is wrong. WRONG WRONG WRONG.
We could have had something like this about three decades ago if there weren't so many stupid government restrictions in this area.
I'm not sure the Orlando Sentinel will be very unbiased in its assessment of SpaceX, an upstart that threatens the established contractors, with many of their employees living and working in central Florida. That's like reading the LA Times for its opinion on copyright legislation, or the Detroit Free Press for their opinions on the success of import car companies.
The welfare you speak of is paying for launches at the going rate (which is well below development costs), and funding development of a manned rocket (dragon) that won a contract that NASA actively and openly solicited entries for. While not really "free", competition for best design for the lowest bid is hardly "welfare" either.
The existing aerospace contractors had become far too set in their ways and were hardly competing with one another on efficiency or cost. SpaceX seems like it could really change the game. Note that the old guard doesn't have to go away, it just has to adapt, and a new competitor will give them the urgency they seem to have lost.
Why does the space shuttle orbit earth in about one and a half hour? Because low earth orbit takes you around the earth in about 1.5 hours.
Orbital speed is over 7000 m/s and 5200 is simply not enough.
I think he is trying to make amends for Paypal.
Cant really blame him....
Not since the final flight of the Saturn 1B rocket in 1975, has a rocket had the ability to lose any engine or motor and still successfully complete its mission,â said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX.
I hear what he's saying and I'm sure it can survive an engine quietly losing thrust, but I wouldn't quite bet on it with any of the more spectacular failure modes.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
So because some people who post here refuse to consider that the Chinese might actually have accomplished what they say they did you are going to insult SpaceX and Musk? It's not the fault of SpaceX or Musk that some people refuse to give credit to the Chinese (presumably due to either political ideology or racism). So attacking the accomplishments of SpaceX and Musk only adds another injured party to the list.
Personally I think those who try to deny the accomplishments of the Chinese are being idiots. If they had not done what they claim by now the U.S. and Russia would be bringing forward evidence of it. The same as the U.S.S.R would have done if the U.S. had faked the Lunar landings as some claim. Of course your attacks on SpaceX and Musk are just as bad and you are no better than they are.
I would be fascinated to hear how you measured the radius of the Earth to the nearest proton diameter.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
While I am impressed with the flight I found the video a bit scary... When the 1st stage separated it looked like it (at least!) almost hit the nozzle of the 2nd stage on the right side. Further, the 1st stage didn't just fall straight back but did so at quite an angle (implying the trajectory of the 2nd stage changed quite a bit after separation). Then, the nozzle of the second stage glowed bright red in more and more placed as the flight progressed. Is that normal (to the degree observable)? Towards the end of the flight the whole vehicle started to swing back and forth quite a bit, with growing amplitude. Chris
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. - Philip K. Dick
And, considering the first failure of the 1c engine really didn't have anything to do with the hardware, but software, I'd say 100% success for the 1c engine but a 50% failure on separation!
This is blinging
You really believe that you're being deprived of your liberty? Then vote. Get people to vote with you. Or do you only believe in the kind of liberty that is given to you, not taken; just a whiner who want's "liberty" without working to preserve it?
Hats off to Musk. He's worked for his (and indirectly humanities) great benefit, and is showing wonderful success.
You realise that the space shuttle is strapped to a fucking huge rocket right? See parent's post, your second sentence is exactly what he said.
The inherent flaw in Libertarian property rights is the principle of original acquisition. Your so-called liberty based morality fails to take into account on any level the historically unequal distribution of resources that results from the seizure of property through force or coercion. Further, libertarianism assumes, for no reason whatsoever, that I am morally superior (or at the very least deserve a larger share of resources) simply because I am more talented/intelligent/lucky than the next guy. Are the handicapped inherently less deserving of needed resources simply because they were born less capable of providing for themselves? Should a percentage of the old starve because they were too stupid to set aside funds for their retirement? Is this consistent with your conception of justice?
True free market principles have failed to produce a favorable outcome anywhere. See: The Great Depression, Argentina under the Chicago Boys, the current deregulation clusterfuck with sub prime mortgages.
In short, Libertarianism is a failed theory clinging to flawed moral reasoning to justify why the rich should get richer.