NASA Announces New Mars Probe, While SpaceX Is Urged To Focus on Launches

NASA will land a new probe on Mars on November 26, 2018, "paving the way toward an ambitious journey to send humans to the Red Planet," according to one NASA official. The $828 million project will investigate how the planet was formed, NASA announced Friday, calling it "an unparalleled opportunity to learn more about the internal structure of the Red Planet."

Meanwhile, long-time Slashdot reader taiwanjohn shares an editorial published by Ars Technica the same day, titled "We love you SpaceX, and hope you reach Mars. But we need you to focus." Noting that SpaceX receives the majority of its funding from NASA, the site's senior space editor writes that the company's business model requires that they ultimately deliver a reusable launch system. "I understand SpaceX has a master plan -- the company wants to colonize Mars... But at some point you have to focus on the here and now, and that is the Falcon 9 rocket... if there is no Falcon 9, there is no business."
In a related story, Saturday NASA's history office shared a photograph from the Viking 2's landing on the surface of Mars -- which happened exactly 40 years ago.

Comments

No, they don't need to focus

[Anonymous Coward]

They need to keep doing whatever they are doing.

An explosion of a rocket is nothing. I wish them another hundred of them, and the attached room to make mistakes.

The goal is not to not trigger these sensationalist dipshit journalists but to actually make progress, burning some millions is collateral damage.

Re:No, they don't need to focus

[taiwanjohn]

In a more recent story, SpaceX is being sued by Spacecom (owner of the AMOS-6 satellite that was lost). I have a hard time believing they could win such a suit, but that depends on what caused the "anomaly".

As for the Ars Technica op-ed, urging SpaceX to "focus" on NASA's priorities, I suspect that Elon will still reveal his plans for the MCT at the upcoming Int'l Astronautical Conference, but he will also spend a fair amount of time explaining what they've learned from this mishap. And I think he will probably take some of the advice from Ars... perhaps announcing that MCT will be put on the "back burner" for a while, so that they can get Crew Dragon and Falcon Heavy flying ASAP.

Re:No, they don't need to focus

[imidan]

In a more recent story, SpaceX is being sued by Spacecom (owner of the AMOS-6 satellite that was lost). I have a hard time believing they could win such a suit, but that depends on what caused the "anomaly".

It's possible that they have to sue in order to activate their insurance. Sometimes that's how you get your settlement.

Re:No, they don't need to focus

[taiwanjohn]

More info here: YouTube user Scott Manley has a 9-min video with frame-by-frame analysis. Well worth the time.

One thing I learned was that, although the satellite was insured, technically the insurance doesn't "kick in" until the rocket is actually launched, so in this case, they probably won't pay out. (This would explain the lawsuit mentioned in my post above.)

However, I've read elsewhere that they could have done this test without the payload on board, but that would cost extra. It is up to the customer to decide if they want to pay extra to protect their asset. It will be interesting to see how this all works out.

Re:No, they don't need to focus

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that it was spacecom that INSISTED on having their sat on top for a static fire, which is NOT standard procedure, I suspect that they will have a hard time winning regardless.
In fact, I am still trying to figure out why they wanted that sat on there for a static fire. There is nothing that they should have done. And the fact that the rocket blow right under the sat will be suspicious.

Windbourne (moderating).

First article has what to do with the second?

[shess]

Maybe the editors should also just group together other articles? Like you have one article about Stallman wanting to allow anonymous payment, and another about Apple approving certain crypto-currencies - just lump those together, they're about the same thing.

Ars Are Welcome To Try

[ytene]

I'm not a US Citizen and I don't have any affiliation with SpaceX. I read that Ars article when it first came out, but it really annoyed me.

If you've seen the video, it's reasonably clear that the initial signs of trouble - i.e. the start of the explosion - happens right at the top of the First Stage, perhaps where the Second Stage engine might be situated within the casing. OK, that means that we could narrow this down to a rough physical location.

Yet on this, Ars reckon that they know what the fault is and that the fault lies with SpaceX. They may even be right...

But...

1. Do Ars know that for a fact? No.
2. Do Ars know whether the launch was a repeat of a previously known-good configuration, or whether SpaceX were trying out new design and/or components? No.
3. Do Ars know whether the Facebook payload imposed any specific requirements on the Falcon configuration that might have led to the incident? No.

Yet despite a complete and utter lack of knowledge of the subject at hand [except, I concede again, that the rocket blew up! ], Ars reckon that they know how to tell SpaceX and Elon musk how to run their space launch business... There could be literally scores or hundreds of reasons behind the failure. That failure could be design, material defect, or process in nature, or it could be an obscure combination of several things. It could quite easily be a failure induced on SpaceX because of constraints imposed elsewhere, by someone else.


I'm quite certain that there will be people who read this comment and think ("Ah, SpaceX fan-boy there...") but you'd be wrong. I'm not writing this because I'm a particular fan of SpaceX, but because I'm particularly unimpressed with the arrogance and disengenuous nature of Ars reporting. [ If the launch had been perfect, no doubt they would have been writing about the "unstoppable SpaceX" ].

No. A lot of the time, a lot of the Ars journalists are respectable and write thoughtful pieces. This, on the other hand, was opportunistic garbage written by an ambulance-chasing waster.

Eric Burger: If you're so good, how about you go design a rocket that can put the same mass into LEO and show us all how it's done, eh?

Re:Ars Are Welcome To Try

[HanzoSpam]

Agree. There's nothing extraordinary about a rocket exploding. I expect we'll see plenty more of them before the technology is developed sufficiently to rule them out completely. It's not even clear to me that the technology will ever be sufficiently perfect to avoid them entirely.

Exploding rockets are the cost developing the technology. While unfortunate, it's good that SpaceX is shaking out their technology and making their mistakes before they start putting people in those things.

Re:Yes they do

[HanzoSpam]

Exactly what reason do we have to believe it was a lack of focus that was the cause of the accident? It's not like exploding rockets are unknown, and engineering tends to be an iterative process. I doubt this will be the last rocket that explodes for them.

SpaceX is experimenting and learning. Part of that is going to involve making mistakes and correcting them. It's doubtful we'll be seeing completely safe and predictable space travel in our lifetimes, if ever.

Nobody can "colonize" Mars.

[Sqreater]

A colony is an expansion into unused resources. There are none on Mars. Mars is a desert like no desert on the face of the Earth. Stop the teenage sci-fi goals please. I agree, do something adult and useful.

NASA on twitter

[Netdoctor]

I think it says something about the American space program when NASA's twitter feed is largely remembering past missions.