How NASA and SpaceX Get Along Together

mblase writes "SpaceX and NASA have been working hard to make this weekend's launch happen — and that has meant navigating the cultural differences between this small, young startup and the huge veteran space agency. The relationship involves daily calls and emails between people who live in two different worlds: age versus youth, bureaucracy versus a flat startup-like structure, and a sense of caution versus a desire to move forward quickly. But they both have an almost religious belief in the need for humans to venture forth into space, a geeky love for rockets, and technical know-how — plus, they both need each other to succeed." The launch is scheduled for 4:55AM EDT (08:55 GMT) tomorrow morning. NASA TV will begin coverage at 3:30AM EDT, and there will be a press conference at 8:30AM. SpaceX's press kit (PDF) has mission details. The rendezvous with the ISS is scheduled for day 4 of the mission after a series of maneuvering tests to ensure the Dragon capsule can approach safely. It carries 1,200 pounds of supplies for the people aboard the ISS, and it carries 11 science experiments designed by students.

Comments

The pathetic US space program

[sl4shd0rk]

One-half of one penny of every tax dollar. That's what the NASA budget is. We spend an assload more money on trying to kill people than we do planning for the future of the human race. On top of the measly NASA budget, we still have to outsource most of our space program.

Did you know the US spends more on the military's Air Conditioners than the entire NASA budget? http://gizmodo.com/5813257/air-conditioning-our-military-costs-more-than-nasas-entire-budget.

Re:The pathetic US space program

[Intrepid imaginaut]

I'd say SpaceX would be only delighted to have NASA's budget. And imagine what they could do with it.

Re:The pathetic US space program

[geekoid]

You would have a point if all NASA does is launch delivery ships.

Re:The pathetic US space program

[queazocotal]

Space launch has cost $10K/lb or so since 1960.
This isn't a law of physics.
NASA has systematically proved incapable of lowering launch cost - their primary contractors have no interest in doing this, and they are biased to 'clever' rather than 'workable' solutions. And then there is the problem that NASA has to spend money politically, not efficiently. It's largely a welfare organisation for aerospace - it's not a space organisation.

One of the last attempts at lowering launch costs - X33 - had three separate untried technologies on it.

SpaceX is taking a rather different tack - using shiny stuff only when it has a major benefit.

Their next rocket is planned to come in at around $1K/lb.
And they're thinking of reusability, to lower the costs to well below this.
Fuel costs are around $5/lb.

http://www.spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php - this is a cool video on their reusable design.
And this is a picture of the hardware - the foldable landing legs for the first stage of the Falcon 9.
http://img.ly/i5JQ

The space program isn't pathetic because of the lack of money being spent on it.
If you take the funding from SLS, up to the first couple of launches, and use it to buy commercial launches on SpaceX - you get comfortably enough launch to lift the USS Iowa - closing on 200 times the mass of ISS.

And this assumes that SpaceX can't get reusability working.
If they can, then multiply these numbers by a _large_ number.

Re:Shame about the Wine in space.

[BanHammor]

I don't think that many austronauts are Linux tinkerers.

Re:Too damn Early

[Hadlock]

Go buy Kerbal Space Program, get a ship in orbit, then launch a second one to go chase after the first ship in orbit. Even if your launches are only a few hours apart, it's difficult to match orbit (speeding up to "catch up" with the ISS causes your orbit to go all egg shaped).
 
I've been playing that damn game for about 3 weeks now and I have yet to successfully complete an orbital rendezvous. Matching orbits is hard. Space is hard. If this shit were free and easy, North Korea would have a manned space station already.
 
NASA makes it look easy, but the fact of the matter is you've got objects zipping through low earth orbit at tens of thousands (17,500 mph generally), and if you're off by "only" 500mph, well, hope you're not on a collision course with the station. Imagine roughly the same result of your car hitting a brick wall at 500mph.
 
TL;DR you've got to launch that shit when you have to, no ifs, ands, or buts. Apollo moon missions don't have a rendezvous element so they had the option of launching during prime time.

Re:Too damn Early

[0123456]

Well, obviously they did have a rendezvous element, it's just that the target wasn't moving terribly fast (relatively speaking) and there was a valid launch window more or less every day.

There was a valid launch window every once in a while, because they had to arrive at their landing site early in the lunar morning so that their entire stay was during the lunar day and, I believe, so that the sun was still low so it they wouldn't exceed LEM cooling margins.

They were somewhat flexible in launch time during that window because they would spend some time in orbit around the moon before landing, so if they had to pick a launch window an hour or two earlier than the ideal because of other constraints, they could potentially wait a few orbits before the landing.

If you look up the NASA documents on Apollo launch planning there were a number of constraints they had to work within. Unfortunately I can't remember them all :).

Re:Too damn Early

[Teancum]

They really don't have other days to try and perform this launch either. The Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Station (a USAF base) is a very busy place with a great many launches happening going to a great many places being done by a great many different companies and people. Some of those other launches simply can't wait, and in fact are a higher priority to this launch by SpaceX (as they contain weather satellites, various military satellites, GPS satellites, and other things important for America as well).

Your ignorance is showing even more for posing this question at all. Besides, there is no reason for this launch to happen at a time convenient for you to be able to eat your breakfast and take in a bit of entertainment. This is rocket science.

But more to the point, there won't be days in the near future that would allow a launch window between 9 am and 9 pm and meet all of the other conditions needed for this flight as well as dealing with everything else that needs to happen at this launch site. Of all of the things that these engineers should be worrying about, your need for sleep is the last consideration they should have.