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Falcon 9 Launch Aborted At Last Minute
ClockEndGooner writes "Sadly, SpaceX had to abort its launch of the Falcon 9 to the International Space Station this morning due to higher than expected pressure levels in one of its engine chambers. NASA and SpaceX have another launch window scheduled for early next week."
Probably better than an engine failing during launch; hopefully everything is worked out for Tuesday.
"It's a setback for NASA's plan to have private companies take over much of what's been an exclusively government enterprise. "
Not really, the thing intelligently averted a possible problem. Look at the reams of government rockets that blew up on the pad or feet off the ground. Are folks set back? Maybe a little, but if it had blown up it would have been more of a learning experience than a setback. Rocketry is almost nothing but constant failure. The fact that they didn't lose the hardware is an amazing success in my book. Typical CBS trying to paint private enterprises as being unable to compete with the government. Sure private companies can't force citizens to pay for their goods, so are forced to maintain costs to a greater degree, but an amazing set of engineers working anywhere can do amazing things, and are only limited by the bureaucracies they work inside of corporate or government.
I am glad to see this private enterprise is going with caution as opposed to rushing their launch no matter what. Microsoft and many other software companies can start to take notes. Looking forward to see a Falcon 9 servicing the ISS safely when ready.
Tomorrow is another day...
Kudos to the engineers and their managers that realized that technical problems are not technicalities. It took two Space Shuttles and a few unmanned missions to figure it out, but I guess we are learning, and that is a good thing.
An aborted launch may not be a successful launch, but it also isn't a failed launch. Good call.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
When I'm launching my rockets full of explorers from the planet Kerth, we don't do aborts! If the engines are still attached to the ship, I'm punching the throttle and hitting the stage selection control! We're going to the Mun (or at least leaving the ground) no matter what!
Also, I don't do any pansy ass "test flights" guided by computer to some orbiting tin can! Every one of my flights is crewed by red blooded, beer chugging, motorcycle riding Kerbals who LOVE it even when it all goes wrong.
SpaceX and NASA could learn a lot from my experiences...
From TFA:
Even NASA's most seasoned launch commentator was taken off-guard.
"Three, two, one, zero and liftoff," announced commentator George Diller, his voice trailing as the rocket failed to budge.
They just keep following the old script, even when things change. Fresh blood, in the form of the private space industry, is great.
Aborting a launch automatically based on sensor data is not a failure; it is a success.
I'm sure the folks on the ISS have enough toilet paper and freeze-dried icecream to make it through the weekend, until the next launch window.
They could have achieved this without lighting the engines.
NASA has been outsourcing more routine builds for decades now. The difference is in the method of tendering for contract.
The development money and the greater part of the designs and all the launch centres have come from the US government (with a good bit of guidance from old Soviet designs). Whether the engineers' paycheques are from NASA or from Musk with him taking a cut is pretty much irrelevant.
To re-cap:
1) Public money;
2) Most of the work thanks to public employees;
3) Final implementation responsibility partly private.
Whether Falcon9 succeeds or fails says really nothing much about the public or the private sector. The only thing we can say for certain is Boeing&co. were making a fucking killing from the US government before now - and they still will, but not so much from NASA.
Adding insult to injury, the reason why the Columbia was destroyed upon re-entry is in part because the Environmental Protection Agency got into a feud with NASA over the foam being used for the cryogenic tank connectors. The original foam being used would have broken up and was much, much lighter where it wouldn't have caused any problem like what caused damage to the leading edge tiles that ultimately caused the problems for the Columbia. The problem was that the original foam had chlorofluorocarbon compounds that were perceived as "hazardous to the environment". I don't know how many lives were spared by the switch to the new foam due to slightly reduced skin cancer rates worldwide, but I know of at least seven astronauts who are dead because of that change. I sure hope that EPA bureaucrat feels nice warm fuzzies over all of the lives he saved because of that move.
The EPA bureaucrat has nothing on his conscience over the Columbia tragedy. The "EPA killed the Columbia astronauts!" hysteria that you wasted half your comment on, was Rush Limbaugh bullshit.
As noted in this comment, the Columbia Accident Investigation Report states that the external tank used on that mission, and therefore the foam that broke off and doomed the shuttle, was an older tank and therefore still used the old CFC foam.
(Link in that comment that refutes the Linbaugh bullshit: http://mediamatters.org/research/200508090007)