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New Photos of SpaceX's Falcon 9 Assembly
RobGoldsmith writes "New images are now available of SpaceX's Falcon 9 being assembled. The images are accompanied with a small update from SpaceX. If there are no unexpected delays, it's possible Falcon 9 will be completely integrated by the end of the year. This update shows real flight hardware and really brings the rocket alive. View images of the Falcon 9 nearing completion now!"
as in the end of 2009? or tomorrow? Or somewhere in between, like the Chinese new year or Rosh Hashanah?
More music, fewer hits
Yay, newly-created organization which hasn't accumulated a work-impeding bureaucracy.
SpaceX is doing great work. Let's hope they don't become another bloated military-industrial dependency anytime soon.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This really shows the power of capitalism in this time of government failing. Yes, although the Congress and administration would like you to believe that the current "crisis" is a result of greed, the bottom line is that the money had to come from someplace, and it came from them. Anyway, by looking at Scaled Composites and SpaceX and seeing what they can do when freed from the binders of government "fairness" (corruption, really, since nothing is truely fair) has simply been fascinating. Space flight is finally coming of age.
Look at this project in comparison to "Orion". A small team vs. thousands. A few designers vs. hundreds of engineers using bulky project management. It goes to show that you really only need project management to do something the first time (IE, not knowing where the major failing points will be). After that, you need something lightweight and agile so that you aren't throwing away the experience of your people by second guessing them until they are unable to make quick decisions.
Will the NASA craft be somehow safer as a result of this rigor? I doubt it. Because the project is so tedious it's probably likely some things were just given up on. SpaceX will get it through testing, trial and error, and will find out more in two throw-away tests than NASA will in 10 years of rigorous development. And because they are only supporting one application, a proprietary one, they don't have to be "fair", and spend 10x as much to ensure compatibility with vendor specifications.
Now I'm not saying the government should get out of the space business, but I do think they need to lean it out and put more on the contractors, and open it up to more competition. The fact that this is finally possible is in large part due to the decrease in cost of computers. From project management software to CAD to anything else, it's now possible to wield the same level of computational and data harnessing power on your desktop that was previously limited to only government-sized resources. The gap is closing because there's really not a lot they can do that we can't (with computers). In fact, the increase in the size of government recently seems to be it trying to preserve itself by creating more jobs. "Let's move those computers to something the private industry will never be trusted to do", they think, "such as listening to all the telephone and internet traffic or studying weapons."
All that NASA is good at doing these days is burning money. Obama, if you're listening, clean it out. In fact, delete it entirely and create a new space agency with modern roots! Imagine what we could do with 500 billion over 10 years with a modern and efficient CIVILIAN organization.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
http://www.spacex.com/falcon9.php (Please make source articles more complete)
The offical site and news: http://www.spacex.com/updates.php It says exactly what the article links to, just a bit more offical ;)
I know a lot of people never thought SpaceX would get this far. I watched the first three Falcon1's explode like everyone else before this last successful launch in Sept (even though it had no real payload). I'm hopeful their Falcon9 starts out successful.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
But how much of this rocket is cherry picked from NASA devolpments. Their rockets probably are. And I would imagine that most of the whole project came from the NASA/Military complex in this country. They are standing on the shoulders of NASA and the Military to get to where they are. As for NASA they really do a lot with the money they get. They get peanuts compared to Army/Navy/Airforce and produce so much more. Probably because the A/N/AF is in the business of destroying stuff. They are pieceing together (from parts) a rocket that can go into space. NASA is desigining a rocket that goes into space. This would be like me going to a parts house and building a car from Ford/GM/Chrysler parts and saying my devolpment costs are so much less. They aren't because I didn't devolp a car. I pieced together a car. For my car to get better I have to get GM to devolp me a better engine.
My addiction: Arguing with idiots. AKA Slashdot!
Next time free enterprise puts a man on the moon, you let me know.
If you capitalists hadn't have f--- up with your stupid lending decisions and dumb investments, there wouldn't be a government bailout now, would there? There was no need for government to momentarily take control of everything, until the people that previously controlled things utterly screwed up.
This is my sig.
whats a "cockblock" tag mean?
One of the sexiest things I've seen in a long time...
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
What do you mean by "capitalist"? Someone who has capital (how much?)? Someone who blindly believes in an "ism" which promotes free market as the cure for everything? Someone who generally favours market friendly solutions to economic problems? And the meaning of "free market" have many interpretations too. Especially when applied to the financial sector. At least you didn't use the word globalization... :)
They've already put the Falcon 1 into orbit. I'd say that's an accomplishment.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
Yeah, but the Falcon 2 through Falcon 8 all blew up.
I'd have to agree. Besides getting to orbit, they've also built an extremely impressive in-house fabrication capability. Aerospace isn't my field, but if it was, I'd love to work there.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Don't wanna piss away my karma, but don't forget the canceled Falcon 5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_5
just thought I'd add that fyi, in case you didn't count it
let's see Falcon 9 actually get off the pad first without blowing up.
Hell, I'd pay to see either option.
Once the benefits of sending a man to the Moon exceeded the costs, free enterprise would have done so, and more cheaply than NASA ever could.
I think it is time that we challenge some basic assertions thrown around here.
I really have to dispute the idea that free enterprise is inherently less expensive than the government. Innately, the government has enormous economies of scale, and, the ability to offer its workers additional power in addition to economic compensation.
While it may have been fashionable in the 1980s to argue on behalf of the smaller, more nimble corporation as compared to a vast government, 30 years of mergers and acquisitions have left us with fewer corporations that are so large and slow they are practically governments themselves. How often have we used the word "Synergy", like it is a joke? If you can believe in any Wall Street merger, than certainly, would not the merger of all rivals into the government be the ultimate in "synergies". Clearly, libertarian arguments about the private sector versus the government are inconsistent.
What is the real case is that the free enterprise system really exists to allow the government to offload the risk of engaging in new forms of commerce, most of which are honestly speculative, onto the private citizenry. Instead of the crown gambling with its money, it allows the people to gamble, and merely takes a cut of the successful. Thus, the government does not need to be in the business of making personal computers or cars, only to tax those that are successful, in order to satisfy the needs of the crown. That's the advantage of the free market, and really, nothing else. However, it is the case when the free market collapses, and citizens are not willing to assume private risk, then the government must step in.
This is my sig.