Huge not done. Mars doesn't have enough atmosphere for the chutes, they'd impact more than land. At the same time it's got enough atmosphere to make thrusters very difficult.
Keep in mind though that SpaceX is already planning a thruster-only (no parachutes) system for returning from Earth orbit. I wonder if SpaceX is plotting something along the lines of supersonic retropropulsion for the descent to Mars.
That's what gives me pause... My gut reaction is to think this is too big of a job for one company, but Musk seems genuinely intent on this goal, and seems to be marking all the early steps toward that goal. (Heavy lift? Check. Man-rated? Check...) Even so, that's just a start. They're going to have to step up their current development trend by an order of magnitude, at least, in order to reach Mars, and that's a tall order for such a short timespan.
Actually, just as a thought experiment, here's my guess at Elon Musk's to-do list for the next 10-20 years before he'll be able to start sending people (including himself) and supplies on one-way trips to Mars:
rocket capable of launching crew to orbit: done, already launched 2 Falcon 9 rockets
landing capsule: Done, with their Dragon capsule sent into orbit and brought back for water landing last year. The heat shield and parachute system are apparently have much more capability than needed for mere return from Earth orbit, although not known yet how they'd deal with Mars.
heavier cargo-launching rocket: Falcon Heavy currently under development with first launch in 2013
in-space docking/assembly: SpaceX will be gaining experiencing in some parts of this with Dragon and ISS, but will need more
in-space restartable propulsion stage: Raptor hydrogen/oxygen stage under development
propulsive landing system: under development, many shared elements with the launch abort system currently scheduled for testing in the next couple of years
in-space habitat: Could use a Bigelow habitat. Could also potentially bring the center stage of a Falcon Heavy all the way to orbit and convert it into a habitat. For periods of high radiation, can shelter in water-shielded area.
surface habitat: It seems like adapting one of Bigelow's lunar surface designs would be the best option here.
In TFA, he doesn't mention a return trip. Is that intentional? A one way trip to mars makes a lot of sense.
Musk has stated on a number of occasions that he plans to retire on Mars, so he expects to make a one-way trip himself. Elon Musk is 39 years old now, so in about 20 years he'll be looking to retire. He'll probably have time to groom a younger successor by then to head the company, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him on the very first one-way Mars colonization trip himself.
> Oh great, NASA's turned into another conduit for corporate welfare.
Actually, NASA's been a "conduit for corporate welfare" for a few decades now, awarding cost-plus contracts to politically-connected companies based on what congressional district they're located in. If anything, this is a huge step away from that kind of behavior, using fixed-price milestone-based commercial contracts, awarded on the basis of technical merit rather than political connections.
Sierra Nevada: system requirements review canted airfoil fin selection cockpit based flight simulator vehicle avionics integration laboratory system defniition review flight control integration laboratory ETA structure delivery (does this mean "Engineering Test Article"?) separation system test preliminary design review for Dream Chaser optional milestones: materials testing captive carry and ETA landing gear drop tests, ETA captive carry flight test, wind tunnel testing, dream chaser handling qualities evaluation, main RCS test, two hybrid rocket motor test firing, thrust vector control test, ETA captive carry flight test readiness review, ETA free flight test
Blue Origin (only listing final milestones for each sub-project): * Space Vehicle Design: space vehicle system requirements review * Pusher escape Risk Reduction: pusher escape ground firing, pusher escape pad escape test (optional milestones: pusher escape max-Q sled test calibration run, pusher escape max-Q sled test egress run) * RBS (reusable booster system) engine risk reduction: engine thrust chamber assembly test at Stennis (optional: engine pump cold gas drive test, engine pump hot gas drive test) [as an aside, apparently the RBF is a 100klbf restartable hydrolox engine)
Boeing: launch abort engine fabrication & hot fire test demonstration landing air bag drop demonstration #1 phase I wind tunnel tests interim design review - 4 parachute drop tests demonstration SM propellant tank development test LV EDS/ASIF interface simulation test preliminary design review optional milestones 12-25 all redacted
SpaceX: launch abort system propulsion conceptual design review design status review 1 (for Falcon 9/Dragon crew transportation system) LAS propulsion components PDR crew accommodation concept prototype and in situ trial (internally-funded by SpaceX, NASA astronauts invited to try crew accomodations and give feedback) DSR 2 crew accommodation concept delta-prototype and in-situ trial 2 LAS propulsion component test articles complete LAS propulsion component initial test cycle concept baseline review (SpaceX seems to be the only one without "optional" milestones)
It's also quite interesting to note who -didn't- get funding in this round (but are of course contenders for future funding rounds):
ULA: This was the most surprising one, since basically all of the accepted non-SpaceX spacecraft proposals have ULA's Atlas V rocket as their baseline and would require upgrades to their emergency detection system. My thinking is that getting spacecraft development up and running was more urgent than making the necessary low-risk changes to existing rockets. If the spacecraft which baseline the Atlas V continue to develop smoothly, I strongly suspect ULA will get funding for CCDev3.
Paragon: They got funding in CCDev1 to develop their turnkey life support system. I get the impression that it's pretty much ready to use in other spacecraft designs now, so I guess from this point on most of their commercial crew income will come from selling their system to the spacecraft manufacturers.
ATK: One of the most anti-commercial companies in aerospace with quite a few politicians in their pockets, they created a bit of a stir when they announced their "Liberty" rocket. The Liberty was basically a rehash of their cancelled Ares I rocket with an Ariane upper stage. The stated reason for why they weren't chosen is because there's already enough potential rockets to launch on, although I expect to see a senator or two to raise a ruckus about this in the coming days. Apparently none of the spacecraft designers planned to use the ATK rocket as a baseline launcher, either.
United Space Alliance (USA): These are the folks who manage the soon-to-be retired Shuttle program. Their proposal was basically to commercialize the Shuttles and keep them operating. This wasn't considered to fit into the scope of CCDev though (and presumably would have cost an absurd amount of money), so USA ended up withdrawing their proposal.
Orbital Sciences: They proposed a lifting-body spaceplane kind of similar to Sierra Nevada's, but much more heavyweight.
Excalibur Almaz: A really interesting company which purchased and was working to upgrade some flight-proven reusable space capsules from the former Soviet Union's 70s-era military space station program.
There's a really fascinating selection statement from NASA which explains the rationale for which companies were and weren't chosen.
They don't even have a budget, timeline, or design yet, so one can't really say. At this point, according to the Chinese state-run media, they're simply "studying the feasibility of designing."
Of course, that won't stop people from going, "OMG, China's going to beat SpaceX/NASA to the Moon!" or something like that.
China's space program makes pronouncements like this all the time, but they don't yet have the ability to make things like this happen. Heck, just the other day personnel from China's aerospace organization said that they were confounded by SpaceX's price/kg and unable to compete with it:
It should be possible to get to Mars and back, however it won't be cheap. It would probably take the equivalent of as many Saturn V rockets as were ever launched to put enough material into Mars obit for ONE mission.
It turns out it's actually nowhere near that bad. If you look at the Mars DRA 3.0 architecture NASA released back in the 1990s, they could do a Mars mission using three launches of an 80mt vehicle:
By comparison, the Saturn V was a 120mt vehicle. Just last week SpaceX announced that they're be building a 53mt vehicle which will be available for a price of $100M/launch. If the DRA 3.0 mission were repacked, it could potentially perform a Mars mission with ~5 Falcon Heavies, at a total launch cost of half a billion dollars. This is coincidentally much less than it costs to launch a Space Shuttle mission.
It'd be interesting to hear the number of launches they need to make a profit at that price. I'm assuming the price is based on an average price, which in turn is calculated by assuming the fixed costs of development can be spread over some minimum number of launches.
If the number of paying launches were, say, *1*, I doubt very much they'd be able to make money at that price.
If I recall correctly, the break-even number stated during the press conference was 4 Falcon Heavies (and presumably 4 Falcon 9's) a year. The capacity they're presently aiming for is 10 FH's and 10 F9's.
I assume this also doesn't include SpaceX's quest to reuse the first stages and accompanying engines. Since the side-mounted stages actually separate earlier, reuse will hopefully be easier to accomplish with the FH than the F9.
After reading a little more, apparently the numbers they announced today assume that the second stage uses their existing kerosene-based "Merlin Vacuum" engine, and not the high-energy hydrogen-based "Raptor" engine/stage they have under development. Combining the Falcon Heavy with the Raptor could potentially push the payload into the 70+mt range that Congress wants for the super-heavy rocket they want NASA to build.
> Oh yes, if he can fund a test launch, he can surely fund a trip to mars to set up a greenhouse. That makes total sense.
If he wants to, pretty much, yeah. The work SpaceX has already been doing with heat shields, solar power, and propulsive landing potentially makes it even more feasible now than it was back when Musk would have had to start from scratch. The biggest barrier he faced back in 2001 was the cost of launch. Here's a more recent (2009) recollection of Musk's about the Mars Oasis project:
At first, I thought I'd use some of my PayPal money to popularize the idea of life on Mars. I settled on a mission called Mars Oasis, which would land a small robotic greenhouse that would establish life on another planet and show great images of green plants on a red background. It would get the public excited, and we'd learn a lot about what it takes to sustain plant life on the surface of Mars. I quickly found that the biggest obstacle was the cost of the launch. A U.S. Delta II rocket would cost $60 million, while a refurbished Russian intercontinental ballistic missile would cost $10 million -- without the necessary third stage. I gathered a group of engineers from the space industry to find a way to get the launch cost down. We determined that we could do it by optimizing the design for cost and by making the rocket reusable. Of course, we also had to ensure that it performed at least as well as other available rockets. I dropped the greenhouse idea; my goal now was to make it technically and financially possible to extend life to Mars. In 2002 I founded Space Exploration Technologies.
The NASA COTS program has demonstrated the power of what can be accomplished when you combine private sector responsiveness and ingenuity with the guidance, support and insight of the US government. For less than the cost of the Ares I mobile service tower, SpaceX has developed all the flight hardware for the Falcon 9 orbital rocket, Dragon spacecraft, as well as three launch sites.
No, we're talking about reality. In reality, unlike in theory, it takes a lot more to get a rocket to Mars than engineering and sufficient power and fuel. It takes massive funding, political will, and the sustained support of both for several years. There's no engineering equation you can use to calculate if you'll make it to Mars -- the equation will only tell you whether you can do the easy part...
Actually, SpaceX's first demo launch of the Falcon Heavy in 2013 doesn't have a customer and they're self-funding it, so if they want to they can send it to pretty much anywhere in the inner solar system that they want. Heck, Elon Musk could even get part of his team to assemble his old Mars Oasis greenhouse project and try to land it on Mars if he wanted. Since it's self-funded, it's purely an engineering problem (perhaps with some PR thrown in for good measure).
The Fox article is a little sparse on info, so for the curious, there was some pretty good liveblogging (live-foruming?) of the press conference here. You can see official details (and a neat video) on SpaceX's site here.
Looking through the forum and the website, here's a summary of all the most interesting stuff:
Falcon 9 (F9) able to lift much more than estimated with engine upgrades, Falcon Heavy (FH) estimates upgraded
FH: 3 nine-engine cores attached to each other paying development costs internally, strong commercial + gov customer interest
FH will arrive at Vandenberg pad in 2012, launch in early 2013
testing upgraded engines now at McGregor facility
estimating 117K lbs (53mt) to orbit for FH, possibly >120K lbs
double payload of Shuttle and Delta IV Heavy
launching from Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral
once in full operation expecting ~10 F9 flights a year, ~10 FH flights a year
increasing rate of engine production to 400 each year (currently 50/year)
FH price sets new world record at $1000/lb
first rocket in history to feature propellant crossfeed, allowing for earlier separation of emptied side boosters (== much more efficiency)
multi-engine-out capability for more reliability
meets published NASA human rating standards, not sure yet about "unpublished" standards
lower cost than current EELVs could save DOD alone $1.7B-$2.2B each year
could do Mars sample return mission in a single flight
payload to Mars 1/4 LEO payload, so 30K lbs to Mars
could go to Moon or NEO with only 2 launches
could do lunar flyby with a single launch of Dragon capsule
in response to Q&A, mentioned follow-up design capable of >150mt (Saturn V was 119mt)
As an aside, it'll be quite fascinating to see what impact this has on the heavy-lift debate currently going on in Congress. For those unfamiliar with it, Congress is currently trying to pressure NASA to spend several billion dollars of its funding over several years into building a 70mt rocket from shuttle-legacy components/infrastructure. It's now looking like SpaceX will build a rocket with nearly the same capability using its own funding, which will be ready to launch several years before the Congress-mandated rocket. Hmm.
What is the point of having a positive without a negative? Are they just trying to "keep things positive?" What if a Facebook page for the KKK had 300 likes? Isn't that be misleading when you can't compare it to anything?
> The fact that this craft has cross-range capability might mean they're doing something that a disposable rocket launch couldn't achieve. Maybe launching a few smaller sats, then retrieving them?
With conventional launches, one major downside is that their orbits are very predictable. Basically anybody can track their trajectory as they're being launched, and once they're in an orbit only slow/minor orbital changes can be made. Since any rival country knows when spy satellites are overhead, they can just time maneuvers/operations to when they know they won't be watched.
One hypothesized major benefit of using a winged payload vehicle is that it opens up the possibility of dipping into the atmosphere and performing a hypersonic orbital plane change maneuver. This could potentially enable a spaceplane to essentially disappear and make its ground observations completely unpredictable.
> I guess there is a new definition of "secret" that I'm not aware of.
Geeze, we get these comments from people attempting to be clever every single time there's a X-37 article. It's secret in the sense that nobody without security clearance has any idea of what its full mission is, what orbital shifts it's going to be making, or what's inside of its payload bay. If you want to be super strict about it then there's no such thing as a secret satellite launch, since any major country can tell when you're launching something into orbit.
> All you can do now is download the shitty low res copies facebook keeps
Huh? Facebook upgraded its resolution last year to handle up to 2048 pixels on the longest edge. Granted, many cameras can shoot higher than that nowadays, but I don't think anybody would describe that as low-res.
Theta-Burst Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Alters Cortical Inhibition
Human cortical excitability can be modified by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), but the cellular mechanisms are largely unknown. Here, we show that the pattern of delivery of theta-burst stimulation (TBS) (continuous versus intermittent) differently modifies electric activity and protein expression in the rat neocortex. Intermittent TBS (iTBS), but not continuous TBS (cTBS), enhanced spontaneous neuronal firing and EEG gamma band power. Sensory evoked cortical inhibition increased only after iTBS, although both TBS protocols increased the first sensory response arising from the resting cortical state. Changes in the cortical expression of the calcium-binding proteins parvalbumin (PV) and calbindin D-28k (CB) indicate that changes in spontaneous and evoked cortical activity following rTMS are in part related to altered activity of inhibitory systems. By reducing PV expression in the fast-spiking interneurons, iTBS primarily affected the inhibitory control of pyramidal cell output activity, while cTBS, by reducing CB expression, more likely affected the dendritic integration of synaptic inputs controlled by other classes of inhibitory interneurons. Calretinin, the third major calcium-binding protein expressed by another class of interneurons was not affected at all. We conclude that different patterns of TBS modulate the activity of inhibitory cell classes differently, probably depending on the synaptic connectivity and the preferred discharge pattern of these inhibitory neurons.
Continuous and intermittent transcranial magnetic theta burst stimulation modify tactile learning performance and cortical protein expression in the rat differently
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) can modulate cortical excitability in a stimulus-frequency-dependent manner. Two kinds of theta burst stimulation (TBS) [intermittent TBS (iTBS) and continuous TBS (cTBS)] modulate human cortical excitability differently, with iTBS increasing it and cTBS decreasing it. In rats, we recently showed that this is accompanied by changes in the cortical expression of proteins related to the activity of inhibitory neurons. Expression levels of the calcium-binding protein parvalbumin (PV) and of the 67-kDa isoform of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD67) were strongly reduced following iTBS, but not cTBS, whereas both increased expression of the 65-kDa isoform of glutamic acid decarboxylase. In the present study, to investigate possible functional consequences, we applied iTBS and cTBS to rats learning a tactile discrimination task. Conscious rats received either verum or sham rTMS prior to the task. Finally, to investigate how rTMS and learning effects interact, protein expression was determined for cortical areas directly involved in the task and for those either not, or indirectly, involved. We found that iTBS, but not cTBS, improved learning and strongly reduced cortical PV and GAD67 expression. However, the combination of learning and iTBS prevented this effect in those cortical areas involved in the task, but not in unrelated areas. We conclude that the improved learning found following iTBS is a result of the interaction of two effects, possibly in a homeostatic manner: a general weakening of inhibition mediated by the fast-spiking interneurons, and re-established activity in those neurons specifically involved in the learning task, leading to enhanced contrast between learning-induced and background activity.
> Actually I think thats the point ESMD is trying to make here. Congress mandated that they use SRBs et. al., so ESMD comes back and says "all right, we can do it, but it WILL be late and overbudget."
I think this is essentially NASA's way of telling Congress that there are two options:
* a rocket that uses as many Shuttle-legacy components as possible and continues delivering a stream of funding to politically-important congressional districts * a rocket that meets Congress's schedule and budget requirements
Congress can only pick one. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that they'll pick the first, only cancelling the project after the schedule and budget have gone completely to hell (i.e. repeat of Ares I), and after it's already delivered plenty of funds to key districts.
Slashdot Mirror
Huge not done. Mars doesn't have enough atmosphere for the chutes, they'd impact more than land. At the same time it's got enough atmosphere to make thrusters very difficult.
Keep in mind though that SpaceX is already planning a thruster-only (no parachutes) system for returning from Earth orbit. I wonder if SpaceX is plotting something along the lines of supersonic retropropulsion for the descent to Mars.
That's what gives me pause... My gut reaction is to think this is too big of a job for one company, but Musk seems genuinely intent on this goal, and seems to be marking all the early steps toward that goal. (Heavy lift? Check. Man-rated? Check...) Even so, that's just a start. They're going to have to step up their current development trend by an order of magnitude, at least, in order to reach Mars, and that's a tall order for such a short timespan.
Actually, just as a thought experiment, here's my guess at Elon Musk's to-do list for the next 10-20 years before he'll be able to start sending people (including himself) and supplies on one-way trips to Mars:
What am I missing?
In TFA, he doesn't mention a return trip. Is that intentional? A one way trip to mars makes a lot of sense.
Musk has stated on a number of occasions that he plans to retire on Mars, so he expects to make a one-way trip himself. Elon Musk is 39 years old now, so in about 20 years he'll be looking to retire. He'll probably have time to groom a younger successor by then to head the company, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him on the very first one-way Mars colonization trip himself.
> Oh great, NASA's turned into another conduit for corporate welfare.
Actually, NASA's been a "conduit for corporate welfare" for a few decades now, awarding cost-plus contracts to politically-connected companies based on what congressional district they're located in. If anything, this is a huge step away from that kind of behavior, using fixed-price milestone-based commercial contracts, awarded on the basis of technical merit rather than political connections.
(From a post I made over on the nasaspaceflight forums)
From the Space Act Agreements, here's a quick summary of the payment milestones each company has set for each sub-project going up to a year from now:
http://procurement.ksc.nasa.gov/
Sierra Nevada:
system requirements review
canted airfoil fin selection
cockpit based flight simulator
vehicle avionics integration laboratory
system defniition review
flight control integration laboratory
ETA structure delivery (does this mean "Engineering Test Article"?)
separation system test
preliminary design review for Dream Chaser
optional milestones: materials testing captive carry and ETA landing gear drop tests, ETA captive carry flight test, wind tunnel testing, dream chaser handling qualities evaluation, main RCS test, two hybrid rocket motor test firing, thrust vector control test, ETA captive carry flight test readiness review, ETA free flight test
Blue Origin (only listing final milestones for each sub-project):
* Space Vehicle Design: space vehicle system requirements review
* Pusher escape Risk Reduction: pusher escape ground firing, pusher escape pad escape test (optional milestones: pusher escape max-Q sled test calibration run, pusher escape max-Q sled test egress run)
* RBS (reusable booster system) engine risk reduction: engine thrust chamber assembly test at Stennis (optional: engine pump cold gas drive test, engine pump hot gas drive test) [as an aside, apparently the RBF is a 100klbf restartable hydrolox engine)
Boeing:
launch abort engine fabrication & hot fire test demonstration
landing air bag drop demonstration #1
phase I wind tunnel tests
interim design review - 4
parachute drop tests demonstration
SM propellant tank development test
LV EDS/ASIF interface simulation test
preliminary design review
optional milestones 12-25 all redacted
SpaceX:
launch abort system propulsion conceptual design review
design status review 1 (for Falcon 9/Dragon crew transportation system)
LAS propulsion components PDR
crew accommodation concept prototype and in situ trial (internally-funded by SpaceX, NASA astronauts invited to try crew accomodations and give feedback)
DSR 2
crew accommodation concept delta-prototype and in-situ trial 2
LAS propulsion component test articles complete
LAS propulsion component initial test cycle
concept baseline review
(SpaceX seems to be the only one without "optional" milestones)
It's also quite interesting to note who -didn't- get funding in this round (but are of course contenders for future funding rounds):
ULA: This was the most surprising one, since basically all of the accepted non-SpaceX spacecraft proposals have ULA's Atlas V rocket as their baseline and would require upgrades to their emergency detection system. My thinking is that getting spacecraft development up and running was more urgent than making the necessary low-risk changes to existing rockets. If the spacecraft which baseline the Atlas V continue to develop smoothly, I strongly suspect ULA will get funding for CCDev3.
Paragon: They got funding in CCDev1 to develop their turnkey life support system. I get the impression that it's pretty much ready to use in other spacecraft designs now, so I guess from this point on most of their commercial crew income will come from selling their system to the spacecraft manufacturers.
ATK: One of the most anti-commercial companies in aerospace with quite a few politicians in their pockets, they created a bit of a stir when they announced their "Liberty" rocket. The Liberty was basically a rehash of their cancelled Ares I rocket with an Ariane upper stage. The stated reason for why they weren't chosen is because there's already enough potential rockets to launch on, although I expect to see a senator or two to raise a ruckus about this in the coming days. Apparently none of the spacecraft designers planned to use the ATK rocket as a baseline launcher, either.
United Space Alliance (USA): These are the folks who manage the soon-to-be retired Shuttle program. Their proposal was basically to commercialize the Shuttles and keep them operating. This wasn't considered to fit into the scope of CCDev though (and presumably would have cost an absurd amount of money), so USA ended up withdrawing their proposal.
Orbital Sciences: They proposed a lifting-body spaceplane kind of similar to Sierra Nevada's, but much more heavyweight.
Excalibur Almaz: A really interesting company which purchased and was working to upgrade some flight-proven reusable space capsules from the former Soviet Union's 70s-era military space station program.
There's a really fascinating selection statement from NASA which explains the rationale for which companies were and weren't chosen.
> Anyone know the cost/weight?
They don't even have a budget, timeline, or design yet, so one can't really say. At this point, according to the Chinese state-run media, they're simply "studying the feasibility of designing."
Of course, that won't stop people from going, "OMG, China's going to beat SpaceX/NASA to the Moon!" or something like that.
China's space program makes pronouncements like this all the time, but they don't yet have the ability to make things like this happen. Heck, just the other day personnel from China's aerospace organization said that they were confounded by SpaceX's price/kg and unable to compete with it:
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=space&id=news/asd/2011/04/15/11.xml&headline=China%20Great%20Wall%20Confounded%20By%20SpaceX%20Prices
Heck, SpaceX has designs for both 125 and 140 tonne vehicles, but it doesn't mean it plans on building them before it makes economic sense.
It should be possible to get to Mars and back, however it won't be cheap. It would probably take the equivalent of as many Saturn V rockets as were ever launched to put enough material into Mars obit for ONE mission.
It turns out it's actually nowhere near that bad. If you look at the Mars DRA 3.0 architecture NASA released back in the 1990s, they could do a Mars mission using three launches of an 80mt vehicle:
http://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/HumanExplore/Exploration/EXLibrary/docs/MarsRef/addendum/A4.htm#A4.0
By comparison, the Saturn V was a 120mt vehicle. Just last week SpaceX announced that they're be building a 53mt vehicle which will be available for a price of $100M/launch. If the DRA 3.0 mission were repacked, it could potentially perform a Mars mission with ~5 Falcon Heavies, at a total launch cost of half a billion dollars. This is coincidentally much less than it costs to launch a Space Shuttle mission.
> Is the world obsessed with facebook? Probably not.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=facebook%2Ciphone%2Cgoogle%2Cjesus
It'd be interesting to hear the number of launches they need to make a profit at that price. I'm assuming the price is based on an average price, which in turn is calculated by assuming the fixed costs of development can be spread over some minimum number of launches.
If the number of paying launches were, say, *1*, I doubt very much they'd be able to make money at that price.
If I recall correctly, the break-even number stated during the press conference was 4 Falcon Heavies (and presumably 4 Falcon 9's) a year. The capacity they're presently aiming for is 10 FH's and 10 F9's.
I assume this also doesn't include SpaceX's quest to reuse the first stages and accompanying engines. Since the side-mounted stages actually separate earlier, reuse will hopefully be easier to accomplish with the FH than the F9.
After reading a little more, apparently the numbers they announced today assume that the second stage uses their existing kerosene-based "Merlin Vacuum" engine, and not the high-energy hydrogen-based "Raptor" engine/stage they have under development. Combining the Falcon Heavy with the Raptor could potentially push the payload into the 70+mt range that Congress wants for the super-heavy rocket they want NASA to build.
> Oh yes, if he can fund a test launch, he can surely fund a trip to mars to set up a greenhouse. That makes total sense.
If he wants to, pretty much, yeah. The work SpaceX has already been doing with heat shields, solar power, and propulsive landing potentially makes it even more feasible now than it was back when Musk would have had to start from scratch. The biggest barrier he faced back in 2001 was the cost of launch. Here's a more recent (2009) recollection of Musk's about the Mars Oasis project:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/risky-business/0
At first, I thought I'd use some of my PayPal money to popularize the idea of life on Mars. I settled on a mission called Mars Oasis, which would land a small robotic greenhouse that would establish life on another planet and show great images of green plants on a red background. It would get the public excited, and we'd learn a lot about what it takes to sustain plant life on the surface of Mars.
I quickly found that the biggest obstacle was the cost of the launch. A U.S. Delta II rocket would cost $60 million, while a refurbished Russian intercontinental ballistic missile would cost $10 million -- without the necessary third stage.
I gathered a group of engineers from the space industry to find a way to get the launch cost down. We determined that we could do it by optimizing the design for cost and by making the rocket reusable. Of course, we also had to ensure that it performed at least as well as other available rockets. I dropped the greenhouse idea; my goal now was to make it technically and financially possible to extend life to Mars. In 2002 I founded Space Exploration Technologies.
The space pen thing is an urban legend, but the launch tower comparison is real:
http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20100607
The NASA COTS program has demonstrated the power of what can be accomplished when you combine private sector responsiveness and ingenuity with the guidance, support and insight of the US government. For less than the cost of the Ares I mobile service tower, SpaceX has developed all the flight hardware for the Falcon 9 orbital rocket, Dragon spacecraft, as well as three launch sites.
No, we're talking about reality. In reality, unlike in theory, it takes a lot more to get a rocket to Mars than engineering and sufficient power and fuel. It takes massive funding, political will, and the sustained support of both for several years. There's no engineering equation you can use to calculate if you'll make it to Mars -- the equation will only tell you whether you can do the easy part...
Actually, SpaceX's first demo launch of the Falcon Heavy in 2013 doesn't have a customer and they're self-funding it, so if they want to they can send it to pretty much anywhere in the inner solar system that they want. Heck, Elon Musk could even get part of his team to assemble his old Mars Oasis greenhouse project and try to land it on Mars if he wanted. Since it's self-funded, it's purely an engineering problem (perhaps with some PR thrown in for good measure).
The Fox article is a little sparse on info, so for the curious, there was some pretty good liveblogging (live-foruming?) of the press conference here. You can see official details (and a neat video) on SpaceX's site here.
Looking through the forum and the website, here's a summary of all the most interesting stuff:
paying development costs internally, strong commercial + gov customer interest
As an aside, it'll be quite fascinating to see what impact this has on the heavy-lift debate currently going on in Congress. For those unfamiliar with it, Congress is currently trying to pressure NASA to spend several billion dollars of its funding over several years into building a 70mt rocket from shuttle-legacy components/infrastructure. It's now looking like SpaceX will build a rocket with nearly the same capability using its own funding, which will be ready to launch several years before the Congress-mandated rocket. Hmm.
> The CEO takes 11 of the cookies. He turns to the tea party member and says, "look out for that union guy. He's trying to take your cookie."
Are you implying that CEOs receive more money than unions (either in general or from the government)?
What is the point of having a positive without a negative? Are they just trying to "keep things positive?" What if a Facebook page for the KKK had 300 likes? Isn't that be misleading when you can't compare it to anything?
Fewer potential lawsuits.
Actually, according to a study done last month, an estimated 57% of internet users log into Facebook at least once a month. Sorry.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110224/tc_afp/usitinternetfacebooktwitteremarketer
> The fact that this craft has cross-range capability might mean they're doing something that a disposable rocket launch couldn't achieve. Maybe launching a few smaller sats, then retrieving them?
With conventional launches, one major downside is that their orbits are very predictable. Basically anybody can track their trajectory as they're being launched, and once they're in an orbit only slow/minor orbital changes can be made. Since any rival country knows when spy satellites are overhead, they can just time maneuvers/operations to when they know they won't be watched.
One hypothesized major benefit of using a winged payload vehicle is that it opens up the possibility of dipping into the atmosphere and performing a hypersonic orbital plane change maneuver. This could potentially enable a spaceplane to essentially disappear and make its ground observations completely unpredictable.
> I guess there is a new definition of "secret" that I'm not aware of.
Geeze, we get these comments from people attempting to be clever every single time there's a X-37 article. It's secret in the sense that nobody without security clearance has any idea of what its full mission is, what orbital shifts it's going to be making, or what's inside of its payload bay. If you want to be super strict about it then there's no such thing as a secret satellite launch, since any major country can tell when you're launching something into orbit.
> All you can do now is download the shitty low res copies facebook keeps
Huh? Facebook upgraded its resolution last year to handle up to 2048 pixels on the longest edge. Granted, many cameras can shoot higher than that nowadays, but I don't think anybody would describe that as low-res.
http://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=432670242130
It wasn't linked to in the article, so here's the actual abstracts for the two papers:
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/31/4/1193
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2010.07425.x/abstract
Theta-Burst Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Alters Cortical Inhibition
Human cortical excitability can be modified by repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), but the cellular mechanisms are largely unknown. Here, we show that the pattern of delivery of theta-burst stimulation (TBS) (continuous versus intermittent) differently modifies electric activity and protein expression in the rat neocortex. Intermittent TBS (iTBS), but not continuous TBS (cTBS), enhanced spontaneous neuronal firing and EEG gamma band power. Sensory evoked cortical inhibition increased only after iTBS, although both TBS protocols increased the first sensory response arising from the resting cortical state. Changes in the cortical expression of the calcium-binding proteins parvalbumin (PV) and calbindin D-28k (CB) indicate that changes in spontaneous and evoked cortical activity following rTMS are in part related to altered activity of inhibitory systems. By reducing PV expression in the fast-spiking interneurons, iTBS primarily affected the inhibitory control of pyramidal cell output activity, while cTBS, by reducing CB expression, more likely affected the dendritic integration of synaptic inputs controlled by other classes of inhibitory interneurons. Calretinin, the third major calcium-binding protein expressed by another class of interneurons was not affected at all. We conclude that different patterns of TBS modulate the activity of inhibitory cell classes differently, probably depending on the synaptic connectivity and the preferred discharge pattern of these inhibitory neurons.
Continuous and intermittent transcranial magnetic theta burst stimulation modify tactile learning performance and cortical protein expression in the rat differently
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) can modulate cortical excitability in a stimulus-frequency-dependent manner. Two kinds of theta burst stimulation (TBS) [intermittent TBS (iTBS) and continuous TBS (cTBS)] modulate human cortical excitability differently, with iTBS increasing it and cTBS decreasing it. In rats, we recently showed that this is accompanied by changes in the cortical expression of proteins related to the activity of inhibitory neurons. Expression levels of the calcium-binding protein parvalbumin (PV) and of the 67-kDa isoform of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD67) were strongly reduced following iTBS, but not cTBS, whereas both increased expression of the 65-kDa isoform of glutamic acid decarboxylase. In the present study, to investigate possible functional consequences, we applied iTBS and cTBS to rats learning a tactile discrimination task. Conscious rats received either verum or sham rTMS prior to the task. Finally, to investigate how rTMS and learning effects interact, protein expression was determined for cortical areas directly involved in the task and for those either not, or indirectly, involved. We found that iTBS, but not cTBS, improved learning and strongly reduced cortical PV and GAD67 expression. However, the combination of learning and iTBS prevented this effect in those cortical areas involved in the task, but not in unrelated areas. We conclude that the improved learning found following iTBS is a result of the interaction of two effects, possibly in a homeostatic manner: a general weakening of inhibition mediated by the fast-spiking interneurons, and re-established activity in those neurons specifically involved in the learning task, leading to enhanced contrast between learning-induced and background activity.
> But the Russians use SRBs and assemble horizontally.
Citation? Just about every Russian rocket I'm aware of uses RP-1/LOX liquid fuel.
> Actually I think thats the point ESMD is trying to make here. Congress mandated that they use SRBs et. al., so ESMD comes back and says "all right, we can do it, but it WILL be late and overbudget."
I think this is essentially NASA's way of telling Congress that there are two options:
* a rocket that uses as many Shuttle-legacy components as possible and continues delivering a stream of funding to politically-important congressional districts
* a rocket that meets Congress's schedule and budget requirements
Congress can only pick one. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that they'll pick the first, only cancelling the project after the schedule and budget have gone completely to hell (i.e. repeat of Ares I), and after it's already delivered plenty of funds to key districts.