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SpaceX Files Suit Against US Air Force
Today Elon Musk announced that SpaceX has decided to challenge the U.S. Air Force's restrictions on rocket launches related to national security. Such launches are done with a Russian rocket right now, and that contract is not up for competition with other rocket makers, like SpaceX. Musk says the company has exhausted other options to become part of the bidding process. "We're just protesting and saying these launches should be competed. And if we compete and lose, that's fine, but why were they not even competed?" He also said it's the "wrong time to send hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kremlin," referencing events in the Ukraine.
At the same press conference, Musk announced that SpaceX's recent attempt to soft-land a rocket booster stage was successful. It landed and was in "healthy condition" immediately afterward. Unfortunately, they weren't able to recover it because it landed in the middle of a rough storm, which eventually destroyed the stage. The storm was rough enough that the Coast Guard wouldn't even send a boat out to help recover it. Musk said, "We'll get much bigger boats next time." SpaceX also plans on landing the stage on shore at some point, which makes recovery easier. Musk made this prediction: "I expect we will be able to land a stage back at Cape Canaveral by the end of the year."
At the same press conference, Musk announced that SpaceX's recent attempt to soft-land a rocket booster stage was successful. It landed and was in "healthy condition" immediately afterward. Unfortunately, they weren't able to recover it because it landed in the middle of a rough storm, which eventually destroyed the stage. The storm was rough enough that the Coast Guard wouldn't even send a boat out to help recover it. Musk said, "We'll get much bigger boats next time." SpaceX also plans on landing the stage on shore at some point, which makes recovery easier. Musk made this prediction: "I expect we will be able to land a stage back at Cape Canaveral by the end of the year."
"Such launches are done with a Russian rocket right now"
more correctly, the launches are done with an American rocket, using a Russian engine (RD-180).
see: http://www.forbes.com/sites/lo...
http://www.parabolicarc.com/20...
(the article has it right; the summary is inaccurate).
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Translation: some Air Force brass are getting board seats in some corporation X after retirement, so of course they don't want to open the bidding and allow SpaceX to take the contract.
I suspect the current arrangement with the Russians providing lift tickets to the ISS performs a similar function to the intelligence treaties we signed in the 90s allowing the U.S. and Russia to perform overflights of each others' countries to verify ICBM numbers and troop movements, plus the CIAs fanatical attention to assist the Russians in tracking and controlling any and all nuclear materials to keep it from wandering off in the hands of men like Viktor Bout, "Lord of War" arms dealer.
By subsidising the Russian space program with this sweetheart no-bid contract, we, the U.S., help ensure that dozens of very highly skilled engineers and scientists with the ability to lead a team interested in designing and building short, medium, or long-range rockets - for whatever purpose - are kept "on payroll" and reasonably content safely and securely inside Russia. Exactly where we want them. Instead of helping a potential aggressor nation like Iran, North Korea, or theocratic / military dictatorship Du Jour develop accurate, long range weapons for suitcases full of cash, women, mansions and national hero-worship.
The current deal also forces a certain level of cooperation between the space agencies, governments, and builds political good will on both sides. Good Will that Putin is destroying at the moment, but will return providing he doesn't go all Poland '39 on the remainder of Ukraine.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
"I'm not sure what world he lives in, but unless he's reusing his reusable rocket, he failed."
Uh, you do, you know, realize that there was never, you know, any plan to, you know, reuse the first stage even if it was recovered? And that, you know, the actual, like, goal of launching the rocket was not to recover the first stage, but, you know, to launch the payload into space to, like the space station?
Back in the real world, rather than whatever wacky alternate reality you live in, the goal of the recovery test was to perform a fake 'soft landing' over the sea to prove that such a thing was possible, and ensure that, if they screwed up, no-one would get hurt. That goal was successful. They only wanted to recover the stage so they could take it apart and see what had happened to the hardware in the process.
The problem with this plan is that Russia and its leader don't want goodwill from the United States. They want a monster that can be slain with saber-rattling like in the old Cold War days - even if they have to manufacture one out of an ally. Putin isn't interested in who dies in the process in his quest to cement his legacy as the greatest leader of the NEW Soviet Union that ever was - we (not just the United States, but the International community at large) can't be so foolish as to just ignore it. The only way he can get what he wants to have us in a position of weakness - and giving his nation the only means to get to and return from the International Space Station is about the best leverage that we can give him.
Its not a matter of *if* the relationship between the United States and Russia goes bad, its *when* it goes bad if Putin remains in power.
The idea was to test a soft landing, but not damage anything in case of failure. SpaceX determined that it would have landed safely on land, so next launch they can prepare a proper landing pad and worry less about frying the next town over.
Musk said, "We'll get much bigger boats next time."
Is he retrieving a booster or a shark?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It is about time that the FTC steps in and allows SpaceX to sell their rockets directly to the Air Force. Blame the rich local rocket dealerships, we corrupted their local politicians to create laws that are only designed to maintain their business model of selling old fashioned rockets. What people in the street want is to buy a next generation rocket, directly from the Internet, without having to talk to one of those sleazy rocket salesman. I am getting confused, you were saying Elon?
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
We need goodwill now.
"If I be real nice to him maybe he won't hit me again! It's all my fault!"
Is such thinking any less heartbreaking on an international scale? No.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This was a TEST, in case it's not terribly clear.
Specifically, it was a test of the rocket's ability to fly back from a launch, and hover over the ocean (the previous attempt to do this, without the landing legs, spun out of control).
It was hoped that the rocket could be recovered, so they could evaluate the condition of the rocket after reentry.
The design test - reentry plus hover over the ocean - worked just fine. Hence the test was successful.
The bonus part - recover the first stage - failed because of stormy seas. They couldn't reach the rocket before it sank.
Note that the design intention for the F9R is that it do the rocket thing, then brake to a landing and land on a pad back at the launch complex.
It is likely that they'll repeat this test at least once more (mostly because they're scheduled to do another launch next month, and aren't going to change the launch profile at this late date), then try to land the thing on the ground on later launches.
Note also that after they've worked out the problems with landing the first stage, they plan to start working on recovering the second stage (which will be REALLY interesting, since it'll essentially have the flight profile of a FOBS (Fractional Orbit Bombardment System), and might make several Space Defense Commands wet themselves.)
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Elon Musk is swimming in the waters of international politics. Big "no no" with this administration currently in office. He's about to get bitch slapped down and possibly lose it all.
Probably not. The administration hasn't shown that it's terribly interested in the details of Air Force contracting. There are probably Pentagon officials who are very annoyed and would like to slap him down, but this is simply Pentagon conservatism: the Pentagon likes to keep on doing things the way they do them, because that's they way they do them and it's too much trouble to change.
To the extent that the administration cares at all, they want to sever contracts with Russia (they've already given other orders to that effect), so they're probably mildly on his side. But for the most part, I expect that they don't care much one way or another-- it's not a big item on their agenda.
With Obama, he can be vindictive!
Typical content-free Obama-bashing. You want a president who's vindictive, that was Nixon.
In fact, Obama seems to like Space-X. He was the one who put "Commercial crew transport" as the official U.S. strategy for space access
As a taxpayer, I wouldn't usually care about these corporate tiffs, but SpaceX can probably save the government hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars which could be used towards additional capabilities in space... so using SpaceX for launches could allow the Air Force to double its launch capacity at the same cost. Forget about sending money to Russia using ULA rockets, using SpaceX could double or more than double US space capabilities which translates to more communications satellites, more surveillance satellites and more R&D payloads.
It is boggles the mind that the procurement folks at the air force would sign long term contracts with ULA just a few months before SpaceX has finished jumping through all the Air Force hoops for certification. Seems like a pretty blatant multi billion dollar gift (going out of business gift?) to the United Launch Alliance and is a bad deal for the Pentagon.
Given the likelihood of certification for SpaceX, at the very least the Air Force procurers should have limited the contract to nearer term launches and not so many.
Musk said, "We'll get much bigger boats next time."
Knowing Musk, that means he's going to build a flotilla of fully autonomous fusion powered Nimitz class aircraft carriers constructed entirely from carbon fiber. They'll probably haul the booster up with carbon nanotube wires and preserve it in amber, then transform into robots and fly back to fucking Cybertron.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Note also that after they've worked out the problems with landing the first stage, they plan to start working on recovering the second stage (which will be REALLY interesting, since it'll essentially have the flight profile of a FOBS (Fractional Orbit Bombardment System), and might make several Space Defense Commands wet themselves.)
:popcorn
We need goodwill now. Money is of no concern when you're thinking of the results of what could happen if Russia and USA blood goes bad.
So we're supposed to just throw all our money down the shitter to keep Russia from getting sad/angry? What are they going to do? Their economy is already collapsing and they've proven once before that you can't pose a real, sustainable military threat to much of anyone if you don't have the economy to keep it going. If we isolate Russia, their economy will take a dive and Putin will end up on the wrong side of pissed off Russians. They'll have a hard winter, then they'll come asking for money telling everyone they've changed their ways.
We're pretty dumb, so we'll give them some money and the cycle will restart. We don't need to buy their stupid rocket engine in no-bid contracts. Let the best solution win.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Elon Musk is a billionaire. Tesla builds electric tanks that are somehow street legal. SpaceX builds rockets and launches things into outer space. You sit around at home scratching your ass and tossing out criticism.
Musk 3
You 0
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
In what way is one company getting the work like a job being split up among many companies? According to the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), over 20,000 different companies and universities worked on the Apollo program.
In short, the answer to your question is no.
https://www.asme.org/engineeri...
DC-X started landing from zero kilometres per hour at a maximum altitude of ~3km without ever having to re-light the engines. A Falcon 9 first stage starts landing from 11,000 kilometers per hour (mach 10) at 80km and has to re-light the engines twice (retro burn and landing burn). There's an enormous difference.
DC-X is more comparable to Grasshopper, not an actual orbital Falcon 9 rocket.
I wish that I had NOT commented already, so that I could have modded you down. DARPA dropped it because they did not want it. NASA picked it up, and then offered up a contest. The X-33 won, while MD, and then Boeing, decided to NOT fund it. X-33 was mostly funded by L-Mart, which is why they won the NASA funding.
The ones that really dropped DC-X was MD/Boeing since they never would fund it.
Now, OTOH, look at SpaceX. They are acting like our companies from the 40's-70's. They are out about long-term massive profits. Boeing, MD, L-Mart, etc are ran by GOP MBAers and they are all about short-term, lets-feed-on-gov-teat-for-everything, kind of companies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
For starters, MD/Boeing never funded it.
Secondly, DC-X cost the gov. loads of money, but was poorly built. The fact that they lost a leg speaks volumes.
Third, when NASA offered loads of help, MD/Beoing insisted on loads of money.
Finally, DC-X never went that high, nor anywhere near as fast. As mentioned, DC-X was a very small version of grasshopper which never got as high or fast, while F9R just flew TO SPACE and succeeded.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Who just happen to be by far the biggest military aerospace contractors, doing just about some of everything.
The RD-180 business is minor.
Precisely.
There are certain companies whose core competency is engineering around the government procurement process.
Then there's SpaceX, whose core competency is rocket engineering.
Just because you love your crazy axe murdering brother doesn't mean you should buy him an axe.
The problem is, it will go bad unless Putin gets what he wants, and what he apparently wants is to take over the neighbouring countries and rebuild Soviet Union. Which, of course, will bring him into a conflict with the EU, which in turn could lead to anything from World War III to EU dissolving from the stress to EU becoming a real federation to effectively counter the threat. To avoid such a chaotic situation with potentially catastrophic consequences Russia needs to be contained, and the most "goodwill" way of doing so is economic isolation.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
The idea of brotherly love is supposed to be two-way. And right now, US is seen as enemy #1 not only by the Russian government, but by the majority of the Russian society (which is being fed propaganda about how US is behind everything bad that's happening in Ukraine from their TVs).
Actually the Air Force when it did the EELV contract considered it a problem important enough that AMROSS got a license to build the engine in the US and got all the technical documentation to do it. They were supposed to have an assembly line in the US. But they ended up not building engines in the US because it was 'too expensive'.
After what happened in Crimea the 'reset' is over.
Actually only the first 3 flights of the Falcon 1 were a total loss. All other flights have achieved every primary mission objective, including CRS-1 that suffered an engine failure that would that terminated the flight of any other rocket currently flying
US Government contracting is insane paperwork wise, and bureaucrats have thrown every roadblock they can at SpaceX. When it looked like they couldn't stop them from competing with ULA they then went ahead and signed a huge multi-year sole source contract with ULA. The timing is pretty suspicious in and of itself. It reeks of corruption and kickbacks.
If SpaceX wins the lawsuit, then the bureaucrats will have to justify going with the more expensive option that uses Russian made engines. They'll probably say something about how age and reliability make it the better choice, but when they're proven wrong it will just help show how corrupt they are.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera