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SpaceX's Reusable Rockets Win US Air Force General's Endorsement (bloomberg.com)
As the military looks to drive down costs, the head of U.S. Air Force Space Command said he's "completely committed" to launching future missions with recycled rockets like those championed by SpaceX's Elon Musk. "It would be 'absolutely foolish' not to begin using pre-flown rockets, which brings such significant savings that they'll soon be commonplace for the entire industry, General John W. 'Jay' Raymond said," reports Bloomberg. From the report: "The market's going to go that way. We'd be dumb not to," he said. "What we have to do is make sure we do it smartly." The Air Force won't be able to use the recycled boosters until they're certified for military use, a process that Raymond suggested may already be in the works. "The folks out at Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles that work for me would be in those dialogues," he said, declining to specify when certification could take place. "I don't know how far down the road we've gotten, but I am completely committed to launching on a reused rocket, a previously flown rocket, and making sure that we have the processes in place to be able to make sure that we can do that safely."
the head of U.S. Air Force Space Command said he's "completely committed" to launching future missions with recycled rockets like those championed by SpaceX's Elon Musk
Wiki doesn't give his age, but he was a 2nd Lt. in 1984, so his retirement must be coming up. The only question is whether SpaceX will give him a seat on the board or retain him as a consultant for his "loyalty"?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
By coincidence, just re-reading Sky Masters.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
My wife and I had our first child nearly a decade ago. Michael was born healthy and seemed to be developing normally. A few months before Michael was to start kindergarten, his pediatrician administered a couple of vaccines, one of which was the MMR. Everything seemed normal at first, and Michael started kindergarten at the end of the summer. After a few months, we noticed that Michael seemed more distant and communicated less, preferring isolation. Initially, we thought it was related to his experience at school and spoke with his teacher to ask if there was an explanation. The teacher wasn't aware of any reason for the change in behavior, but noticed the same thing that Michael seemed to be losing interest in playing with other children at recess and was increasingly isolated.
Lacking an explanation for this trend, we took our child to a counselor, who noted the unusual behavior but failed to provide a hypothesis to explain why. Then we returned to the pediatrician to see if he could find an answer. No obvious medical problems were found, so he recommended that we continue trying to encourage Michael to interact not only with us but to engage socially with other children. Despite our best efforts and those of his teacher, Michael continues to become more isolated and less social, as if he was off in his own world. As Michael was coming to the end of kindergarten, the teacher expressed reservations about him being prepared for first grade. Alarmed by this, we again pressed the pediatrician for an explanation. After visiting specialists over the period of a couple of months, we eventually received the diagnosis: Michael was autistic.
This was shocking to us. A year ago, Michael seemed like a normal five year old, excited to be around his parents and to play with other children. And now he was diagnosed with autism. Although the doctors were unwilling to make the connection, the truth dawned on us that the MMR vaccine has caused our child to develop autism.
My wife and I strongly want to prevent the spread of infectious
Oops, accidentally hit the submit button too soon...
My wife and I had our first child nearly a decade ago. Michael was born healthy and seemed to be developing normally. A few months before Michael was to start kindergarten, his pediatrician administered a couple of vaccines, one of which was the MMR. Everything seemed normal at first, and Michael started kindergarten at the end of the summer. After a few months, we noticed that Michael seemed more distant and communicated less, preferring isolation. Initially, we thought it was related to his experience at school and spoke with his teacher to ask if there was an explanation. The teacher wasn't aware of any reason for the change in behavior, but noticed the same thing that Michael seemed to be losing interest in playing with other children at recess and was increasingly isolated.
Lacking an explanation for this trend, we took our child to a counselor, who noted the unusual behavior but failed to provide a hypothesis to explain why. Then we returned to the pediatrician to see if he could find an answer. No obvious medical problems were found, so he recommended that we continue trying to encourage Michael to interact not only with us but to engage socially with other children. Despite our best efforts and those of his teacher, Michael continues to become more isolated and less social, as if he was off in his own world. As Michael was coming to the end of kindergarten, the teacher expressed reservations about him being prepared for first grade. Alarmed by this, we again pressed the pediatrician for an explanation. After visiting specialists over the period of a couple of months, we eventually received the diagnosis: Michael was autistic.
This was shocking to us. A year ago, Michael seemed like a normal five year old, excited to be around his parents and to play with other children. And now he was diagnosed with autism. Although the doctors were unwilling to make the connection, the truth dawned on us that the MMR vaccine has caused our child to develop autism.
My wife and I strongly want to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. However, the value of a vaccine in preventing illness is not worth playing Russian Roulette with the possibility of a child developing autism. We have seen the dangers of vaccines first hand. We have since had two more children, and have pledged to not subject them to any vaccinations. We couldn't live with ourselves if we knowingly subjected our children to a risk of autism. No parent who loves their children could put them at such a risk.
are the costs actually lower during their lifetime?
I read that reuseable rockets are not yet less expensive than one-way rockets, unless you manage to get dozends of launches per rockets.
And his musk.
Those rockets are half as efficient as the space shuttle. Just think about it... the rocket is carrying the fuel it needs for the landing with it to space. Carrying the fuel it needs is the biggest problem every rocket has, and now, Elon is adding EVEN MORE fuel to it. How dumb is that ? Everybody is talking about the returning rocket and what a good idea it is, but it totally isn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Guess they should have eaten their own dog food, and they could have been recycling rockets since the '70s.
Those rockets are half as efficient as the space shuttle. Just think about it... the rocket is carrying the fuel it needs for the landing with it to space. Carrying the fuel it needs is the biggest problem every rocket has, and now, Elon is adding EVEN MORE fuel to it. How dumb is that ?
Not nearly as dumb as spending fuel on carrying WINGS into space. In case you weren't aware, wings are utterly useless on a spacecraft for 99.999% of the journey and are completely useless for any purpose except landing on a nicely groomed runway. What you thought that it doesn't cost anything to lift those very heavy wings into orbit? Do you think there are a lot of prepared runways on Mars or the Moon?
Seriously my friend, do you really think that all those actual rocket scientists at SpaceX and elsewhere haven't given this issue any thought?
Are they going to use them for ICBMs? :-D
RRK
No more 1500$ toilet seats and 300$ hammers?
No more paying Boeing 20 times the amount needed?
(as hidden subsidies, so that they can still exist on the world market?)
" the rocket is carrying the fuel it needs for the landing with it to space. Carrying the fuel it needs is the biggest problem every rocket has, and now, Elon is adding EVEN MORE fuel to it."
Surprisingly few rocket launches are sent into orbit with a full tank. They don't need to make the rocket bigger as they are just using some excess fuel capacity of the rocket. The extra fuel is almost a rounding error in the cost and a little extra in an otherwise underutilized tank for the landing is no big deal in most cases. It's a practical solution for a wide variety of circumstances.
In some cases having a wing can be a good trade-off too: for example for a small unmanned space shuttle, a delta wing is a very efficient solution, if you have a runway and atmosphere.
There are corner cases for everything but as a general proposition it is safe to say that wings on a spacecraft are approximately as useful as tits on a bull. There are better solutions than a lifting surfaces most of the time. There are very good reasons why we don't use them on the majority of spacecraft.
Rocket science is really too complicated to explain it in a comment.
Nobody is trying to explain all of rocket science. But a comment is more than adequate to correct a clearly wrong statement from someone who seems to claim that the space shuttle was somehow an efficient or good solution.