SpaceX Returns To Flight, And Nails Another Drone Landing (cnn.com)

Applehu Akbar writes: SpaceX successfully launched a 10-satellite Iridium NEXT package, and then landed on a drone ship — this time from Vandenburg AFB in California. The launch had been delayed several days by this week's record rainfall and flooding.
CNN has video of the launch, and points out its obvious significance. "Because rockets are worth tens of millions of dollars, and they have historically been discarded after launch, mastering the landing is key to making space travel more affordable... Saturday's launch marks the seventh time SpaceX has successfully landed a rocket."

Comments

Sweet

[NEDHead]

Can't wait to see three boosters land at once

Re:Sweet

[Areyoukiddingme]

Can't wait to see how much more free money the govt. gives them.

So now building an object 23 stories tall that can fly into orbit is free? Good to know.

Or maybe you're just an asshole.

Re:Sweet

[Rob Riggs]

Russia trolling /. They're pissed that the U.S. won't have to buy Russian rocket engines. Seems some people with sense in D.C. realized having an adequate native heavy lift capability was strategically important.

Re: Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

Space-X sells services that the government needs at a much lower price than anyone else. Should pizzas be free just because they are ordered by the government? No and it's the same with Space-X's Launch services. You have to be willfully obtuse to argue that the money Space-X earns is "free":

Re:Sweet

[WindBourne]

a lot less than what ULA gets. They get 1B / year.

Re: Sweet

[WindBourne]

no, the assholes are those screaming about it, but backing the competitors who are getting 3-10x as much subsidies.

Re: Sweet

[WindBourne]

well, the Asshole Coward before does have a point that the feds HAVE given SpaceX money. In particular, they have given 300 M to SpaceX to help develop Dragon, F1, and F9. Of course, it was a billion to build everything, so most money came from private funding.
What Asshole Coward purposely lies about is that ULA gets 1B / year for the last 10 years, AND SpaceX has lowered the costs of launch to the gov so much, that in the first couple of years, the feds made back their 300 Million.

And if the Asshole Coward tries to bring up 'gov subsidies' for Tesla/Solar City, he will only make more of an asshole out of himself.

Re:Sweet

[mutantSushi]

It's so refreshing that Elon Musk has finally helped us see thru the Star Trek idiocy of global cooperation replacing narrow national hatreds. Besides, nobody like Chekov anyways.

Re:Sweet

[Ryanrule]

fuck off trump, you just salty the russian rockets are being trumped.

Re: Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

Hola senior, don't be upset, invest into a Mexican space agency. It is very affordable for poor people, send us 50 bucks.

Re:Sweet

[Michael Woodhams]

Can't wait to see three boosters land at once

You won't. All going well, at some point you'll see two landing at once, and a third a few minutes later.

Re: Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

the poor just drink beer and smoke crack and shoot each other, waste of $$$$

Re:Sweet

[ArmoredDragon]

Maybe you can get the space cops to send him to space jail.

Re: Sweet

[phayes]

Hey moron, which part of "services that the government needs" is it that you refuse to understand? Access to space is a need that is indépendant of politics.

Re: Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know he is old?

Re: Sweet

[fisternipply]

And you think ULA hasn't? This mode of thinking is asinine. All MIC contractors suck the teat of American taxpayer funding as hard as they can, that is their raison d'etre. Sometimes they produce something that advances the interests of the country or humanity, such as spaceflight. That SpaceX is making novel progress in the field, for an order of magnitude less cost to We The People, is a positive change IMHO.

What is the motivation for all this ignorant naysaying? Are these commenters (who seem to crawl all over the 'net for Musk-related news) ULA employees? Or perhaps listeners of a certain kind of radio program that deals in fact-free reactionary sensationalism?

Re:Sweet

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Even Chekov's car didn't like Chekov. ;/

Re:Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

And then refuse to bid on government contracts, because there additional per-contract price still looks like a rip-off compared to SpaceX.

Re:Sweet

[hackertourist]

Musk did nothing to do that, increasing tension between Russia and the US did.

Apart from that, keeping a large number of Russian rocket scientists and engineers gainfully employed after the collapse of the USSR wasn't some Star Trek fantasy, it was the right strategy. Much better than letting those chips fall where they may. We'd have seen a lot worse than Scuds in various wars.

Third, if we're talking about idiocy, that monikers fits 'narrow national hatreds' rather well.

Re: Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

the rich just drink cognac and smoke cigars and sell weapons and make wars, waste of $$$$$

Re: Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia or ULA would benefit the most from the FUD.

Great strides

[Dorianny]

Landing a rocket is quite an achievement but the real test (and the ultimate goal) is to actually relaunch a used rocket successfully without extensive refurbishing

Re: Great strides

[Anonymous Coward]

Delivering services for money is not getting free money...smh

Re:Great strides

[Nutria]

without extensive refurbishing

Exactly, since you certainly know that's what dooms the Space Shuttle.

Re: Great strides

[Strider-]

I don't normally reply to ACs, but the fuel cost is roughly negligible. The propellants used for landing are mostly the contingency propellants they woudl need to cary any way in case of a problem with one or more engines. As far as refurbishment costs go, we'll see, but the second landed booster has had at least 10 full duration test firings since landing, without anything going boom, and minimal refurbishment.

And finally, ok, so SpaceX is getting government funds. Do you think that ULA isn't? Competition and different approaches are a good thing. From a strategic perspective, the United States Government needs to maintain launch capabilities for its own payloads. It's better to have multiple options for those launches.

Re: Great strides

[Anonymous Coward]

You appear to be a broken record, spamming this topic repetitively. Maybe if we tap the tone arm, you will move along on your track. Please??

Re: Great strides

[im_thatoneguy]

This criticism is based on a naive look at $/kg aka you sacrifice 30% of payload for re-use and it costs 30% more. But that ignores the fact that many launches are already well within the capabilities of the launcher so there isn't a 30% additional payload that anyone wants to send.

It's a bit like the old trope "An SUV uses less fuel per passenger than a car!" while ignoring the regular use cases where a bus operates at half or quarter capacity.

It also only assumes a 30% reduction in cost/kg which is where SpaceX is *starting* at with re-use and will undoubtedly improve as they apply the lessons learned from returned stages.

Re: Great strides

[Anonymous Coward]

Please show your work. What are the additional costs of landing the first stage and refurbishing it versus building a new first stage from scratch.

Re:Great strides

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh. It doesn't matter how extensive the refurbishment is, just as long as it costs a fair bit less than building another one from scratch. ;)

Re: Great strides

[WindBourne]

oh that asshole coward knows that SpaceX gets a fraction of what EACH of ULA, Boeing, and L-Mart get.
The problem is, that he works for ULA, and hopes to actually convert ppl with more fake news/lies.
Sadly, the asshole does not care about our nation, but only ULA. That is why he does not mind seeing NASA and DOD waste 10x to launch what space does.

Re: Great strides

[Ksevio]

Probably doesn't work for ULA - they're typically smart people that favor space flight.

Recently the alt-right have been targeting Elon Musk with alt-facts because he's a capitalist or something. I imagine it originate with Russians unhappy that the US has a second source of rocket engines.

Re: Great strides

[catchblue22]

ULA, the launch consortium of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, got $1 billion dollars per year just to maintain "launch readiness". Then they charged $400 million or so for each launch. SpaceX charges about $130 million for cargo launches to the space station. Oh, and do you really think that Boeing or Lockheed Martin paid fully for the development of the Delta or Atlas rockets? SpaceX is providing an essential service for a fraction of the cost of "competitors". The Musk "government subsidy" meme has been a laughable piece of propaganda put forward by Musks competitors, who are themselves recipients of FAR MORE government largesse than Musk could ever hope for. For all I know, repeaters of this meme are in fact getting paid by ULA, GM, Ford, Exxon, or any number of competitors who are likely to lose billions to Musk's companies.

Re: Great strides

[WindBourne]

Actually, I am pretty sure that I know who the guy is. And yeah, he actually works for ULA (there are always a few assholes at any large company).
That idiot is the same one running around screaming about musk, tesla, solar city and spacex on /.. Sad.

But, you are correct about the far right targeting musk. They are the ones that have been screaming about 'subsidies' for musk, while making up all sorts of BS. For example, the 7.5K subsidy for EVs is actually a tax break for the car buyer, not the car company. And it applies to EV AND Hybrids. But the far right are the same ones that tried to gut SpaceX from CCxDev and instead harmed SNC (another local company here).

Re:Great strides

[Rei]

It depends what you mean by "refurbishing"; each element is different.

The solid rocket boosters, for example, suffered a hard impact into salt water. They then had to be fished out of the water. And of course you don't just "refill" a SRB, they have to be taken apart and recast, then put back together.

The ET is disposable, and had to be rebuilt from scratch.

The orbiter was legitimately reusable, but with design flaws.

I don't blame the shuttle program - they were sort of pigeonholed into this dead end by circumstances. The concept came about during the heyday of the Apollo Programme, when NASA budgets were serious. It was supposed to be a much more reusable, much more maintainable, and somewhat smaller system. It was supposed to then have a huge flight rate supporting all of these big projects that were on NASA's docket, including a permanent moon base and a huge manned orbital station dwarfing ISS, which was supposed to replace Skylab.

But of course, Vietnam and the realities of having soundly trounced the USSR in the space race led to their budgets being slashed, which pushed the program into ever more untenable positions until it was nothing more than a jobs programme. Forget full flyback reusability of all parts. Forget the titanium frame for the shuttle, which would have let it run hot and thus not required so sensitive of a TPS. Go begging for money and be forced to modify the design to meet Air Force requirements, pushing you into an inferior design position. On and on.

If I'd fault them for anything, it'd be for going straight for a full reusable workhorse rather than a small-scale pilot programme first. But those were the days of optimism. Optimism which only recently seems to start being regained.

Either way, the Falcon boosters are a very different beast. A vertical soft landing is hugely different from the SRBs, yet the thermal issues are far easier than with the Shuttle. And the Merlins were designed from the start under the principle of preventing the need for a full teardown. That doesn't mean that they will be cheap to reuse. But it does mean that they have the possibility of it.

I do think SpaceX had a rather clever strategy, in that while their goal was reusable, they made a rocket that in the process was cheap as a disposable. So they could get volume and flight history while working on getting the kinks out. They may have flown too close to the sun with the densified propellants and (externally) unlined COPVs, but obviously, with a company like this, their whole existence is to push the envelope.

Re: Great strides

[Anonymous Coward]

The propellants used for landing are mostly the contingency propellants they woudl need to cary any way in case of a problem with one or more engines.

Not true. When a booster is a few 100 km downrange and moving at a few km/s, turning it around and bringing it back to the launchpad takes a fair bit of fuel. Not loads of fuel, because the booster is pretty light at this point, but more than you'd carry just as a contingency.

You're correct that the cost of the actual fuel is negligible, and so the GP is incorrect that the cost of the additional fuel makes recoverable boosters less economic. There is, however, a real problem: because you need to separate the first-stage booster while it still has some fuel left, your second stage needs to do more work, and so it can't carry as much payload to orbit. You lose something like a third of your potential payload. It's still worth doing - I'd prefer to put 20 tonnes in orbit at the cost of 0 boosters than 30 tonnes in orbit at the cost of 1 booster - but it's not quite as nice as it might be otherwise.

Re:Great strides

[Nutria]

Rebuilding the SSMEs is what I was thinking of.

Re: Great strides

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Not true. When a booster is a few 100 km downrange and moving at a few km/s, turning it around and bringing it back to the launchpad takes a fair bit of fuel.

That's why you don't do it. With a launch profile that takes you 100 km downrange, you land downrange.

Re: Great strides

[Anonymous Coward]

A significant fraction of the landing propellant is contingency propellant, though...possibly the majority for those geosynchronous launches that require a minimum-fuel ASDS landing far downrange. And there's a side benefit in that the landing propellant can be retasked as an unusually large margin of contingency propellant if the booster has trouble.

Re: Great strides

[Pascoea]

the second landed booster has had at least 10 full duration test firings since landing

Can I add a (somewhat, possibly) intelligent question to the group? What would be the most likely cause of a failure on a "flight proven" (used) booster? Something functional such as a pump, sensor or electronics, something likely to be caught by a test firing. Or would it more likely be something structural, that wouldn't be caught until full-flight stresses are placed on it?

Re:Great strides

[Areyoukiddingme]

And the Merlins were designed from the start under the principle of preventing the need for a full teardown. That doesn't mean that they will be cheap to reuse. But it does mean that they have the possibility of it.

Considering they've publicly stated that one of the earlier successfully soft-landed first stages has undergone no less than 10 test firings on the test stand in Texas, with "minimal refurbishing," it seems cost-effective reuse isn't merely a possibility: it's a virtual certainty.

Re:Great strides

[Anonymous Coward]

has undergone no less than 10 test firings on the test stand in Texas, with "minimal refurbishing," it seems cost-effective reuse isn't merely a possibility: it's a virtual certainty

That might be overstating the case. Until one of these minimally-refurbished rockets has been through a couple MaxQ stress tests, it's far from certain.
But I wouldn't disagree that it's quite likely that Tesla is right.

Re: Great strides

[Strider-]

I'd wager that the most likely cause of failure would be a fatigue and/or structural failure in the rocket, but I'm just making an educated guess. The high stress systems (turbopumps, engines, cryo systems) have been strongly tested by the static firings. That said, 50 years of aerospace technology has taught a lot about how aluminum ages and operates under stress, though of course we still saw a structural failure on CRS-7, so who knows?

Re:Great strides

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but comparative to the accomplishment of merely recovering the first stage making them reusable should be childs play. The mere fact that they make it back proves that the engines can survive the pounding. Even if some of the engines are weakened the recovery the subsequent testing should single them out for replacement. And even if that testing misses the odd engine one Falcon flight has already shown that an the rocket can survive even an explosive engine failure (CRS-1 launch). At most they might have to tweak some designs and launch methodologies. As long as they can tease out some of their other gremlins (the pressurization tanks/struts) and keep up their recovery rate they should drastically reduce launch costs.

Re: Great strides

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd wager that the most likely cause of failure would be a fatigue and/or structural failure in the rocket, but I'm just making an educated guess. The high stress systems (turbopumps, engines, cryo systems) have been strongly tested by the static firings. That said, 50 years of aerospace technology has taught a lot about how aluminum ages and operates under stress, though of course we still saw a structural failure on CRS-7, so who knows?

That's what worries me about their plan to put a customer cargo on top of their first launch of a re-used booster. Yes, they've run a load of static fire tests, and yes, I'm sure they've done a very thorough inspection of the structure, but the stresses of launch are high and you'll only really see how re-usable it is when you actually re-use it. I personally think they should do a dummy launch first up to prove the point. And more importantly to minimise the risk of losing another $100m cargo so soon after the last one.

Re: Great strides

[tibit]

The cost of additional fuel is so far down the list of various costs that it's essentially measurement noise. The recovery and refurb costs are already less than having to manufacture a whole new stage. That's all you need to make reuse economically viable. Even 10% savings is all it'd take to make it viable. As it stands, their recovery flow cost is much better than that. Think a couple times better than 10% saving. Alas, since nobody has ever done booster recovery, they are of course working on streamlining their reuse operations flow. It has literally never been done before by anyone else, you can't just hire someone with direct experience. SpaceX are the trailblazers here in the true sense of the word. And your arguments are just pathetic. I'm a tax payer too, and I'd gladly have my money go to SpX over ULA.

Re: Great strides

[Areyoukiddingme]

Yes, they've run a load of static fire tests, and yes, I'm sure they've done a very thorough inspection of the structure, but the stresses of launch are high and you'll only really see how re-usable it is when you actually re-use it.

There's an argument to be made that the return flight is a second stress test. The booster is flying at Mach 10 above the majority of the Earth's atmosphere. Then it intentionally dives back in. Coming back in is very nearly as tough on it as going up was. Other first stage boosters actually break up in the atmosphere when they reenter, it's so tough to do. The Falcon 9 booster not only makes it back into the atmosphere, but flips itself end-for-end twice, which has gotta be a severe lateral jolt, and then soft lands. That's three kicks to the pants (deceleration burn, reentry burn, landing burn), and two kicks to the head (flipping once for deceleration and once for landing). That sounds worse than the trip up and out, which is just one long steady push with some buffeting along the way.

Falcon 9 first stages already survive far rougher treatment than any other rocket ever has. Given how many of them have made it back in one piece, it bodes well for the re-use case.

more CNN fake news

[turkeydance]

look at the shadows in the video. they're all wrong.

Re:more CNN fake news

[jfdavis668]

That's because this was actually filmed in a sound stage on the Moon.

Re:more CNN fake news

[cdsparrow]

Yeah, they probably faked it from the moon. Takes less fuel and is probably easier in general in the low gravity. Cheaters!!!!

Re:more CNN fake news

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell would a nerd watch this on CNN? A freaking cable channel?

Get with the times Slashdot editors.

Re:more CNN fake news

[mykepredko]

Who said the landing was on Earth? Mr. Musk's creation is a lot more advanced than we can even suspect.

Re:more CNN fake news

[murdocj]

If they faked it on the moon how come the flag is waving?

Re:more CNN fake news

[Areyoukiddingme]

If they faked it on the moon how come the flag is waving?

Springs! Duh! It's all done with springs. And smoke. And mirrors.

Re:more CNN fake news

[Anonymous Coward]

Russian trolls still at it.

Re:more CNN fake news

[Anonymous Coward]

It was faked on Mars.
Fun fact - Musk is an alien trying to get from Mars to Earth and got The Martian movie made to get us interested in a Martian rescue. The "Elon Musk" you think you know is just a mechanical puppet being controlled from the Red Planet which is why he comes off as so awkward & stutters so much.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

You know they like it.

Re:Awesome

[Applehu Akbar]

SpaceX is launching for Iridium, a private corporation, and making lease payments to the Air Force for use of SLC-4B at Vandenberg. At the Cape, SpaceX sells launch services to NASA as a replacement for the more expensive Russian launches of its Progress space sattion supply missions. Eventually, it will take over NASA's other Russian operation, ferrying ISS crews.

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

CNN video sucks.. here's the link on Youtube

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTmbSur4fcs

Re:CNN video sucks.. here's the link on Youtube

[Nutria]

To skip over the music, https://youtu.be/tTmbSur4fcs?t...

Re:CNN video sucks.. here's the link on Youtube

[wisebabo]

wow, thanks

Re:CNN video sucks.. here's the link on Youtube

[Anonymous Coward]

And the landing

Happiness

[hackwrench]

If you aren't living your life doing things that bring you happiness, that is on you.

Spelling...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Vandenberg, not "Vandenburg"! Jesus Christ, if it wasn't bad enough that you kids can't even spell "probably" or "wield", now you demonstrate that you haven't played Deus Ex, otherwise you'd know the actual name of that US Air Force base.

Re:Spelling...

[Anonymous Coward]

why come u so angry?

Re:Spelling...

[Andreas Mayer]

It's Vandenberg, not "Vandenburg"!

May I help to explain the difference?

http://www.harmless.de/images/...

Re: Awesome

[Applehu Akbar]

Let us all know when you come up with some real news.

Re: Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut the fuck up, you know nothing.

Poor effort. I remember when trolls around here actually tried.

Re: Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Just kidding, I agree with him.

Re: Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

It ain't subsidized when it's paying for a needed service that the government would be paying more money for elsewhere. What's the matter troll boy? Is Space-X putting your daddy who works for an overpriced rival out of work? Awww, poor you...

discarded after launch

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the US government. Of course they'd discard it. They don't have to worry about money because it is unlimited. If they need more, they'll just raise your taxes. Joy!

Re: Awesome

[hey!]

Well, you could allow ULA to have an (also ultimately government subsidized) monopoly. See if that saves you money.

Re: Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

By that token the government should pay for my education because when I graduate I will help move the country forward, generate more tax revenue, reduce the unemployment rate, and create more jobs. Oh wait does that logic only apply to the already rich?

Re: Awesome

[WindBourne]

actually, they have not. You obviously are a constant liar and do not care for the truth.
Trump, why are you here trolling?

Lunar Lander High Score

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Elon Musk Over 9000
2. . . .

Re:Awesome

[Ryanrule]

says the boy from a taker state.

Fear is the mind killer

[Xenographic]

That AC is being dumb about the subsidies--Elon has done far more good with those than most and I cheer for his success. I sincerely wish more of our subsidies were bringing us awesome tech the way the ones going to him are. That said, your post is nonsense too.

Elon is a Trump advisory team member and they've been cooperating together.

But why let facts get in the way here when you can conjure more Russian boogeymen?

Making America great again

[Michael Woodhams]

What do people mean when they say "make America great again"? My understanding is that they want a USA which is making new innovative industries, employing lots of people in the USA with high paying jobs, and making profit in the process (the more the better.) Elon Musk is the poster child for doing all of those things - yet many people crying "Make America great again" are trying to tear him down. The kindest explanation is that they are so blinded by ideology that they can't think straight.

Re:Making America great again

[Anonymous Coward]

And Bernie's platform wasn't a pastiche of slogans too? Nobody in the public knows what any political slogans mean, except at a high, hand-wavy level. If you'd ever paid attention, you'd notice that the vast majority of people in the world think in terms of slogans, identity politics, and hazy ideological platform.

Re:Making America great again

[someone1234]

It isn't an oil well, or car factory... oops, he makes cars... well, it isn't a gas guzzling car factory.

Re:Making America great again

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they mean "Make america grate again", as in, grate on everybody's nerves?

Re:Making America great again

[Andreas Mayer]

What do people mean when they say "make America great again"?

I think most of those people actually mean "I want the world to revert back to how it was X years ago". With X depending on personal experiences.

Of course, that's impossible.

Re:Making America great again

[drinkypoo]

What do people mean when they say "make America great again"? My understanding is that they want a USA which is making new innovative industries, employing lots of people in the USA with high paying jobs, and making profit in the process

What they actually mean is "make America great for white people again" because it was never great for anyone else. Time was, even the lowest, most useless white person had an edge over darker-colored people in the job market, which kept them employed at a time when there were enough jobs to employ all the white people. So point the first, they're racist fucks, whether they actually even know it or not. Point the second, they're idiots and dumbfucks, because you can't turn back the clock. Soon there will not be enough jobs for anyone and it won't matter what color you are. The world is already trending that way; as we diminish racial inequality (still going strong, but less so than in the past) we simply stratify still further along economic lines. Or as the saying goes, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.

People who want to "Make America Great Again" are racists. Full fucking stop.

Re:Making America great again

[swillden]

What do people mean when they say "make America great again"?

I think most of those people actually mean "I want the world to revert back to how it was X years ago". With X depending on personal experiences.

Of course, that's impossible.

Very true. And I think what Trump is thinking of when he says it is the greatness of the captains of industry, like Rockefeller, Sinclair, Carnegie, etc., with himself and his friends in the leading roles.

Re:Making America great again

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Pre-shredded cheese ban incoming!

Re:Making America great again

[Anonymous Coward]

Elon Musk is in Trump's cabinet...

Re:Making America great again

[Big Hairy Ian]

They are just being crabby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you could allow ULA to have an (also ultimately government subsidized) monopoly. See if that saves you money.

It's far easier to just give Elon 3 Billion Dollars every year for failing.

Wait. That is what is we are currently doing. Nevermind.

Re: Awesome

[Rei]

Most of Europe agrees with you. And even the US agrees with you up through high school plus with various forms of assistance for college, including state-subsidies, particularly for state colleges, and federal subsidies (direct subsidies, tax credits, and tax breaks), roughly $80B/year each. Pell grants alone cost the government $35B.

Re: Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

A Falcon only failed on one mission, an ISS cargo resupply (aka, not a valuable object being sent). Every last one of their other missions for federal customers has worked fine (and there have been many), and saved them a huge amount of money versus competitors.

What's the stick in your craw for that one private company is saving the government huge amounts of money vs. another private company?

Re: Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds more like you are arguing that government employees and supplies shouldn't be paid for work and goods...

Re: Awesome

[Strider-]

Well, when CRS-7 failed, it did destroy a reasonably valuable piece, the International Docking Adapter A.

Interestingly, the Dragon would most likely have survived (and will now in the case of a similar failure) had the software been setup to deploy the parachutes in case of a breakup like that. Unfortunately, the IDA was in the trunk, which wouldn't have been saved by the parachutes.

Am I the only one...

[Rei]

.... who can't help but cheer at my screen when they nail one of those landings? Now I finally understand how sports fans feel when they watch a game and do the same thing ;)

One thing nobody can deny about them is optimism. ;) Seriously, their IPS numbers are, pardon the pun, out of this world. $200k per booster launch. $500k per tanker launch. I mean, really? Good luck with that. No, seriously, good luck with that; I won't be expecting anything close to that, but please by all means prove me wrong ;) ITS would be a great system to have, I've been playing around with some Venus trajectories with it recently. Looks like it can do a low-energy transit with nearly 300 tonnes of payload from LEO and back again with the same, over 400 if starting at a high orbit - but from an economics perspective the high energy transfers actually make more sense.

I noticed a lot of people were confused about why Musk wanted the trips to be so short and was willing to sacrifice so much payload to do so - many assumed it had to do with radiation or something. But the issue is, when your craft costs so much but your launch costs are cheap, you can't have it spending all of its time drifting in deep space, you need to get it back for a new mission as soon as possible. There's a balancing point, in that if you try to go too fast, you reduce useful payload below the point of making up for it with going faster - but a minimum energy trajectory is just not optimal when the ratio between launch costs and transit vehicle cost is so extreme. I come up with the same thing from Venus as they were getting for Mars, although for the Venus case you end up aerobraking to a highly elliptical orbit rather than to the surface for ISRU refill (you need ISRU, but for the ascent stages, so it's not realistic to do so for the return stage in the nearer term). So for Venus they get no refill like on Mars, but they also don't have to do a powered landing nor do an ascent on return - it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. Both are quite accessible with it.

Re:Am I the only one...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment made me realize that the future holds a very nice commercial opportunity for SpaceX!

Currently commercial launches all are simply to the orbit, but once they prove their stuff and can do regular round trips to mars, the moon is a piece of cake, and like you did with venus... It pretty much opens up the whole solar system.

This is where scientists (in practice NASA, ESA and other govt organizations) and maybe some few private companies will pay the mega bucks to launch a payloads to orbit any of the other stellar orbits.

Infact, i'd bet NASA would goto Musk at that point and just ask "hey what if we just fill it with fuel, and some science equipment, could we just buy the craft and send it out there never to return to see what is there and perhaps drop a bit of science equipment down the way??" ... Knowing musk he'd be happy to, and would probably jump to the opportunity and maybe even cut away the SpaceX profit margin effectively subsidizing NASA just to see it happen.

Hell, without the need to land and lift off, there could be space tourism just for a trip around the close bits of solar system lasting for a year. I bet many scientists would be happy to take the cruise and do tons of science when they are out there :)

After Mars is possible, the moon is essentially child's play. Taking stuff to the asteroid belt and back? Easy. well... Relatively easy at least :)

The future looks great. After that kind of stuff starts to happen it makes a great deal of sense to construct a humoungous permanent residence space station or moon base. Trips there would still be "super expensive", but anyone REALLY wanting to go could just do it, and companies would be sending A LOT of people all around looking for profit making opportunities or to develop stuff.

Once there is sufficient number of people out there, new for profit opportunities happen, and this is where will start seeing super fast progress. and even for new types of spacecraft.

Re:Am I the only one...

[HeckRuler]

There's a big difference between LEO and GEO in terms of fuel and weight and how much you can get out of the gravity well. Once you get past GEO, the cost difference of going further and getting to the moon and Mars just depends on how fast you want to get there.

Hell, without the need to land and lift off, there could be space tourism just for a trip around the close bits of solar system lasting for a year.

Nobody can bring enough food in one launch to last a year in space. Humans are a needy component.

Once there is sufficient number of people out there, new for profit opportunities happen

Unfortunately that's backwards. You won't have people out there unless there's profit opportunities. That's also pretty overly optimistic assuming that there will be new opportunities. But there are opportunities to go get raw material from space for use in further space-development as well as sending it back home.
Scientific opportunities are really only limited by the budget they receive. And there's a big incentive to go colonize Mars, which could kickstart the rest.

There are the assholes who bitch about every dime the government spends. There are the apathetic lot who don't see the utility of space. Equally dangerous to the space industry are the starry-eyed optimists dreaming impossible dreams. Keep it on an even keel.

Re:PayPal..

[Andreas Mayer]

I can't believe how many think Elon is some swell guy, even after he created that rabid parasitic overlord called PayPal with his mates.

PayPal is still the only service that let's me transfer money fast and easily internationally.

So, yes, Elon is a great guy.

And the rest of your post is just as much of a lie.

Re: Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not paying for services rendered is the asshole AC's false argument.

Re: PayPal..

[Anonymous Coward]

Transferwise.com is plenty fast for me.

Re:Awesome

[naughtynaughty]

Awesome, hating on Elon for having a private company pay to launch private satellites on a private launch vehicle.

Successfully

At a lower price than the competition

Re: Awesome

[naughtynaughty]

Free as in "Here's $3B in free money Elon, have a party or buy a yacht or do whatever you want with it" or was it free like "Here is $3B Elon, please build the following rockets so we can use them instead of expensive Russian rockets"?

You and I likey disagree as to what constitutes "free money".

Re:PayPal..

[sp4ni3l]

And the rest of your post is just as much of a lie.

One word: Why?

"hate" is the only unifying principle of the right

[Brannon]

Everything else is negotiable, including the "free market" and "love of their country".

Re: Awesome

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Of course it should. You're perfectly right. (But no art history courses, OK? Useful stuff.)

Re: Awesome

[khallow]

And mostly fail if you look at the launch record..

Take a gander at Falcon 9's launch statistics. 30 launch attempts with 4 failures (including one while test burning the engines). "Most" would be 16 or more, not 4.

Even if we try to inflate the number of failures by including Falcon 1 (3 failures of 5 launch attempts) and all 6 Falcon 9 first stage landing failures (even though not a one of those counts as a launch failure since NASA didn't pay for even one of those), we still end up with 13 out of 35 launches. 18 is "most".

That's brazenly wrong.

You sir, have the credibility of CNN.

Look who's projecting.

Re: Awesome

[khallow]

By that token the government should pay for my education because when I graduate I will help move the country forward, generate more tax revenue, reduce the unemployment rate, and create more jobs.

Unless, of course, you don't. Maybe they should bill you the full amount of your education when you turn out to be a waste of oxygen?

No more 1970's Russian Rockets

[Anonymous Coward]

Russian trolls now attack Musk because those Soviet Russian rockets will no longer be needed.

Re:Awesome

[Areyoukiddingme]

Awesome, hating on Elon for having a private company pay to launch private satellites on a private launch vehicle.

While actually paying the US Air Force pad lease and range fees at Vandenberg. The US government actually came out ahead on that launch.

I really wonder why Slashdot is subjected to so much ham-fisted, pathetically obvious, qualitatively bad propaganda. Why do they care what we think? Why is someone spending actual money trying to change how we think? There's a handful of millionaires lurking. I would be astonished if there's even one billionaire lurking on Slashdot. The vast majority of us control nothing, spend nothing, affect nothing. So why do we have to put up with these crap attempts to convince us to hate a rocket company? Makes no sense.

Re:Why then is Elon working with Trump?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The ridiculous fearmongering can stop now, it's a bit tiring"

That's what we've been saying - for EIGHT YEARS - about all the bullshit spewed about Obama.
Your bitching karma's coming due

Re: Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump, why are you here trolling?

KellyAnne must have changed his Twitter password again

Re: Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

not paying for services rendered

That's textbook Trump

Re:"hate" is the only unifying principle of the ri

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything else is negotiable, including the "free market" and "love of their country".

Rightwingers love the free market - as long as they're getting their cut.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be astonished if there's even one billionaire lurking on Slashdot...

...and if there is... Hi Elon! Stay awesome, dude! ;-)

Re:PayPal..

[Anonymous Coward]

One answer, because it's factually incorrect at best, and misleading at worst.

Without the 'welfare' to musk, NASA and the military would have spend far more 'welfare' with ULA and the Russians. Even at current prices, the 300 million that was given to SpaceX will be recuperated by having paid less for the launches within 3-4 years, and that is *without' any future reductions in price in the future.

So, however you look at it, it is cheaper, even in the relative short term, than not having given SpaceX the money.

One could argue that no 'welfare' should be paid for anything, including NASA itself, or any other welfare or research or education program, or governmental agency, etc. But that is another discussion, and only rabid libertarians make a huge deal off it in an obsessive way. The fact remains, as long as you have subsidies, SpaceX/Musk is a far better 'program' to invest in - or spend welfare on, if you want - than the vast majority of other things money is spend on, since it will repay itself back quite fast.

Re: Awesome

[tibit]

Falcon 9 had 2 failures, not 4. They had one secondary failure that you might count as the 3rd one. But `4` as a failure count of F9 is patently false.

Re: Awesome

[khallow]

You're right. I was eyeballing the graph and counted one of the pips as two.

Re:PayPal..

[rpstrong]

Without all the welfare given to musk, it would have been cheaper to launch with the Russians.

Which means that with the welfare given to Musk, it is cheaper to launch without the Russians.

Works for me.