SpaceX To Test Recovered First Stage, Then Put It On Display (floridatoday.com)

schwit1 writes: Rather than re-fly it, Elon Musk suggested that, after some testing, SpaceX will likely put its first recovered Falcon 9 first stage on display instead. '"[We will] do a static fire at the launch pad there, to confirm that all systems are good and that we are able to do a full thrust hold-down firing of the rocket," Musk said after the stage landed. The static fire will also test the modifications SpaceX has made to Pad 39A to support its rockets.

After that though, the stage will become a display piece. "I think we will keep this one on the ground for tests that prove it could fly again and then put it somewhere — just because it is quite unique," Musk said.' Since they already have a satellite company, SES, willing to buy that first stage, this only underlines how this last Falcon 9 launch changes everything. I don't think the change has sunk in with most people, yet. The last launch was not a one-time event. SpaceX intends to recover as many of its first stages as it can in all future launches. Their Falcon 9 first stage is no longer expendable. Thus, they can afford to put this first recovered stage on display because they expect all future first stages to fly again.

Comments

That's Ridiculous

[localman]

You can't just take an amazing piece of expensive kit like that and essentially throw it away! Oh wait - that's what we've been doing with the first stage of every launch forever until just now. Carry on then.

More seriously, congratulations, SpaceX, for taking such a big step forward for humankind.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Using this one again would be like a small business giving away it's first $1 as change, or melting the first warp drive for scrap. It belongs in a museum. They made the right decision.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I get that and absolutely agree. You may want to re-read my comment.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[ickleberry]

They should launch it once more before putting it on display

Re:That's Ridiculous

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

It would then become the first ever re-usable first-stage to ever be launched twice successfully.

I agree.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[JaredOfEuropa]

Exactly, if only to grab the "first re-used 1st stage" medal, after Blue Origin nabbed the one for "first soft-landed 1st stage", even if their accomplishment isn't really in the same league as SpaceX's

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Insanity Defense]

Nope. Study it. Improve the next model to be landed and actually reused to improve chances of it working for the most number of launches and you look better than if the first landed model turned out to have flaws that might cause it to be a failure in reuse.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what else belongs in a museum? That extra apostrophe. I dream of a day when people can tell the difference between its and it is.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only a problem for grammar nazis

Re:That's Ridiculous

[WalksOnDirt]

Not only that, in the process of studying this and tearing it down to look for flaws they will probably ruin it, or at least make it very expensive to refurbish. They're making lemonade out of a lemon.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only a problem for grammar nazis

Its only a problem for grammar nazi's
FTFY

Re:That's Ridiculous

[pslytely psycho]

I' fuckin' hope's thi's give's you's an' aneurysm'

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Wraithlyn]

That can be the 2nd one. And hopefully that one flies a dozen times or more before being put in a museum.

This one is already "first payload booster to make a controlled landing", which is really the most critically important part.

What if there's an accident and it blows up on its 2nd flight? Just lost a piece of history.

Re-using it is just standard engineering and maintenance at this point, it's the first landing that's really the historical accomplishment.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

BO didn't even really launch a first stage, they launched a glorified amusement park ride, not useful to get anything into orbit, just space.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

What about DC-X and Armadillo Aerospace designs then? Both flew and landed using their rockets.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Rei]

There's a couple side effects of this capability that I haven't seen discussed in regards to abort as well.

1) First stage partial failure abort to ground: If there's a non-catastrophic problem on the first stage that will prevent the payload from being injected into the proper orbit (for example, multiple engine failure), there's the potential to abort to ground. Now, this isn't exactly the same - they've still got a rather lot of weight on them (and correspondingly a lot of fuel inside); it'd help if the second stage were able to jettison its propellant (otherwise the nitrogen gas jets and grid fins have to work harder). But it might be possible to re-land the whole rocket, payload and all, so that they can fix it and then re-launch.

2) Second stage hard abort to ground/sea: If there's a catastrophic problem on the first stage but successful separation of the second stage intact, they could try to "land" the second stage and provide partial potential for recovery of the payload. This is more difficult - the second stage has no grid fins, no nitrogen gas thrusters, no landing legs and only one engine. But burned out of propellant it's quite light, it probably has enough thrust, even with the payload attached - and if it just separated from the first stage, it certainly has enough propellant to get back to the pad and line itself up for a gentle, fully vertical descent. The lack of nitrogen gas thrusters would make stability much more difficult, they'd have to land just from gimbaling... but it's probably doable if crosswinds aren't too strong. And they have no landing legs, so they're going to damage the nozzle, and the thing may well fall over. But it's only 1/3rd the length of the first stage, so maybe not, it depends. At sea it'd fall over into water. In short, you could actually get your payload back not at a speed of "500 meters per second smack into the ground", but either "less than 1 meter per second" or "less than 1 meter per second, then a secondary lateral thud at several meters per second followed by the explosion of whatever residual propellant remains" Depending on the payload and how it's stowed, it could potentially be partially or completely reusable.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Rei]

Exactly. If they want the stats on their rocket to be comparable to SpaceX's, they need to reduce it to a quarter of its current weight (to match the wet/dry mass ratio of Falcon 9's first stage) and have it reverse about a thousand meters per second of lateral momentum and land without the ability to hover. Because these things are the consequences of SpaceX having to make something that functions as an actual first stage of a launch vehicle, rather than a joy ride for rich people.

Good luck with that, BO.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Hadlock]

I think post CRS-7 mission, all Dragon capsules are capable of performing an emergency soft landing in the event of booster failure. Second stage anything recovery isn't really on the drawing board for another 18 months at least, at this point.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[davester666]

multiple-engine failure = not enough engines left to stop it from crashing into the ground. and it's also much harder because the rocket is top heavy. and there is also all the extra fuel from the shutdown engines. lottery ticket time.

second stage with an unplaneed return to water = lost rocket. you gonna make the thing float as well as make it waterproof [water in satellite = new satellite] and also make the satellite support sideways forces. and when do you do this? if you get the thing to separation altitude, the 2nd stage engine either works and gets the payload into orbit or it fails, making landing impossible. or the rare time that the first stage fails non-catastrophically, and you manage to do the separation early? that's lottery ticket time.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[k6mfw]

What about DC-X and Armadillo Aerospace designs then? Both flew and landed using their rockets.

Don't know about Armadillo but the DC-X was more of a technology demonstrator. It significantly lacked payload capacity to act as a first stage for anything useful. If McDonnell-Douglas were to continue on, the DC-X would probably evolved into something quite different. However, McD-D had cash flow problems and were eventually bought by Boeing.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[cbhacking]

Falcon 9 can take off on 89% thrust (one engine down). If it loses a second engine *immediately* on takeoff, it might crash. However, remember that those engines are burning through the rocket's fuel, lightening the load considerably. Typically, the fuel is exhausted after 3 minutes of flight; call it 27 engine-minutes. At that point, (or rather, right before that point, when there's still a tiny bit of fuel) the first stage is so light that even throttled all the way down, a single Merlin 1D engine produces a thrust/weight ratio greater than one (this makes landing tricky; they are constantly decelerating by "accelerating upwards", and need to pass the 0-velocity mark right when they hit the ground).

If the rocket has more fuel in it (or otherwise has more weight), then the stage can hover; Grasshopper demonstrated this. If you can hover, or even avoid crashing *immediately*, the remaining engines can run to burn off the fuel. As the fuel burns off, the rocket gets lighter. Now, counting the weight of the (fully fuelled) second stage and the payload, 1 rocket motor probably isn't enough to land safely even if the first stage manages to burn (or dump) its fuel... although it might be; after all, the second stage is able to accelerate handily under a single engine (though the vacuum thrust is higher, and of course it doesn't have the weight of the near-empty first stage too).

If they have even a few working engines - ideally in some reasonably-stable arrangement, such as any two opposing ones and the middle one - and enough time to burn (or dump, assuming there's a mechanism for that) fuel, they should be able to land the whole stack again. Dragon would probably detach and land itself - Dragon 2 definitely would, what with its SuperDracos and landing legs - but a launch using a payload fairing would just have to try and survive on the top of the rocket while the booster's RCS, grid fins, and gimbaling attempt to get the orientation right. I wouldn't put it past SpaceX to manage this, though.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[JaredOfEuropa]

IIRC Armadillo never flew anything to space, and they certainly didn't land anything from it.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

This is incorrect. In fact, when the rocket is landing it uses only one engine throttled down to its lowest possible level, and it still has so much thrust that it can't hover - it has to simply try to cancel out its momentum at the last minute.

With the payload (and particularly with a full second stage), of course, they'd be a lot heavier. But without the mass of the first-stage propellant, you really don't need much thrust at all to land. A single pair of opposing engines should be sufficient.

Re water landings: it depends on the payload and how it's stowed, as mentioned (there's no point to making the whole shroud waterproof). And not all payloads are "satellites" or high tech - some are in part or whole low-tech mass, such as (sealed) ISS cargo deliveries or (no longer applicable, but perhaps in the future) module deliveries, where you have a big heavy primary structure that could be cleaned and retrofitted with new electronics.

Satellites are stowed to handle lateral forces (rockets often shake and jerk around quite a bit during launch) - the question is how much, and that depends on the individual payload.

Beyond that, even if you assume you have a delicate piece of space hardware and it's not designed to take a lateral blow, or tolerate getting wet, satellites and probes are made of individual components. Even if the payload as a whole is a total loss, many components may still be recoverable. And sometimes these components are extremely expensive. For example, a plutonium RTG loss is not only a PR disaster, it usually costs nearly a hundred million dollars - as much as the whole rocket. We're talking a very solidly built object, certainly the sort of thing that should be reusable after a several meter per second lateral impact.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[jafiwam]

It seems like the chance of messing up whatever cargo it was (say, a commsat) is pretty high with an aborted mission to the point it's better to avoid damage to the pad and other stuff on the ground. If you are taking fuel, food, or supplies up then the cargo is only worth something when it's in space. A tank of oxygen can be replaced easy enough.

But if you have people on board, there is good reason to get the vehicle over land where ejection seats can be used at low velocity and decent height.

Getting second stage cargo into low speed over land state is going to be very helpful for people.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Not every comment is written to refudiate it's parent post as you seem to believe.

Re:That's Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but most posts that are a reply to an earlier post are.

Like this one to yours.

Did they hire someone from NASA?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> SpaceX will likely put its first recovered Falcon 9 first stage on display instead

Hey wait, did SpaceX just hire someone from NASA?

Wouldn't the smarter thing to do be to fly it over and over and over again until it broke to test whether the tolerances (included expected wear/lifespan) specified in the design are accurate or not?

Re: Did they hire someone from NASA?

[Redbehrend]

It's worth so much they wouldn't want to blow it up lol. They'll probably do it with the next though.

Re:Did they hire someone from NASA?

[beelsebob]

That would indeed be the "smarter" thing to do in terms of pure engineering. In terms of company morale though, possibly not. It may be a much smarter management decision may well be to help everyone to realise how awesome an achievement they were just part of, and to keep company morale up, because it will increase productivity enough to offset the engineering benefit.

Re:Did they hire someone from NASA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? there isn't ever going to be another "first to land safely" rocket, and the next launch in a couple of months will generate another first stage to fly again and/or test to destruction. It only sets the long-term testing back a couple of months.

As others have said, this one belongs in a museum.

Re:Did they hire someone from NASA?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this first one is historic as its the first one that worked, other attempts failed. They will be making a LOT more of these and testing the hell out of them so it would be a shame for this to get destroyed.

Its like Henry Ford keeping the First every model T just for prosperity.

Re:Did they hire someone from NASA?

[EnsilZah]

I'm sure they have a lot of former NASA employees on their payroll, not sure what that has to do with anything.

They're scheduled to make roughly one launch a month, so if all goes to plan they should soon have plenty of rockets to run tests with, they just want to keep the first one as a souvenir.

Re:Did they hire someone from NASA?

[ColdWetDog]

Or, they've found a bunch of things they don't like and they are going to fix it before next flight. Like engineering.

Re:Did they hire someone from NASA?

[swillden]

They're scheduled to make roughly one launch a month, so if all goes to plan they should soon have plenty of rockets to run tests with, they just want to keep the first one as a souvenir.

I think the more interesting souvenir would be the first rocket to be reused.

Maybe they'll fly the next one twice and then put it on display.

Re:Did they hire someone from NASA?

[pslytely psycho]

Absolutely. It became a trophy the moment it touched down sucessfully.

The debate kind of suprised me, I always thought the first one would end up a promotion piece. After all he finally accomplished a vertical powered landing of a 'spaceship' reminicent of the 1950's silver needle spaceships that always landed upright and powered. He just showed us all a reality strait out of our childhood fantasies. Hell, I would have kept it too.

Re:Did they hire someone from NASA?

[code_monkey_steve]

Keep launching it until it explodes, then collect the pieces and hand them out to the engineers as souvenirs.

Re: Did they hire someone from NASA?

[KGIII]

Pretty much. I don't know where I'd heard this but, in the original thread discussing this, I made mention of this same thing. In that thread, I mentioned that they'd be testing it, checking for wear, tearing it down in a non-totally-destructive fashion, and rebuilding it so that they could put it on display at their HQ or, perhaps, in a museum.

I don't know where it was that I'd heard this but I think it was someone from SpaceX - probably not Musk personally, in an online news blurb video or maybe some small article. Unfortunately, I am unable to find the original link, video, comment, or whatever. I appear to have not linked to it in my comment from that thread. Perhaps it wasn't official at that point? Otherwise, yeah, we kind of already knew this was what was going to happen.

Hell, it wasn't even a presumption that this is what would happen to it. It was something that someone, in official capacity, had said. A quick look at the original thread has some people who also indicated that they'd heard such, a bit later in the thread, and they did not link to the source either. :/

At any rate, now's a fine time to congratulate them again! I'm still a little boy in my pajamas watching the original moon landing - or similar feeling, when I watch this video or even think about the implications. It has been a long time since we've had any real exciting news concerning launch and reentry vehicles, mechanisms, or tech. This? This is awesome! It makes my inner child want to stay up all night to semi-dream about being an astronaut.

I wonder if they'll take a 58 year old man, in great health somehow, up? I'll even quit smoking cigars for the duration. I guess they've got a "holy shit" button for the folks in the top (or when they have folks in it). I'd take those risks. Hmm... How much does it actually cost to get a 58 year old, 172 pound, reasonably healthy man into space as a tourist? I've never really looked into it but I just might be able to shake out the couch and pay a reasonable price for it.

Heh... Maybe I can get a Slashdot sticker and stick it on the ISS? Hell, I'd be happy with just a few orbits around the planet. It'd be even more wonderful if I could bring a camera and live stream it back to planet Earth. I mean, I've got a passport that is stamped to show that I've stomped all over the place. Hell, at least one country gave me a sticker once - it is in my passport. China maybe? Japan? India? I forget. At any rate, I've never once been in a position to say, "Back on Earth" in a meaningful fashion. I guess I could say it when I'm in an airplane but that's not the same.

At any rate, it'd be fantastic to be able to say, "Okay, I've been to space - at least LEO. What next?" It'd be excellent to look down at the planet and see it as it exists in all it's fat glory. Sure, I can download pictures and video. Yes, I can probably even go ride in the Vomit Comet and experience a slightly prolonged sense of weightlessness. But no, I can't say that I've been to space. I'd like to be able to say that.

To make a short story long...

When I was a kid, I saw the first landing on the moon. I stayed up late to watch it, as I recall. Either the next day or the next weekend, we went to Woolworth's (maybe) or K-Mart? It might have even been some store called "Ames." Buggered if I know but I do remember getting a pair of astronaut pajamas. They had those plastic covered feet things and I'd slide across the hardwood floors - in my head it was some sort of fancy balance training for my future career as an astronaut. (Things were a bit more simple then. Or they seemed to be more simple because I was still a child.)

Seeing SpaceX stick the landing, damned near close to center, and understanding the maths involved - yeah, I felt like that kid, in his pajamas, sliding across the hardwood floor, while dreaming about being an astronaut and spending time in space. I seem to recall that I wanted to yo-yo, blow bubbles, and pop a water balloon in space. I was excited to see a vi

Re: Did they hire someone from NASA?

[Anonymous Coward]

cool

Re:Did they hire someone from NASA?

[Gavagai80]

They made this decision before they'd even looked at the returned rocket.

Re: Did they hire someone from NASA?

[k6mfw]

Yes, landing that first stage was something. I remember Apollo flights as well, I don't recall astronaut pajamas. Damned if I can remember Apollo 11 (I can't) but I clearly remembered when Apollo 8 went for TLI. In an instant the world became really small. I'm looking forward to the day when (whoever) will send humans to the Moon (I'm not waiting for Mars as it will always be 20 years away). Just think when they (NASA, Musk, Chinese?) put a spacecraft on TLI, someone should repeat what a flight controller at MSC said when Apollo 8 did the same, "Finally we're going somewhere!"

Re: Did they hire someone from NASA?

[KGIII]

It was all so very exciting and, really, it has been rather dull for the last few decades. Sure, there were great things - like ISS, Hubble, and the likes. There were tragedies and much was learned. I remember the first time the Shuttle went up and hoping that was going to usher in a new age, it did not.

Yet, seeing that "simple" thing of the first stage not only landing but landing so perfectly and so close to exactly on the X brought back some of the same feelings and levels of excitement (and dreams, and hope) that I had as a child. It was a sight to behold. Unfortunately, I did not witness it live but I was able to catch the video shortly after that. I've since downloaded and archived the video. I've even watched it a few more times.

Maybe, just maybe, we're finally going somewhere. Even if it's a slow start, still - this might be an actual tipping point. (Allow an old man his feeble dreams. Err... Except I'm just 58.) Maybe, when historians look back, they'll see this as a pivotal change that meant great things happened because of it. Maybe, as you say, we're finally going somewhere.

At any rate, the pajamas were awesome. They were a kind of blue with astronauts floating around on them. You could tell that they had been made prior to the finalization of the suits because they ended up with a more accurate depiction on later versions of those pajamas. They had those vinyl covered feet things and I'd run and slide across the floor on 'em. In my kid brain, those were valid exercises to prepare myself for the hardships and to demonstrate that I had the right stuff.

Sure, it is kind of silly in reflection and probably would be embarrassing to admit for some people but I'm not easily embarrassed and I think it may serve some of the younger folks well to know the kind of excitement we had and what led us into fields like science, mathematics, engineering, and even made us interested in computers. So, perhaps it is a little embarrassing but it's worth it to put it out there for posterity. Someone might find it interesting and look into it and take an interest. Someone else may have a similar recollection (like yours) and add that to the pile. Who knows?

Send it to Mos Eisley or Mos Espa?

[Steve1952]

Watto, the Mos Espa junk dealer, has already submitted the first bid. He has an employee working for him that is pretty good at refurbishing used equipment.

sentimental crap

[Anonymous Coward]

they should just boost it to orbit again instead of showing it off in some stupid museum. its a machine built for flying. let it fly until it dies after the 10th launch and then store it.

Re:sentimental crap

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Yeah! And let's dismantle those stupid pyramids in Egypt, too! Surely someone in that area could use those huge rectangle rocks!

Re:sentimental crap

[Rei]

Color me confused, but if it does on its 10th launch then how are they supposed to store it? Do you mean "store the wreckage"? Rockets aren't like cars that just break down on the side of the road.

Re:sentimental crap

[Anonymous Coward]

They already did that. The pyramids used to be faced in polished white limestone, as well as topped with gold points. The facing was stripped for other buildings and the gold points were melted down.

Re:sentimental crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, I just won the lottery! I should just invest all the money in more lottery tickets!

Re: sentimental crap

[Anonymous Coward]

There's little point in flying until it actually breaks - they're just guaranteed to lose at least one expensive payload that way. Re-fly as long as the risk of failure is (estimated to be) low enough. Then test to destruction. Right now, the likely biggest benefit for this first recovered stage will be to better lock down tolerances of an as-built F9.

Re:sentimental crap

[Anonymous Coward]

A few years ago some people did just that to win another large lottery price.
They mathematically proved, due to certain guaranteed payouts that buying a certain number of tickets would guarantee you of a larger price than the price of the tickets.

Re:sentimental crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Impossible, if you mean the classic lottery (with the turning balls). The whole concept is based on the fact that your chances of winning are ALWAYS lower than what you've put in. Otherwise - obviously - the lottery would not survive. You have no 'guaranteed' payouts, you only have a minute chance of winning the jackpot, and that does not augment your chance by buying a lot of tickets compared to the cost you put in there, since, per number, the chance for winning a certain amount of money remains always lower than what you paid for the ticket.

Therefore, I call bull.

Blue Origin's Response?

[Dega704]

I am now genuinely curious to see if Jeff Bezos will hurry and put his New Shepard rocket on display; since he totally started this club. :S

Re:Blue Origin's Response?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bezos didn't start the club, it started with the DC-X, SpaceX continued it with the Grasshopper (followed by the F9R Dev1 rocket), then Bezos arrived with the New Shephard rocket for the first suborbital flight, and then SpaceX has the first 'stage1 of an orbital mission' to land safely.

Each of these are milestones, but it's hardly fair to say that Bezos started the club.

Re:Blue Origin's Response?

[Dega704]

My sarcasm tag failed horribly to register even with my ':S' tag at the end. Oh well it was worth a shot.

Re:Blue Origin's Response?

[Dega704]

I swear to god Slashdot you would make my day if you had an option to edit a post for grammatical mistakes for a few minutes after posting.

lovingly hand-crafted by Space-X's engineers...

[Thud457]

uh... doesn't this mean that they will now need to make a LOT fewer now?

So much for economies of scale... ;p

Re:lovingly hand-crafted by Space-X's engineers...

[Rei]

Not really, for a number of reasons.

1) Recovery is only possible on launches where there's enough capacity left over to compensate for the altitude/velocity of the stage at separation (it's not a simple mass issue, lighter payloads that need more delta-V end up with the first stage moving faster than heavy / low delta-V payloads).

2) In theory, vastly reduced launch prices mean a vastly larger market growing for long periods of time.

3) Rockets don't last forever.

4) Updates to the design provide better safety, capacity, and other features

Concerning #2-4, one should think of the airline industry - airplanes are far more reusable than these rockets will be (if I recall right, SpaceX is targeting a couple dozen uses per rocket), but there's still mass market need for continuous production, for the same reasons.

5) Falcon Heavy upper stages are not recoverable, so that's a merlin and tank per upper stage. If you do actually have said vastly reduced launch prices and said vastly larger market, then you have to make a lot more upper stages.

6) SpaceX would be taking over a large chunk of the world's launch market with those prices, so even if there was no market growth, SpaceX would still grow significantly.

Re:lovingly hand-crafted by Space-X's engineers...

[Anonymous Coward]

if they only launch the same number of missions

but if the price plummets, the expectation is that there will be a lot more missions to launch since more people will be able to afford to launch things.

There hasn't ever been a case where dropping the price of something offered to businesses has resulted in fewer demands for that something.

Re:lovingly hand-crafted by Space-X's engineers...

[rwa2]

Not really, for a number of reasons.

1) Recovery is only possible on launches where there's enough capacity left over to compensate for the altitude/velocity of the stage at separation (it's not a simple mass issue, lighter payloads that need more delta-V end up with the first stage moving faster than heavy / low delta-V payloads).

Actually, tell me more about this! They had previously been trying to recover their first stage rockets by landing them on the sea platforms, which is understandably much harder. Has SpaceX given up on this? Or did they just backpedal a bit and send up enough extra fuel during this last launch to return to the launch site just to keep Blue Origin from sucking up the limelight and snagging a relatively "easy" stationary pad landing? Not a bad move, considering the past two failed attempts at a sea landing, but it'll still be interesting to see how hard they push the sea landing attempts in the future.

Re:lovingly hand-crafted by Space-X's engineers...

[Anonymous Coward]

they were landing them on barges because of the danger that they would come down much too fast, or off target significantly and if that happened, they didn't want to damage things around them.

the barge attempts showed that they were getting down reliably in the right place at the right speed, so after that, why go to the effort to try and land on a barge instead of on the ground.

getting back to the starting point seems like it's extra work compared to a soft landing elsewhere (you have to not only cancel your forward momentum, you have to reverse it). We'll see what happens in the future. I'd love to see them establish a string of launch sites around the world, launch from one and land the parts at the next one east, repeat until it's back home :-)

Re:lovingly hand-crafted by Space-X's engineers...

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

I think the sea platform was a different issue. My understanding was that they weren't authorized to try a land recovery because it's they hadn't proven the technology, and no one wanted to be the scapegoat when the rocket blew up an orphanage full of nuns.

While this summer's sea landing failed, it was still successful enough to justify letting SpaceX use a land-based landing point.

Caveat: I have no idea where my brain got this information, but it was probably from reading uninformed posters like me. I could very well be wrong.

Re:lovingly hand-crafted by Space-X's engineers...

[Anonymous Coward]

A few points:

- All launches carry extra fuel in the first stage. This leftover fuel is what enables them to come back to land the first stage. In the case of the CRS missions, it's something like 10% of the first stage fuel is leftovers. Plenty for landing.

- The sea barges were needed because nobody would let a rocket come down on land, especially along the Florida coastline, dotted with cities and towns. Now that they proved that they can hit a barge-sized landing point, they got permission to come back to the coast.

- The barges will still be used in cases where there is too much downrange velocity and not enough fuel to return. Such as the Falcon 9 Heavy "core" (center) stage. There are some other flight profiles that also prevent even the regular Falcon 9 from returning to launch site.

- Once they got the clearance from FAA/USAF to land back at the cape, it made a whole lot more sense to do it that way (easier!) then try to hit the barge in the ocean again.

- This was their RTF (return to flight) launch, they were going to do everything possible to ensure a successful launch and orbital insertion of the payload. All other concerns were secondary - although they did push the launch a day in order to get a 10% better chance of landing back at the cape.

Re:lovingly hand-crafted by Space-X's engineers...

[tsotha]

Landing back at the Cape requires more fuel, too. One of the reasons this happened on an Orbcomm launch is the payload was relatively light, leaving more fuel to turn around. After separation the first stage is going 3000 m/sec in the wrong direction.

Re:lovingly hand-crafted by Space-X's engineers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they really return to the launch pad? I thought they landed on a different pad, I don't think they returned. At least according to the graphics they made in that video it showed it landed somewhere else.

Re:lovingly hand-crafted by Space-X's engineers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not "all launches". There were a couple launches (before the accident last summer) that they weren't able to attempt a landing on because the rocket used had to use too much propellant and accumulated too much delta-V to come back for even a sea landing.

Re:lovingly hand-crafted by Space-X's engineers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they landed at a different pad, but both the launch pad and landing pad were at Cape Canaveral.

Re:lovingly hand-crafted by Space-X's engineers...

[Anonymous Coward]

The sea platforms aren't that much harder. This landing would have looked just the same on one of the ASDS platforms. The two failed landing attempts were due to running out of hydraulic fluid for the grid-fins, and encountering problems with a sticky, laggy valve...neither a major difficulty to fix, and nothing to do with the landing platform floating or being on land. This was just what a landing looks like with fully functioning hardware.

The sea platform landings were necessary to prove their ability to control the landing rocket and because they didn't have a land site constructed and approval to land rockets on it. They will still be required for missions where there isn't enough propellant to return to land.

Sounds like an excuse.

[Xac]

Elon, if this is about saving the world, then stop acting like it's just a pissing contest. Have some dignity. Scrap the thing.

Re:Sounds like an excuse.

[dex22]

...and while you're at it close all the museums, and those public spaces. They're kind of wasteful too. Education is just an intellectual pissing contest, so maybe we should close all the schools and colleges! Imagine all the money we'd save! Within a generation or two we wouldn't even be aware of the history and culture we've sacrificed.

Or, we could just put that sucker in a traveling museum and let lots of people get interested and excited about space again.

Re:Sounds like an excuse.

[KGIII]

Not everything must, or should, be done for an "economic purpose." Some things, like pure theoretical physics research or even space and space related things, should and can be done without the need for it to be an economical purpose. In this case, there's a quasi-economic purpose. Mostly, by outsourcing launches to SpaceX, we may end up with less expensive launches and the, perhaps, see economic purposes or even just scientific purposes.

Frankly, it's still being paid for by the government and the government will still be paying for their launches for many years to come. This money is, of course, injected into the various local economies but that's not the purpose. The important thing is that we're going to spend the money anyhow so I'd rather we spent the money on this than spending it to blow up little brown people. Hell, I'd rather they spend all this money on studying the three-toed sloth than spend it on bombing little brown me.

But, then again, some of us have priorities that are different than others. I'm rather fond of wealth accumulation but not at the expense of all else. I'm quite pleased to say that I've accumulated a few dollars but not at the expense of all else. Spending what I spent on this Christmas and, soon, New Years Eve has very little (none, really) economic purpose but I got to have a great time with my two kids. How much is that worth?

How much is it worth if this research ends up enabling us to save the species, avert disaster, do pure research that develops into future technology, or even if it just makes a few people giggle like little schoolgirls and be happy that we're able to attach people to a giant bomb and launch them with such precision that they remain in a state of perpetual falling for long periods of time? No, I'm okay with that. In fact, I'm more than okay with that. I'm ecstatic and probably over-optimistic and that's okay too.

As an aside: It's usually those who pay the least taxes that complain the loudest about taxes. It's usually the people who have accomplished the least who complain about others accomplishing things. It's usually the insecure who want people to conform to their ideals. It's usually those least likely to accept new information and change their views who complain about worry themselves sick because others are doing things that they can't appreciate. I dunno which class(es) you belong to but I'm probably correct in guessing that you fit one of those categories. Perhaps some honest introspection, objectivity, and a healthy dose of reasoning will help you with that? I dunno - I am not a psychiatrist.

Re:Sounds like an excuse.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it does, on the long term.

When people get existed by something, they also become supportive of it. If the people are enough supportive of it, the politicians will follow, even if they personally do not feel supportive. If politicians start to be supportive too, NASA will get more budget. If NASA gets more budget, space-exploration will get a boost. And if you look at it purely from an economic perspective: if space-exploration gets a boost, so will SpaceX - after all, their main income-provider *IS* NASA.

So, they're doing themselves a favour too.

This, only using your premise that solely the economics count. which is a premise I do not describe, since people and institutions alike, do a lot of things without a purely economic motive.

And that is without counting the unforeseen and difficult to predict economic gains or benefits in the long term. After all, the pyramids weren't build to gain economic benefit neither, but tourism has provided a steady income to Egypt for the last century. And when the first electromagnet was shown to the Queen by Farady, she asked: "What use is such a silly thing?" And he answered: "Madame, I do not know what use it is today, but I'm sure at some time you're going to be able to tax it." And he was right. Imagine one had considered the economic use at that time; one would have found it not worthwhile to pursue it at all. With the result that we wouldn't have most machinery that we have today, with all the benefits THOSE gave us.

Point in case: not everything has to be measured in economic terms, and even if one does, it's difficult to say what economic benefits may or may not come from a certain decision. SpaceX is a private company, so they have to make a profit. But that said, I'm quite sure they won't go bust because of putting this stage in a museum. clearly, Musk thinks there are other potential benefits, economic or otherwise, for doing so, so let him do it. He's the boss there. And, I may add, one of the few CEO's out there, whom still have a vision of their own, which is greater than just the quarterly income or the value of their stock and the money in their own pockets.

We need such visionaries. And they are pretty rare. I mean; look at Bill Gates: he has 10 times more money than Musk, and had that for far longer too, but he never has done anything visionary with it. He just stockpiles it, made a charity thing, and that's it. He doesn't really DO something with it, and certainly not something that is novel, visionary or potential technology-disrupting.

Let's not get too excited...

[sgage]

... until we see what kind of percentage of successful landings they get. Doing it once doesn't automatically 'change everything'. Let's see how robust this really turns out to be...

Re:Let's not get too excited...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's tempting to suspect there's be a reason they don't want to try and fly that booster again. A reusable booster that can be landed but not reused would be embarrassing.

Great Moments in Private Enterprise Space History

[PopeRatzo]

2015: Space X recovers the first reusable rocket stage and doesn't reuse it.

Recovery != Reuseability

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, I can recover a car crashed into a tree. Doesn't mean any of the car is fixable.

Personally, I would demand they prove they launch something, recover, refit and re-launch BEFORE I agreed to put any of my technology on a used rocket.

You want to put it in a museum? Fine. Do so AFTER you launch it twice and recover it twice. Till then, it's a useless piece of debris, not an actual recoverable rocket.

Re:Recovery != Reuseability

[Beck_Neard]

You know nothing about rocketry.

A rocket doesn't become damaged and non-recoverable just because it flew for five minutes through the air. The only reason people haven't been able to recover rockets up to now is because the actual act of taking a large moving object at 5000 km/h, decelerating it, maneuvering it through the atmosphere, and landing it gently is really really hard. That, and the thermal stresses on the engines mean that most rocket engines up to now have not been able to sustain multiple full-length firings without refurbishment.

SpaceX has _already_ demonstrated that it has solved both of these problems. The Merlin rockets that SpaceX uses are actually fired around 10 times before even getting mounted on an actual launch vehicle! And no, they aren't 'refurbished' after test firing. The engines have been designed with full re-usability in mind - fill up the tank again and go. The launch vehicles themselves go through static firings before being launched through space. In static firings they get most of the vibration and thermal stresses that they would get if they were actually flying (most of these stresses come from the rocket engines). The point is that SpaceX is already 're-using' its stages. It's just that it has never re-used one that has not been strapped down to the ground. Given all of this, it would be MIGHTY strange if boosters that had flown could not be re-used.

If you're betting on this being the case, don't. You'll probably lose the bet.

Re:Recovery != Reuseability

[sgage]

If you think that a static test exposes an airframe to the same stress as an actual launch and bringing it back down, you know nothing about rocketry. In fact, you are delusional.

Re: Recovery != Reuseability

[Anonymous Coward]

To the airframe, not the engine itself then?

Airframes are relatively cheap - it's just a can that holds the engine. Shuck the engine out and shove it in another can and you're ready to go.

Re:Recovery != Reuseability

[Beck_Neard]

It's easy to pretend to know stuff. Everyone and their mother nowadays seems to be an expert on rocketry.

It's harder to actually know stuff. The most important causes for failure on rockets are engine failures, software failures, and structural failures, in that order. Engine failures are typically caused by excessive vibration, thermal stress, combustion containment failures (hot gases touching the walls), turbopump failures, and a few other reasons, and these will often show up in static tests. In fact this is the whole point of static testing. As for software, it's the same whether you're re-using an airframe or not. Finally, as for structural failures, they are caused by vibration, thermal stress, and aerodynamic stress. Of these, a pretty good picture can be constructed from static testing, with only aerodynamic stresses left out. Granted, a single-engine test isn't very accurate for diagnosing problems; full-rocket static tests are better.

While flying through the air in a normal mission profile puts a lot of stress on the airframe, it doesn't do any irreversible damage on the airframe, unless the rocket is very badly designed. Going outside the mission profile (facing the wind the wrong way) can and will do irreversible damage, but spacex are very careful to bring their rockets down gently. If you want to bet that a recovered falcon 9 first stage can't be used, the only way that argument will work is if you argue that the airframe somehow suffers irreversible damage during the recovery maneuver. Other than this, it would be extremely strange.

Re:Recovery != Reuseability

[Strider-]

If you want to bet that a recovered falcon 9 first stage can't be used, the only way that argument will work is if you argue that the airframe somehow suffers irreversible damage during the recovery maneuver. Other than this, it would be extremely strange.

The real question is how much work and labour will it take to re-certify the systems for flight. If it costs $70 million to re-certify a $60 million rocket, it becomes a case of "it's possible but not worthwhile." What people forget in a lot of these situations is that the biggest ticket item in most of these projects is the labour involved, not the cost of the hardware itself.

Re:Recovery != Reuseability

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that a static test exposes an airframe to the same stress as an actual launch and bringing it back down, you know nothing about rocketry. In fact, you are delusional.

Let me remove the ad-hominem attack:

A static test does not expose an airframe to the same stress as an actual launch and bringing it back down.

Slashdot is a place full of great discussion and I come here for what I learn from the comments. But I am thankful that when I talk to people IRL they don't say "If you think X and didn't consider Y then you know nothing about this subject. In fact, you are delusional."

Re:Recovery != Reuseability

[Beck_Neard]

It would be very, very strange if it cost $70 million to 're-certify' a falcon 9 first stage. I can't find the source right now but I remember reading that refurbishment costs are estimated around $0.5 million, and it would be strange if the certification cost were greater (or even equal to) the refurbishment cost.

The current Merlin engine design can go through about ~20 full-duration firings without any issues. I wouldn't be surprised if they could eventually get it up to ~100 firings or more.

Re:Recovery != Reuseability

[Beck_Neard]

> A static test does not expose an airframe to the same stress as an actual launch and bringing it back down.

Yes that's completely true and I never said otherwise. But the fact that SpaceX can test fire a rocket stage multiple times, launch it, and recover it again give high confidence to their ability to be able to re-use a launched rocket, simply because so much of what could go wrong in an actual mission could also go wrong in a test firing.

Re: Recovery != Reuseability

[MachineShedFred]

You do know that's why they are doing a static test with it right?

Basically nobody would want to put a payload on top of it as is - they want to make sure it would light and burn without spontaneous unplanned disassembly. Which is exactly what they are doing.

Re:Great Moments in Private Enterprise Space Histo

[Anonymous Coward]

is it irony if it's a choice?

Quick let's burn some rocket fuel!

[Anonymous Coward]

It belongs in a museum!

It's more of a step back

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, it goes quite a distance then comes back. So it is more like a step back. Still good progress though!

Re:Great Moments in Private Enterprise Space Histo

[Hiroto. S]

It is reused as an historical memorabilia.

Re:Great Moments in Private Enterprise Space Histo

[PopeRatzo]

is it irony if it's a choice?

Someday, I'll have to give my lecture on irony. There seems to be a need.

My opinion

[Dereck1701]

They should follow the procedure for some experimental aircraft (well, somewhat). Go ahead and keep the first recovered stage as a souvenir. The next one that comes down though should be torn apart down to its last bolt for testing on each and every component, including destructive tests like testing the shear force of bolts, the pressure limits of tanks, break points of struts, etc. If everything looks good and there is no unexpected wear and tear on the stage reuse the next one after intensive non-destructive inspections and tests. If everything goes off without a hitch tear that one down and do another round of intensive tests. As time goes on allow stages to fly more times and decrease inspections on components that aren't showing any wear and maintain detailed inspections of components that are. Eventually they'll figure out which parts (if any) need regular replacement/repair or redesign and which could fly a hundred times without issue. Given their flight schedule (am I hallucinating? 23 launches in 2016?) it shouldn't be an issue to sacrifice a few stages here and there to ensure that there isn't some component that is degrading more quickly than expected or some critical wiring bundle that is rubbing up against a bolt.

Bue Origin may yet prove relevant

[Immerman]

Or alternately, they launched and soft-landed a re-tuned second stage, as an admittedly much simplified test of the landing technology. As I recall their original plan was to use this kind of engine for their second stage, and one based on an entirely different fuel for the first stage.

Now, wouldn't it be interesting if there were eventually multiple companies producing different second stages all designed to be lifted to sub-orbit by Falcons? Blue Origin may yet prove more relevant than it initially appears.

Like the Spirit of Saint Louis

[Steve1952]

After Lindbergh flew the Atlantic Ocean in the Spirit of Saint Louis in 1927, he didn't then turn around and fly back. Instead he sent the Spirit of Saint Louis back to the US by sea. It now resides in the Smithsonian. This particular SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is historically important, and quite possibly may also end up in the Smithsonian some day.

Re:Like the Spirit of Saint Louis

[tsotha]

After Lindbergh flew the Atlantic Ocean in the Spirit of Saint Louis in 1927, he didn't then turn around and fly back. Instead he sent the Spirit of Saint Louis back to the US by sea.

His ass probably hurt too much to fly back.

On a more serious note, flying non-stop across the Atlantic was a stunt. Doing it once had very little value; doing it twice none at all. But the modern launch market is very different - if SpaceX can re-launch the first stage without rebuilding it that's tens of millions right to the bottom line.

Re:Like the Spirit of Saint Louis

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the general gist of this comment; this Falcon 9 may well end up in a museum. However the initial analogy is slightly misleading.

In Lindbergh's case the initial crossing was performed to win the Orteig Prize; there was no similar motivation for risking a return flight. Additionally the prevailing winds at that latitude made flying across the Atlantic from west to east much more of a challenge.

Re:Great Moments in Private Enterprise Space Histo

[KGIII]

Knowing a little about you and what you've publicly disclosed, well... Umm... It'd be ironic if, when you gave your lecture, you got it wrong.

I'm assuming that you're not going to get it wrong. There are, on the other hand, lots of people who chime in to claim, "That's not irony!" Even though it is irony. Oddly, I'm not sure that's ironic. Having a desire to learn and improve my writing skills has led me to actually read the dictionary and some additional information about the definition of ironic.

A cardiologist that eats poorly, doesn't maintain good health, and dies of a coronary probably isn't ironic. If they'd done everything they could to ensure a healthy heart and then died earlier then expected and of a coronary would be ironic.

Opening up a coconut and finding a frog inside is not ironic. It's just weird.

The song... Hmm... I forget all the lyrics (or most of them) but rain on your wedding day is not ironic. However, if she had had some history of weddings and they all went off without a hitch and then said that this next one wouldn't be canceled because... Wait, what? I'm wasting too much time here. ;-)

That and the kids just got home. They said they were coming back with a surprise and they had taken my g/f with them - they're going "shopping" (or went). So, yeah, I was gonna write a novella but I'll skip it and say, "So... This lecture, please?" I'd be most interested in reading it. With any luck, I'll learn something new.

Space is already full of crap

[LordWabbit2]

I can't help thinking that since space is already full of crap that this will simply hasten the occurance of a Kessler Syndrome type scenario. Although I suppose if it's cheaper to get up there we might actually start doing something about all the junk instead of just monitoring it and holding thumbs. There has been talk for years about refueling satellites instead of shoving them into a higher orbit and discarding them, cheaper launches will mean it's cheaper to just plonk another, more advanced one, in it's place.

Re:Space is already full of crap

[cbhacking]

True, but if launches get cheap enough that this risk becomes significant, somebody (probably NASA) will probably start looking at ways to clean up space. Send up a small spacecraft (unmanned, of course) with a couple of big catcher nets and the rest of it engine and propellant. Match velocities with particularly risky junk (or at least, get close to matching) and overtake it slowly, so the stress on the catcher isn't too great and you aren't creating more debris. Collect as much as you safely can on each flight, then de-orbit with your captured wreckage (burning up in the atmosphere being the easy way to get rid of stuff in space).

Or maybe you'd launch multiple catchers, each of which targets a single piece of pile of junk and de-orbits it. The point is, we can do this. The costs are high enough to be effectively prohibitive right now, of course, but that's almost entirely the launch costs; the catcher spacecraft themselves can be very simple and only need to operate for a few days at most. Get the launches cheap enough - and for super-cheap payloads, they can use the nearly-end-of-life, most-times-reused boosters, so they should be cheap indeed - and you can clean up the dangerous stuff enough for future launches to be safe.

Re:Space is already full of crap

[LordWabbit2]

I like the idea of the laser broom my self, although instead of it being ground based it can be in orbit with some nice fat solar panels for power. I would imagine most of a ground based system would lose it's energy getting out of the atmosphere, but if it was visible to the naked eye it would be cool to watch.

Re:Great Moments in Private Enterprise Space Histo

[sugar and acid]

The song... Hmm... I forget all the lyrics (or most of them) but rain on your wedding day is not ironic. However, if she had had some history of weddings and they all went off without a hitch and then said that this next one wouldn't be canceled because... Wait, what? I'm wasting too much time here. ;-)

Ahh, yes the Alanis Morrisette ironic paradox. If the song is supposed to be about ironic things and actually called "ironic", yet none of the examples given in the song are actually ironic, that is ironic itself. The paradox is that if the whole title and song is ironic, then the title of the song is appropriate again and the song is not ironic anymore, and then you start back at the beginning :D

Re:Great Moments in Private Enterprise Space Histo

[drinkypoo]

The song... Hmm... I forget all the lyrics (or most of them) but rain on your wedding day is not ironic. However, if she had had some history of weddings and they all went off without a hitch and then said that this next one wouldn't be canceled because... Wait, what? I'm wasting too much time here. ;-)

You got it wrong. If it rains on your wedding day, that's just a bummer. If you change your wedding day because it's supposed to rain, and then it doesn't rain on the original date but does rain on the date to which you change, that is Irony. The free ride when you've already paid might be ironic, if you bought a day pass instead of a transfer specifically because you were going to have to pay for that ride. Basically every example in the song is almost ironic. And then, well, see the other reply to this comment.

Re:Great Moments in Private Enterprise Space Histo

[PopeRatzo]

"So... This lecture, please?"

Since we're coming up on a holiday, I'll give the very short version of the lecture:

"If an AC rando uses the word 'irony' I'll give you evens that it's used incorrectly."

Re:Powered by adoration

[Anonymous Coward]

Jealousy is an ugly thing.

Re:Great Moments in Private Enterprise Space Histo

[Anonymous Coward]

"any definition of irony—though hundreds might be given, and very few of them would be accepted—must include this, that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same."

Irony is a form of utterance that postulates a double audience, consisting of one party that hearing shall hear & shall not understand, & another party that, when more is meant than meets the ear, is aware both of that more & of the outsiders' incomprehension

A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected; a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things.

They all kind of meet the secondary definition of irony. I think a bummer wedding is ironic to people with less cynicism than normal. Irony is supposed to be funny. If you find the song funny then on some level the irony exists.

Re:Great Moments in Private Enterprise Space Histo

[KGIII]

Hmm... You're more generous than I. Ah well... No holiday here yet. It's raining. Saturday night there's gonna be party. Everything is set to go. Even a couple of /.ers are to be in attendance.

Misleading/Inaccurate comment.

[mykepredko]

After landing in Paris, Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis through various European countries. Then, after it was returned to the US (via steamship), it was flown on a goodwill tour of North and Central America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

My grandfather saw the Spirit of St. Louis after it crossed the Atlantic and always talked about how it was a "real airplane", not something that just did a stunt once.

Re:Great Moments in Private Enterprise Space Histo

[KGIII]

LOL I believe I said that it wasn't irony which is what you said... The second, I did not actually reach any conclusions and state if it was ironic or not. You said I got it wrong and then said what I said.