Core catchers are designed to result in non criticality sustaining fuel configurations, plus the contamination from the eroding concrete will snuff any reaction pretty quick, leaving decay heat to manage. The China Syndrome of a super critical core melting its way into the water table and exploding is pure fantasy. Its actually pretty hard to get a reactor going, you need precise fuel configurations and precise isotopic concentrations for it to even function
This assumes that NK has anything remotely close to this capability. They've launched precisely 2 things into orbit (both of them much much much smaller than your theoretical maneuverable nuke with precision de-orbit capability) and both of which ceased to function before they even made it to orbit. ICBMs are much easier than what you propose
Chernobyl had nothing to do with a coolant problem (unless you mean in generic terms that it's coolant system wasn't designed to handle a power excursion in excess of 10 times its rated capacity). While steam voids caused reactor #4 to become extremely unstable, it was the additional graphite moderator located on the bottom of the control rods when they finally decided to shut things down, that caused the reactor to go prompt critical. It went from a few MW of power to 30GW in a fraction of a second. This is what blew the reactor apart, and no coolant system would have made a difference
I'm suggesting that robots like these will immediately replace everyone tomorrow, but a lot of Boston's funding comes from DARPA with the formal intent to build robot "pack mules" for the military so reliability is definitely an area of focus. I'd also say from a robustness perspective Atlas has come a long way since Asimo. Lastly the complexity of modern vehicles are easily comparable to an advanced aircraft from 20 years ago. We're getting pretty good at turning bleeding edge into disposable commodity in increasingly short periods of time.
For the sake of argument, lets say we do get it down to $100,000 a robot via mass production. For a warehouse working making $35k a year, your payback period is 3 years, very reasonable (its more complex as loaded labor rate for employees is higher, and there will be maintenance costs for the robot). Now for a warehouse you're not going to need this level of complexity (treads or wheels would probably work just fine).
As for dual use, its going to start impacting just about everything. When someone can program a self driving car to mow down a playground full or kids, or dutifully drive itself full of explosives to a target, pretty soon everything is dual use. When Corporate America can save billions on labor costs, expect the lobbyists to push loopholes through any military restrictions. After all (as least in the US) there are barely any limits on the gun itself, why the robot?
This is the biggest issue. Our current methods are designed to find large planets in close orbits. Finding a planet like Earth would take 3-5 years as you need to capture several transits to confirm the existence of an exoplanet. Planets like Jupiter or Saturn would take decades using current methods.
Its a fair point, I was just trying to pick an easy example. The fact is that even if the "tech" job isn't immediately automated, there are going to be a whole lot less "self driving semi truck technicians" vs. truckers out of work. I guess we'll just all have to go work in financial engineering as it so illogical that no AI will ever fully understand it
And the Shuttle launched just fine every time until Challenger. That's the thing about trends, you can use them to predict the future until you can't. Just like the warning that goes with every investment product "past performance may not be indicative of future gains". So yes, in the past, new technology has increased productivity and people have just moved to newer opportunities, however that doesn't guarantee that this will happen ad infinitum. Agrarian workers moved to manufacturing, and then into services, some of these were hugely disruptive and sometimes took generations for the transition to occur. There is also the question of looking at this from societies perspective and an individuals perspective. High school kids that once went to trucking school will now go to self driving car technician school. However an individual 45 year old truck driver who finds himself out of work as we transition to automated trucking isn't just going to seamlessly transition into the role of self driving car technician. There is also the concern of kids saddled with 6 figures of debt from their degree program (say in something useful as a civil engineer), finding that most of their career doesn't exist 20 years out when expert systems start designing buildings (or at least when demand for civil engineers drops ten fold). Sure you can say be the best civil engineer you can, keep learning, stay on the cutting edge, but in the end 90% of civil engineers will still be on unemployment
Calgary also made a sizable profit and the endowment used to mainain the facilities is still growing almost 30 years later. Pretty much every venue is still in use with the possible exception of the ski jumps.
No, you just flash fry the hemisphere. All that mass burning up in the atmosphere gets turned into heat, we're talking about turning the sky into an incandescent mass that radiates all that heat down to the ground. Rather have all that mass impact in one spot, bad day for that spot, but much better for the planet
There is also the element of funding for R&D. In the late 70's the DoE produced a fusion roadmap based on different funding levels. There was a crash program forcast which would have led to commercial fusion in 10-15 years, a robust development program that would led to fusion in 15-20 years, and a point where if funding remained below a certain level, would never lead to commercial fusion. Guess what funding level was chosen (well below the "fusion never" level). So the joke of "fusion is the technology of the future and always will be", is a result of no real investment being made. Sure ITER may be a $15billion project, but its also a 50 year long project. First announced in 1985, first plasma wont occur till 2025, that's 40 fricken years later, not exactly demonstrative of an intensive focus on developing fusion energy. Compared to what we invest in developing other sources of energy, its chump change
No, we had a fancy photo op and press release. Constellation had exactly the same problems, new President makes obligatory visit to KSC, makes a Kenneddyesque speech and never spends another second of his presidency thinking about it. We haven't had a president willing to invest political capital on space since Reagan (and even he didn't spend much)
In most cases you're looking at within several hundred miles of the Florida or California coast (likely a bit further for Falcon Heavy core stages), we're not talking about the Grand Banks here. As well the stages are extremely bottom heavy (the vast majority of the mass is at the bottom of the rocket) and cylinders are good for deflecting wind loads (only cones are better). I'll also point out that so far, barge movement, pitching and rolling, has not been a factor in any of the failed landing attempts to date. I'm amused at the level of armchair quarterbacking going on here, people seem to think that the folks at SpaceX are complete morons and haven't thought of these very obvious concerns. We're not talking about brilliant insights here, just a lot of "I spent 15 min on Google, so I'm an expert" comentators
So you're quite happy to spout "it will never work" without knowing much of the details.
Negative - you must have missed it in the post you are responding to. I'll repost that part again:
Never work? I never said that. I am certain that with enough money poured into the project, and making live landings of these things on barges in the ocean the actual mission, they will indeed work.
You said and I quote "Is going to fail then." period, full stop. (I assume you meant they are going to fail then, or it is going to fail then)
- Firstly the empty stages are extremely bottom heavy as all the engines, thrust structure and plumbing are located at the base. The only mass up top are empty tanks.
I've noted that at landing, most of the mass is in the bottom. Are you just pissed that someone takes a contrary opinion? Re-read what I wrote. But the question is how much of that mass is above the triangle formed by the landing gear? I dunno. I ask. Is the answer that I shouldn't ask?
There is nothing wrong with having a contrary opinion, provided its an informed opinion. You've pretty much told us that "Is going to fail then.", but admitted that you don't really understand what SpaceX is doing, how their going about it, or the design of the Falcon 9. It's not like you need to dig that deep for much of this information. The answer is yes, most of the mass is below the triangle formed by the landing gear. The lower attach point of the landing legs is on the thrust structure where all of the engines are attached. The upper attach point is on the base ring of the lower tank.
Another issue is fuel sloshing while pitching and rolling. They may have taken care of that.
If you don't know what they've "taken care of" you may want to avoid making blanket statements of "Is going to fail then." or about how far away they are from successfully landing a stage on a barge.
- Secondly, the barges when flooded are extremely stable, being able to maintain themselves within 3m even in heavy storm conditions.
Well now 9 feet pitch and roll is not "extremely stable". Regardless, at what sea state is this 9 foot pitch and roll achieved? For at least my outlook, I would prefer an active stabilization system on the barge. I'd be concerend a lot about that 9 feet pitch and roll movement after landing as well.If you are above sea state 5, could be a little saltwater ingress into thos reusable engines. I suspect however that stormy seas would be a mission abort factor.
You know what, 3m is also 3000 mm (sounds much bigger), and this is in sea states of 7-8 or storm conditions which is also as you indicated a "mission abort factor". Again you are making "predictions" about topics you don't really know much about. The ADSD's are actively stabilized, each fitted with 4 x 220 kW azipods
- Thirdly, there are many missions where a return to launch site isn't possible. The center core on a Falcon Heavy is too far down range to return to land. For large GEO sats, there isn't enough fuel to both launch the sat and return to launch site (RTLS reduces the mass to orbit on a Falcon 9 by 30%). So they MUST land on a barge if they want to reuse these stages
I'm not so certain that that argues against anything I've said. Seems to me that they aren't going to be able to reuse all their rockets then.
For what its worth, One of my most valuable traits while I was working was that I didn't take the "Hey - it's all worked out, and this will work great!
Because all of the YesMen become redundant when they have no ideas after the things that were a lead pipe cinch didn't work. People did eventually listen to me because so many times, what I asked about turned out to be an actual problem.
So you're quite happy to spout "it will never work" without knowing much of the details.
- Firstly the empty stages are extremely bottom heavy as all the engines, thrust structure and plumbing are located at the base. The only mass up top are empty tanks.
- Secondly, the barges when flooded are extremely stable, being able to maintain themselves within 3m even in heavy storm conditions.
- Thirdly, there are many missions where a return to launch site isn't possible. The center core on a Falcon Heavy is too far down range to return to land. For large GEO sats, there isn't enough fuel to both launch the sat and return to launch site (RTLS reduces the mass to orbit on a Falcon 9 by 30%). So they MUST land on a barge if they want to reuse these stages
Teams from the nearby tug will board the barge and tack weld cleats onto the landing legs, securing it to the barge. There will be no cranes involved until they return to port to remove the stage, although Elon has proposed that further down the road, the stage will simply be secured, partially refueled, cleats removed and "hop" back to land.
Save for a leg that failed to lock into place, the last attempt would have been successful. If you have some engineering data to indicate that it "will never work" I'm sure SpaceX would be happy to know.
Not going to happen. The barge is needed to recover the center stage of the Falcon Heavy, and during high performance missions where there isn't enough fuel for a return to launch site mission (RTLS reduces Falcon 9 payload to orbit by about 30%)
Not at all, when I buy tools I judge how frequently I'll need them. I use my table saw regularly so made the investment on a high quality cast iron model. I only expect to bend copper pipe a few times in my life, so I didn't spend a lot on high quality pipe benders. Still cost way less than hiring a plumber to come in and hook up my dishwasher
One problem is that people don't jump from low-skill to high-skill instantaneously. We're building a situation that there are few entry-level jobs for new-grads which allow them to start developing the skills they need to get those "high-skill" jobs. In 20 years when we're all retired, who's going to replace us?
Slashdot Mirror
Core catchers are designed to result in non criticality sustaining fuel configurations, plus the contamination from the eroding concrete will snuff any reaction pretty quick, leaving decay heat to manage. The China Syndrome of a super critical core melting its way into the water table and exploding is pure fantasy. Its actually pretty hard to get a reactor going, you need precise fuel configurations and precise isotopic concentrations for it to even function
This assumes that NK has anything remotely close to this capability. They've launched precisely 2 things into orbit (both of them much much much smaller than your theoretical maneuverable nuke with precision de-orbit capability) and both of which ceased to function before they even made it to orbit. ICBMs are much easier than what you propose
Chernobyl had nothing to do with a coolant problem (unless you mean in generic terms that it's coolant system wasn't designed to handle a power excursion in excess of 10 times its rated capacity). While steam voids caused reactor #4 to become extremely unstable, it was the additional graphite moderator located on the bottom of the control rods when they finally decided to shut things down, that caused the reactor to go prompt critical. It went from a few MW of power to 30GW in a fraction of a second. This is what blew the reactor apart, and no coolant system would have made a difference
That should read "I'm NOT suggesting"
I'm suggesting that robots like these will immediately replace everyone tomorrow, but a lot of Boston's funding comes from DARPA with the formal intent to build robot "pack mules" for the military so reliability is definitely an area of focus. I'd also say from a robustness perspective Atlas has come a long way since Asimo. Lastly the complexity of modern vehicles are easily comparable to an advanced aircraft from 20 years ago. We're getting pretty good at turning bleeding edge into disposable commodity in increasingly short periods of time.
For the sake of argument, lets say we do get it down to $100,000 a robot via mass production. For a warehouse working making $35k a year, your payback period is 3 years, very reasonable (its more complex as loaded labor rate for employees is higher, and there will be maintenance costs for the robot). Now for a warehouse you're not going to need this level of complexity (treads or wheels would probably work just fine). As for dual use, its going to start impacting just about everything. When someone can program a self driving car to mow down a playground full or kids, or dutifully drive itself full of explosives to a target, pretty soon everything is dual use. When Corporate America can save billions on labor costs, expect the lobbyists to push loopholes through any military restrictions. After all (as least in the US) there are barely any limits on the gun itself, why the robot?
This is the biggest issue. Our current methods are designed to find large planets in close orbits. Finding a planet like Earth would take 3-5 years as you need to capture several transits to confirm the existence of an exoplanet. Planets like Jupiter or Saturn would take decades using current methods.
Its a fair point, I was just trying to pick an easy example. The fact is that even if the "tech" job isn't immediately automated, there are going to be a whole lot less "self driving semi truck technicians" vs. truckers out of work. I guess we'll just all have to go work in financial engineering as it so illogical that no AI will ever fully understand it
And the Shuttle launched just fine every time until Challenger. That's the thing about trends, you can use them to predict the future until you can't. Just like the warning that goes with every investment product "past performance may not be indicative of future gains". So yes, in the past, new technology has increased productivity and people have just moved to newer opportunities, however that doesn't guarantee that this will happen ad infinitum. Agrarian workers moved to manufacturing, and then into services, some of these were hugely disruptive and sometimes took generations for the transition to occur. There is also the question of looking at this from societies perspective and an individuals perspective. High school kids that once went to trucking school will now go to self driving car technician school. However an individual 45 year old truck driver who finds himself out of work as we transition to automated trucking isn't just going to seamlessly transition into the role of self driving car technician. There is also the concern of kids saddled with 6 figures of debt from their degree program (say in something useful as a civil engineer), finding that most of their career doesn't exist 20 years out when expert systems start designing buildings (or at least when demand for civil engineers drops ten fold). Sure you can say be the best civil engineer you can, keep learning, stay on the cutting edge, but in the end 90% of civil engineers will still be on unemployment
Calgary also made a sizable profit and the endowment used to mainain the facilities is still growing almost 30 years later. Pretty much every venue is still in use with the possible exception of the ski jumps.
In what way? Virgin is entirely funded by Richard Branson (and the many people who have provided deposits for future flights)
No, you just flash fry the hemisphere. All that mass burning up in the atmosphere gets turned into heat, we're talking about turning the sky into an incandescent mass that radiates all that heat down to the ground. Rather have all that mass impact in one spot, bad day for that spot, but much better for the planet
There is also the element of funding for R&D. In the late 70's the DoE produced a fusion roadmap based on different funding levels. There was a crash program forcast which would have led to commercial fusion in 10-15 years, a robust development program that would led to fusion in 15-20 years, and a point where if funding remained below a certain level, would never lead to commercial fusion. Guess what funding level was chosen (well below the "fusion never" level). So the joke of "fusion is the technology of the future and always will be", is a result of no real investment being made. Sure ITER may be a $15billion project, but its also a 50 year long project. First announced in 1985, first plasma wont occur till 2025, that's 40 fricken years later, not exactly demonstrative of an intensive focus on developing fusion energy. Compared to what we invest in developing other sources of energy, its chump change
No, we had a fancy photo op and press release. Constellation had exactly the same problems, new President makes obligatory visit to KSC, makes a Kenneddyesque speech and never spends another second of his presidency thinking about it. We haven't had a president willing to invest political capital on space since Reagan (and even he didn't spend much)
In most cases you're looking at within several hundred miles of the Florida or California coast (likely a bit further for Falcon Heavy core stages), we're not talking about the Grand Banks here. As well the stages are extremely bottom heavy (the vast majority of the mass is at the bottom of the rocket) and cylinders are good for deflecting wind loads (only cones are better). I'll also point out that so far, barge movement, pitching and rolling, has not been a factor in any of the failed landing attempts to date. I'm amused at the level of armchair quarterbacking going on here, people seem to think that the folks at SpaceX are complete morons and haven't thought of these very obvious concerns. We're not talking about brilliant insights here, just a lot of "I spent 15 min on Google, so I'm an expert" comentators
So you're quite happy to spout "it will never work" without knowing much of the details.
Negative - you must have missed it in the post you are responding to. I'll repost that part again:
Never work? I never said that. I am certain that with enough money poured into the project, and making live landings of these things on barges in the ocean the actual mission, they will indeed work.
You said and I quote "Is going to fail then." period, full stop. (I assume you meant they are going to fail then, or it is going to fail then)
- Firstly the empty stages are extremely bottom heavy as all the engines, thrust structure and plumbing are located at the base. The only mass up top are empty tanks.
I've noted that at landing, most of the mass is in the bottom. Are you just pissed that someone takes a contrary opinion? Re-read what I wrote. But the question is how much of that mass is above the triangle formed by the landing gear? I dunno. I ask. Is the answer that I shouldn't ask?
There is nothing wrong with having a contrary opinion, provided its an informed opinion. You've pretty much told us that "Is going to fail then.", but admitted that you don't really understand what SpaceX is doing, how their going about it, or the design of the Falcon 9. It's not like you need to dig that deep for much of this information. The answer is yes, most of the mass is below the triangle formed by the landing gear. The lower attach point of the landing legs is on the thrust structure where all of the engines are attached. The upper attach point is on the base ring of the lower tank.
Another issue is fuel sloshing while pitching and rolling. They may have taken care of that.
If you don't know what they've "taken care of" you may want to avoid making blanket statements of "Is going to fail then." or about how far away they are from successfully landing a stage on a barge.
- Secondly, the barges when flooded are extremely stable, being able to maintain themselves within 3m even in heavy storm conditions.
Well now 9 feet pitch and roll is not "extremely stable". Regardless, at what sea state is this 9 foot pitch and roll achieved? For at least my outlook, I would prefer an active stabilization system on the barge. I'd be concerend a lot about that 9 feet pitch and roll movement after landing as well.If you are above sea state 5, could be a little saltwater ingress into thos reusable engines. I suspect however that stormy seas would be a mission abort factor.
You know what, 3m is also 3000 mm (sounds much bigger), and this is in sea states of 7-8 or storm conditions which is also as you indicated a "mission abort factor". Again you are making "predictions" about topics you don't really know much about. The ADSD's are actively stabilized, each fitted with 4 x 220 kW azipods
- Thirdly, there are many missions where a return to launch site isn't possible. The center core on a Falcon Heavy is too far down range to return to land. For large GEO sats, there isn't enough fuel to both launch the sat and return to launch site (RTLS reduces the mass to orbit on a Falcon 9 by 30%). So they MUST land on a barge if they want to reuse these stages
I'm not so certain that that argues against anything I've said. Seems to me that they aren't going to be able to reuse all their rockets then.
For what its worth, One of my most valuable traits while I was working was that I didn't take the "Hey - it's all worked out, and this will work great!
Because all of the YesMen become redundant when they have no ideas after the things that were a lead pipe cinch didn't work. People did eventually listen to me because so many times, what I asked about turned out to be an actual problem.
Buy h
So you're quite happy to spout "it will never work" without knowing much of the details. - Firstly the empty stages are extremely bottom heavy as all the engines, thrust structure and plumbing are located at the base. The only mass up top are empty tanks. - Secondly, the barges when flooded are extremely stable, being able to maintain themselves within 3m even in heavy storm conditions. - Thirdly, there are many missions where a return to launch site isn't possible. The center core on a Falcon Heavy is too far down range to return to land. For large GEO sats, there isn't enough fuel to both launch the sat and return to launch site (RTLS reduces the mass to orbit on a Falcon 9 by 30%). So they MUST land on a barge if they want to reuse these stages
Teams from the nearby tug will board the barge and tack weld cleats onto the landing legs, securing it to the barge. There will be no cranes involved until they return to port to remove the stage, although Elon has proposed that further down the road, the stage will simply be secured, partially refueled, cleats removed and "hop" back to land.
Save for a leg that failed to lock into place, the last attempt would have been successful. If you have some engineering data to indicate that it "will never work" I'm sure SpaceX would be happy to know.
Not going to happen. The barge is needed to recover the center stage of the Falcon Heavy, and during high performance missions where there isn't enough fuel for a return to launch site mission (RTLS reduces Falcon 9 payload to orbit by about 30%)
It's called parallel construction
Not at all, when I buy tools I judge how frequently I'll need them. I use my table saw regularly so made the investment on a high quality cast iron model. I only expect to bend copper pipe a few times in my life, so I didn't spend a lot on high quality pipe benders. Still cost way less than hiring a plumber to come in and hook up my dishwasher
If there is sufficient interest in high quality tools at a higher price point, then new entrants will come into the market to meet the demand
One problem is that people don't jump from low-skill to high-skill instantaneously. We're building a situation that there are few entry-level jobs for new-grads which allow them to start developing the skills they need to get those "high-skill" jobs. In 20 years when we're all retired, who's going to replace us?
The fact it took 4 YEARS to fix a bug?!?!?!?!?!?