SpaceX Dragon Set To Launch

/. timing always sucks by evilviper · 2012-10-07 12:03 · Score: 4, Funny

Slashdot... It's the website I watch like a hawk, so that I can find out about live events, 5 minutes before they happen (if I'm really, really lucky).

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Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant

Re:/. timing always sucks by SomePgmr · 2012-10-07 12:15 · Score: 3, Informative

Yeah they got this one in with some time to spare. T-21m as I'm writing this.
And it looks like wired's embedded ustream feed isn't working... so there's this:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
Re:/. timing always sucks by rasmusbr · 2012-10-07 12:16 · Score: 2

Did your hawk eyes miss the SpaceX story [or was stories?] yesterday?
I'm watching the video stream now because I found the SpaceX live blog because I found out about the launch on Slashdot yesterday.
Re:/. timing always sucks by Seumas · 2012-10-07 12:58 · Score: 2

Yeah, I was alive to see the first commercial contracted flight to deliver a shitter to the decaying ISS.
It's hard to be massively impressed by something that should have occurred twenty years ago and by something that will be the biggest success for probably the rest of our lives (other than when they send a person in t he rocket up to the ISS, which could just as well happen right now, if they wanted, so it'll happen quickly).
Re:/. timing always sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-07 13:17 · Score: 3, Insightful

I get that there's plenty of room to play with the phrase, "commerical space flight", and SpaceX is certainly doing that. And I won't be the one to kick off the typical slashdot thread o' pedantry, as I suspect you're just being passive-aggresive about it. We both know the score.
What I will say is that I'm excited about it all. I think spacex in particular is ambitious and capable enough to do exciting things. I like that NASA is doing increasingly impressive exploratory work instead of spending all their time and money on shuttling food and clothing. And I agree that a lot of this stuff should have been done a long time ago... but it wasn't, and now it is. That's something.
Re:/. timing always sucks by Teancum · 2012-10-07 14:32 · Score: 3, Informative

One huge problem SpaceX is facing for commercial crew vehicles is that there is no formal standard or licensing system in place for orbital spacecraft made by commercial entities, at least regulations defined by the FAA Office of Commercial Spaceflight. NASA has some regulations in place... regulations that none of their vehicles have ever met (including the Orion spacecraft) and they are also very arbitrary and political regulations as well. SpaceX is trying hard to hit a moving target as the regulations for commercial crew flights to the ISS also keep changing based upon political winds at the time.
One thing that SpaceX (and Elon Musk in particular) has mentioned is needed for the Dragon is the launch escape system of some sort that can haul the capsule away from the Falcon 9 in an emergency. That still needs to be developed. Furthermore, the current edition of the Falcon 9 (currently called the "version 1.0") also lacks the payload capacity to send astronauts to the ISS. At the moment and with this launch, all it can do is send up about 500 kg of cargo inside of the Dragon, which isn't enough for a proper crew + life support. The "upgraded version" of the Falcon 9 ("version 1.1") on the other hand is expected to provide that sort of lift capacity.
SpaceX is close, but not quite ready to send somebody up yet.
Re:/. timing always sucks by Teancum · 2012-10-07 15:03 · Score: 4, Informative

Details about the Dragon "version 1.1" can be found here:
http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx?plckBlogId=Blog:04ce340e-4b63-4d23-9695-d49ab661f385&plckPostId=Blog%3A04ce340e-4b63-4d23-9695-d49ab661f385Post%3A8039e573-151a-434a-808d-bb5a8a3ad59b
Re:/. timing always sucks by Teancum · 2012-10-07 15:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

And if the boot sequence itself still doesn't impress you, at least you can say you were alive to see the dawn of commercial computers.
While it was before my time, the dawn of commercial computers was a big deal. There also was a time that only government agencies like the U.S. Army (who helped pay for the ENIAC and in part the COLOSSUS as well) even owned computers. A rather infamous declaration by an early computer pioneer declared that the worldwide demand for computers was exactly five.
Even so, I remember a field trip in kindergarten where I took a trip to a computer and walked inside ('look but don't touch"). It seems funny to talk about such things today or that a field trip to see a computer would even be remarkable, but I do find this stuff to be incredibly fascinating.
I can only hope that multi-ton launches to orbital space stations will some day be as remarkable as seeing a jet aircraft take off from an airport. Perhaps inspiring sights, but common and every day experiences too.
Re:/. timing always sucks by cheesybagel · 2012-10-07 15:47 · Score: 2

Actually the maximum pressurized cargo capacity for Dragon is 3310 kg which you can read about in the COTS-2 press kit. This resupply mission is not using up the full capacity of the capsule in fact SpaceX even used up the spare capacity to launch a 150 kg ORBCOMM satellite. If you are launching an 80 kg astronaut with a Sokol suit (10 kg) how much do you need extra for life support anyway?
Re:/. timing always sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-07 16:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think test flights for the abort system (which has been developed) start in 2013. First a launch pad abort test, then in-flight at max q. That may have changed. The 30 day life support systems have been tested. I think the last estimate I heard for start of manned missions is mid-2015.
I don't know what rocket configuration they're planning to use to put manned dragons up, but the capsules can handle over a ton, and I know they were meant to start launching the Falcon Heavy configuration in 2013 as well.
They've been pretty speedy. I hope to see them doing the human shuttling soon enough, and hopefully a Red Dragon delivery to Mars. It'd be nice to have a little forward pressure on NASA, for a change.
Re:/. timing always sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-07 17:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

I just moved to Merritt Island 2 weeks ago and I got to watch it take off, it was pretty cool, we are relatively close to the launch site and it took like 2 minutes before the sound even reached us.
Re:/. timing always sucks by Gavagai80 · 2012-10-07 17:13 · Score: 2

Well if I recall the crew capsule is going to be bigger for the purpose of having room for 7 astronauts to be comfortable, and a bigger capsule adds a lot of weight.

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Twit.tv by Seumas · 2012-10-07 12:32 · Score: 2

There's a pretty decent feed on http://live.twit.tv/ with Andrew Mayne and Molly Wood on-site for the launch, right now.

I'm not particular excited about this, but whatever. Wake me up when something epic like the moon missions of 69-72 happen. I won't hold my breath in my life-time.

Simplicity by Dan+East · 2012-10-07 12:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

One thing that strikes me is how modern technology has simplified so many things. Mission control is so much simpler and streamlined - just flat screen monitors on tables. Much cleaner. Even the launch system, using a static support tower angled away from the rocket, appears (at least to my untrained eye) much simpler these days than the mechanized support systems that had to release or pull away from the rockets.

Launch looks perfect so far. Second stage just ignited.

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Better known as 318230.

Re:Simplicity by Teancum · 2012-10-07 13:56 · Score: 3, Informative

The internal rocket systems have also improved considerably, since the Falcon rockets use TCP/IP for internal commands along with the dozens of cameras mounted inside of the vehicle. I loved the live dual views of the 1st stage separation event from both the 1st and 2nd stages at the same time... together with 2nd stage ignition. That simply wasn't even possible in the Apollo days.
I love this photo though in terms of putting things into perspective: https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/255106389683343360/photo/1
Re:Simplicity by thrich81 · 2012-10-07 13:56 · Score: 4, Informative

Don't know if this contradicts your statement much, but the first US space launches (uncrewed and crewed) were pretty simple affairs. Both (Explorer 1 and Mercury -Redstone 3) used the Redstone IRBM as the basis of the launch vehicle. Since the Redstone was a field deployable ballistic missile its launch support was minimal, not much more than a launch ring to sit on according to a bio of Von Braun I just read. The first Saturns (Saturn I) didn't have much either. Check out the picture of the first one launched (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_I). The two stage Saturn I's had nearly the same payload capability as the Falcon 9. The later Saturns and the Shuttle had a lot of ground support, I'll admit.
Re:Simplicity by sconeu · 2012-10-07 14:23 · Score: 2

Really? I'm surprised. I'd figure they'd use 1553 or CANbus.

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General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Re:Simplicity by kermidge · 2012-10-07 14:50 · Score: 2

Yeah, miniaturization of components helps. That 'static support tower' is the erector, fairly common to field-launched theater, IR- and ICBMs for around fifty years now. With the later Saturns there were a lot of connections; tower made them easier to do, and to service during a hold. For the Shuttle, apart from the slew of connections, tower afforded last-minute crew egress.
Congrats to SpaceX et al on nominal launch and insertion.
Re:Simplicity by slew · 2012-10-07 18:08 · Score: 2

Really? I'm surprised. I'd figure they'd use 1553 or CANbus.
I hereby revoke your /. licence for suggesting military standards and a license encumbered protocol ;^)
But seriously, that's probably a big consideration for a commercial project. Tie your commercial project to some MIL standard and the cost of all your components go up since components that implement MIL standards often are sold to the less than cost concious miltary programs. Similarly, Bosch has a lock on the CANbus with their patents and have used this to essentially create a tax on the automotive electronics business. The only reason to use CANbus is that your product is in an automobile and has to talk to the bus that is in nearly all automobiles.
Just sayn'
Re:Simplicity by ThreeKelvin · 2012-10-07 18:15 · Score: 2

CANbus would be a really bad choice for a control system like this one, since the capacity of the bus [bits/s] is linearly proportional to the inverse of the length of the bus. Because of this CANbus is great for cars, satellites, and other "small" systems, but horrible for large systems that require fast sampling.
Re:Simplicity by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-07 20:59 · Score: 3, Informative

The early Saturns, which contrary to popular belief were developed before Kennedy was elected in 1960, had a 1st stage that consisted of a cluster of stretched Redstone and Jupiter missile tanks and a cluster of eight H-1 engines derived from those programs
There are many reasons why the later Saturns and the Shuttle had so many people and so much ground support equipment, but here's a brief explanation:
1. The systems are more complex than most keyboard-jockeys understand. There are fuel systems and oxidizer systems, but then there are also systems to pressurize the tanks (usually with helium) as fuel is sucked out of them (do they don't implode during ascent) and there are are systems to control the temperatures of systems like the onboard guidance electronics (so it performs properly) and systems to gimbal the engines (to steer) and systems to monitor the engines and all the other systems (in order to trigger an abort if needed) etc. Those 1st Saturns had only a live 1st stage initially and then later carried a live, moderate-performance, second stage. The later Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets were more complex systems (requiring more support and monitoring) and also carried precious human cargo whose families and nation would be unhappy to lose.
2. There were no modern computers back then... so instead of a PC watching a thousand sensors and alert if something failed, we used to use hundreds of well-trained people who each monitored a very limited number of things and used the best complex fuzzy logic systems available then (human brains) to make moment-by-moment judgements
3. Shuttle systems were designed in the late Apollo years... shuttles at the time they started flying were the most complex machines ever designed and built by man and for the whole thing to work you needed the most high-performance and complex engines ever built. When they started flying, the shuttle engines used turbopumps, for example, that were the fastest rotating devices man had ever made... the whole system was really pushing the limits of what was humanly possible to an extent that most people never appreciated. And that first flight happened years before the first 4.77MHz 8088-powered PC was sold. As a result, you had very complex ground support systems and lots of people on the ground keeping an eye on things... and remember that things needed to be perfect because there was no real escape for the crew if something went wrong (yes, I know, Columbia had ejection seats for the two-man crews of the first couple test flights, but nobody seriously liked the odds of ejecting in the vicinity of those burning SRBs and three SSMEs...)
Re:Simplicity by Teancum · 2012-10-07 21:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

SpaceX is one of the first to use TCP/IP for internal component control on rockets, but the protocol is pretty solid and "off the shelf" components can be easily had. Since they are starting with literally a clean sheet, they could have used almost anything.... and Elon Musk was very comfortable with TCP/IP as a protocol.
There are other bus protocols that are made available to payloads... as required by the customer and the mission. External interfaces for those buses can be made available to ground support teams just prior to launch as well and is a part of the Falcon design. The Dragon capsule in particular meets not just the physical docking standards for the ISS, but also has the necessary power and data bus connectors as well for compatibility with the ISS module standards.
A nice side effect of the TCP/IP protocol is that they can use fiber optic connectors to isolate controllers electrically... which also cuts down on the weight of the vehicle as well. There certainly is no thick bus cable full of copper going the full length of the rocket, which is the case for legacy rockets.
Re:Simplicity by Lincolnshire+Poacher · 2012-10-08 00:13 · Score: 2

That simply wasn't even possible in the Apollo days.
What piffle! The fourth launch of the ( unsuccessful ) Soviet N-1 launcher in 1972 relayed telemetry at 9.6 GB / second on 320,000 channels.
Yes, GIGA BYTES per second and that was FORTY years ago.
"Dozens of cameras" are pretty but also pretty much irrelevant for telemetric purposes.
Tell me, what was the telemetry data rate for this launch?

In Orbit by runeghost · 2012-10-07 12:50 · Score: 3, Informative

It's in orbit. No apparent problems so far.

Re:In Orbit by Hexydes · 2012-10-07 13:28 · Score: 2

Yup, everything looked good! Set to dock with ISS on Wednesday. For anyone that missed the launch, here is a video from T-minus 60 seconds through main engine cutoff. http://youtu.be/jAq-Ic5SzfY
Re:In Orbit by Altanar · 2012-10-07 18:33 · Score: 4, Interesting

Except... *ahem*.. The catestrophic failure of engine one at T+1:20. Shielding and control systems easily compensated, though.
Re:In Orbit by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-07 20:58 · Score: 2, Informative

Catastrophic, that word doesn't mean what you think it means. If the control systems can compensate then it isn't catastrophic.
Although the Falcon 9 needs all 9 engines for takeoff, it is designed to handle losing 1 or 2 (depending on how far into the launch it is) after takeoff without a problem.
Re:In Orbit by Teancum · 2012-10-07 22:03 · Score: 2

That redundancy was put to the test.
Catastrophic failure really does mean the complete disintegration of the engine though. If this was the 2nd stage or the only engine on the rocket like the Falcon 1, it would have been a loss of mission. On the other hand, this is a situation that was anticipated and in fact tested at the McGregor test facility, where the engines were isolated from each other so a failure wouldn't impact the other engines.... including having shrapnel isolated and kept from the other engines in the event of such a failure. While not deliberately sought for or planned, it is good to see this safety system was put to the test.

Any news on the Orbcomm Sat? by tp1024 · 2012-10-07 12:54 · Score: 2

Well, title says it all. Any news about the orbcomm satellite being properly deployed?

Re:Any news on the Orbcomm Sat? by rasmusbr · 2012-10-07 13:33 · Score: 2

According to the tweets the satellite is still attached to the second stage at this time. They will need to light up the second stage again to get it into its intended orbit.

Those are my pics... by Leebert · 2012-10-07 13:15 · Score: 3

Thanks for the link Timothy, but I'm pretty sure my crappy iPhone pictures are far superseded by those done by the official photographers. :)

But yeah, this was a BEAUTIFUL launch.

SpaceX stream by Altanar · 2012-10-07 13:20 · Score: 4, Informative

If you missed it, you can watch the recording at http://www.spacex.com/webcast/, which in my opinion, was the best way of viewing it live.

Re:SpaceX stream by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-07 16:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

The reason for the takedown appears to be due to a rapid unplanned disassembly of engine 1 during Max-Q: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6zsZiVa998&wadsworth=1

pop by strack · 2012-10-07 15:00 · Score: 4, Interesting

i watched the launch, and on the closeup view of the engines from spacex, one of those engines definitely went pop at 1:20 into the flight. you can see the debris coming off. its unmistakable. i guess its a testament to the value of having the ability to sustain a engine failure and still get into orbit.

Re:pop by adamgundy · 2012-10-07 17:36 · Score: 2

no, that comes later, just before MECO, and it's not to reduce dynamic pressure, it's to keep the G-forces on the payload from getting too high as the rocket loses weight (by burning fuel/oxidizer) and accelerates faster. the new F9 1.1 (yet to fly) has engine throttling capability and is supposed to throttle down around Max-Q (F9 v1 can't do that, no throttle capability) and before MECO, instead of shutting down engines.
this was definitely an unexpected problem with either the engine or the fairing around it.
that said, the rocket coped amazingly well given the spectacular loss of an engine... adjusted and compensated in real time and ended up dropping Dragon off within 2km of the target.
Re:pop by Teancum · 2012-10-07 22:17 · Score: 2

I bet the engineers would love to recover this particular 1st stage... if only to check out what is left of the failed engine to see what went wrong. I know that there were plans to recover the 1st stage at some point in the past, but beyond a very long term plan I don't think any parachute recovery system on the first stage was even considered for this flight.
I do agree though that SpaceX likes to hide their failures and tends to wait some time to come clean on those kind of problems. SpaceX definitely downplayed the problems encountered in the Falcon 1 flights, including one very embarrassing "oh shit" that abruptly ended the live webcast of one launch.
It will be interesting to see how SpaceX will respond in this situation.

Space Shuttle was better by ModernGeek · 2012-10-07 16:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

Do the simple math:

SpaceX is being paid by NASA $1,600,000,000 to launch 12 vehicles to the International Space Station, each of which carries 2,000lbs of cargo. Total contract pays them $1,600,000,000 to carry 24,000lbs of cargo to the International Space Station. The Space Shuttle carried 28,000lbs to the International Space Station for about $400 million per launch.

We could have flown the shuttle once a year for 1/4th the cost, gotten more payload to orbit, and have gotten crew to the ISS. For 1/2 the cost, we could have rotated ISS crew every six months and taken 2x the amount of payload to the space station. We should have continued work on the Crew Return Vehicle, and we should have gotten Ares-I working and under control.

The current path that we are on is total bullshit.

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Sig: I stole this sig.

Re:Space Shuttle was better by Guspaz · 2012-10-07 17:23 · Score: 2

There are other costs in there. The quoted price for a Falcon 9 launch fully loaded is $54 million, while NASA is paying $133 million per launch. I suspect the extra costs involve extra requirements NASA has placed on the missions, as well as the inclusion and operation of Dragon. Considering the launch capacity of a v1.0 Falcon 9, which is lower than the weight of a fully loaded Dragon, they can lift (with Dragon) 10,581 lbs of cargo per launch, giving a potential cost to NASA of $12,601 per pound. The space shuttle ended up costing, in practice, about $20k per pound.
I don't know why this initial launch is using up so little of the maximum capacity. Perhaps they intend to ramp it up; they have to, actually, since that 12 launch contract requires a minimum of 44,000 lbs of cargo be lifted.
Furthermore, while the space shuttle was only ever going to get more and more expensive to launch as they became more and more decrepit, SpaceX will continue to get more efficient as they ramp up their production capacity, and introduce new versions of their spacecraft. Early next year, the Falcon 9 v1.1 will launch, increasing the rocket's payload capacity by more than 40% with similar overall launch costs. Later in the year, the Falcon Heavy should launch, increasing payload capacity from the current ~20,000 lbs to 120,000 lbs. Six times the payload capacity as today, but at an estimated cost of roughly 2-2.5x the cost of launching a Falcon 9, further reducing launch costs. The space shuttle, already more expensive, would have just continued to get increasingly expensive. There's a reason why NOBODY contracted NASA for commercial lift services for decades.
On top of that, the Falcon 9 will eventually be able to carry 7 crew into orbit, the same as the space shuttle, at a much lower cost per launch. What we might do with Falcon Heavy, which has multiple times the lift capacity of the space shuttle despite costing a fraction as much, is very exciting.
Re:Space Shuttle was better by timeOday · 2012-10-07 17:34 · Score: 3, Interesting

Wikipedia says Falcon 9's payload to LEO (low earth orbit) is 29,000 pounds (not 2000 lbs). LEO is up to 1,200 miles, whereas the ISS orbits at 205 to 255 miles. (The 10,700 lb capacity mentioned by the other reply is for geosynchronous orbit which is FAR higher and not where the ISS lives.)
This turns your calculations on their head; both vehicles have more capacity than NASA wants for servicing the ISS, and the Falcon 9 is (already) only 1/4 the cost of the (very mature) shuttle per launch.
I am wondering what Falcon 9's success rate will be though. They've only had a few launches. Surely one will blow up sooner or later.
Re:Space Shuttle was better by vlm · 2012-10-07 23:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

The Space Shuttle carried 28,000lbs to the International Space Station for about $400 million per launch.
LOL you wish it was that cheap. You took total contract cost divided by number of missions for spaceX, why not for space shuttle? Because the numbers don't match your axe to grind. Here I'll do the data gathering and division for you:
From wikipedia "The actual total cost of the shuttle program through 2011, adjusted for inflation, is $196 billion." (this is pure BS, to "do it all over again" would easily cost over 300B, but I'll use the artificially low PR/marketing BS number for the sake of this argument) divided by 135 missions (unsure how to account for disasters) yields 1.452 billion dollars per 28K lb mission absolute minimum, real world is going to be much more.
So you're looking at 1.6B vs 1.5B, not much of a difference given "nasa accounting" thats a rounding error.
There are serious issues why the shuttle program had to end which began in the 80s, so its pointless to debate what if we continued it. For example we lost about 1 shuttle per 50 flights, and the production lines shut down permanently in the 80s. So if we launch until they're all destroyed, we soon would have no launch capability at all, and merely have to farm out to spaceX later, and the only thing waiting does is make stuff more expensive. I suppose we could R+D and reopen the production lines to build more 1970 era space shuttle orbiters, but that will absolutely explode program cost above the "cheap" 1.5B per launch. Or we could R+D even more and build new 2010 era space shuttle orbiters, that would probably be overall a bit cheaper but still boost program cost above 1.5B.
If you wanted to continue the shuttle program, that decision had to be made in the 80s when the last orbiter rolled off the assembly line and the clock started ticking on the program shutdown. Sunday Oct 07 2012 is a bit late to the party to decide the orbiter production line should have been kept open back in April of 1985. First, build a time machine and go back more than a quarter century...

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"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:Space Shuttle was better by FatLittleMonkey · 2012-10-08 05:32 · Score: 2

"The actual total cost of the shuttle program [...] is $196 billion." [...] divided by 135 missions [...] yields 1.452 billion dollars per 28K lb mission
Worse than that. If you compare the shuttle program's annual budget with the number of missions flown in a particular year, there's almost no correlation. The cost of having a shuttle program was pretty much the same whether you launched 4 flights per year, or one, or none. Hence, ModernGeek's claim that
"We could have flown the shuttle once a year for 1/4th the cost,"
is crap. It would have cost $3 billion per year, the minimum cost of maintaining the facilities and staff necessary for the shuttle program.
But it's worse than that. The stated capacity for the Dragon deliveries is for internal, pressurised payload. The "28,000 lbs" figure that ModernGeek quotes for the shuttle is unpressurised payload in the cargo-bay. If you want to lift unpressurised payload, you can use the full capacity of an F9 launch (or any of the more expensive, but still cheaper than the shuttle, rival launchers like the Delta-IV Heavy.)
But it's worse than that. The reason SpaceX's contract is broken up over 12 launches is that NASA wants 12 launches; access not payload capacity. So you need to compare Dragon with the cost of 12 shuttle launches, which, at a program maximum of 4 per year, means $9billion at an absolute, fire-sale, cutting-corners, minimum.

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Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Re:Space Shuttle was better by vlm · 2012-10-08 08:41 · Score: 2

There's also some accounting based on historical record that 12 shuttle flights is "about" 20% chance of losing an orbiter, and at historical death rates is equivalent to about one dead astronaut.

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"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger

Private Space Enterprise by dgharmon · 2012-10-07 16:41 · Score: 2

"Tomorrow's planned flight is to be the first under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA that calls for a dozen resupply flights by SpaceX, essential in the post-shuttle era". link

I find it hard to believe that NASA isn't capable of designing and lauching its own launch vehicle.

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AccountKiller

Re:Private Space Enterprise by Animats · 2012-10-07 17:26 · Score: 2

I find it hard to believe that NASA isn't capable of designing and lauching its own launch vehicle.
They've failed on the last three tries, and are trying to get Congress to fund #4.

Re:we've taken by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-07 17:24 · Score: 2, Informative

when did the US government buy Iridium, SES, and Intelsat? And then, of course, when did the US government annex Thailand since Thaicom has signed a contract with SpaceX to launch Thaicom 6 next year. I won't even mention the contracts with Asia Broadcast Systems and Satmex since those are obviously US government affiliated.

SpaceX does not mine ore or harvest gasses. And it never will. They are a rocket company not a mining company. If you have a problem with mining companies that don't want to move into space I suggest you go troll their message boards. SpaceX can get your shit in space. It doesn't operate it, finance it, or dictate to the customer what to do. SpaceX isn't NASA so don't bash them for not having as ambitious goals as NASA does.

Re:we've taken by Animats · 2012-10-07 17:29 · Score: 2

Space-X has launched one commercial satellite so far, and has at least 5 more launches scheduled for 2013.

Re:we've taken by Strider- · 2012-10-07 18:27 · Score: 2

this is what happened in the 86 challenger shuttle disaster.

Well, no, not quite. In the challenger disaster, the O-Rings that seal the booster sections suffered a blow through, which cut into the main tanks for the liquid rockets, causing those to explode. After the main tank exploded, the solids continued to fly on for a few seconds until the range safety officer issued a destruct command, causing the two SRBs to explode as designed.

The flip side to using solids for space flight is they very much follow the KISS principle. They are relatively simple devices. As long as you have your materials science right, you light them and they will go. There are no turbo-pumps to fail, no presurization lines that might burst, etc etc etc.

There is a reason why the LES on Apollo and Mercury, as well as your typical ejection seat, and hell your car's air bags, are all based on what is, or is effectively, a solid rocket. They're damned reliable.

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...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...

Re:Senate Launch System? by Teancum · 2012-10-07 22:23 · Score: 2

No, the Senate Launch System was designed by the fine engineers found in the upper chamber of the national legislature of America, hence its name. It is amazing how voting for appropriations to colleges can give you a PhD level knowledge of aerospace engineering, at least after you have been able to take lessons from an army of lobbyists. They also figured that the folks in Huntsville were too inexperienced in the matter so those same legislators decided to take the design into their own hands. That rocket really is a piece of.... whatever.

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