>Dragon manned mission scheduled for May 2018 >Starliner

How exactly is this profitable for these guys?

>>8742524
NASA is paying hundreds of millions so that they jump through their hoops
SpaceX would do it much faster otherwise

>>8742524
Because NASA wants to pay them marginally less than they're paying Soyuz and Soyuz prices have gone up like 300% since the Space Shuttle retired

>>8742524
NASA is paying these companies literally billions of dollars to develop technology and build vehicles that they'll get to keep, with the only strings attached being an obligation to sell a few transport missions to NASA (at generous high prices).

>>8742519
>implying a metal gum drop is a good way to into space

>>8742540
It's mostly a good way to out of space.

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>>8742540
Apparently it's better than this bullshit

>>8742530
>>8742532
>>8742533
Leeching off of the NASA budget, which isn't very big to begin with, doesn't really sound like a very sustainable business model. To keep investors happy I imagine there must be some other long-term revenue source for this manned space flight thing.

The main problem I'm seeing here is that all of the contracts they have don't require manned flights. They only have payload delivery; satellites and supplies for the ISS. I don't really see any economic benefit for getting people into space. Particularly if he tries to go to Mars, that would be insanely expensive and pointless.

I mean, this is great and all that a company is doing this, but somehow it seems like it doesn't make sense. It's like hearing that General Electric is funding a team to hunt unicorns and are somehow pulling a profit.

>>8742552
>To keep investors happy I imagine there must be some other long-term revenue source for this manned space flight thing.
There's two retards who are ponying up $140 million to orbit the moon next year

>>8742552
>doesn't really sound like a very sustainable business model
You don't need a "sustainable business model" to follow up a multi-billion-dollar deal. Getting billions of dollars is worth doing even as a one-shot.

>the NASA budget, which isn't very big to begin with
It's bigger than the launch industry.

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>>8742543

>>8742572
This has been claimed. The timing of the claim makes me slightly suspicious. We'll see.

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>>8742572
>There's two Pioneers who are graciously donating $140 million to orbit the moon next year.

Fixed that for you.

Is the space age finally happening?

I feel like my entire life I've seen designs and stories about the exciting new spaceship that never actually got made

>>8742638
>I feel like my entire life I've seen designs and stories about the exciting new spaceship that never actually got made

If you are old enough to recall it, the moment when you realized that the name "Enterprise" was given to a shuttle that would never go into orbit was the moment when you realized the world was trying to tell you something.

>>8742552
nasa gets 20 billion a year
Thats plenty of money to live on for SpaceX

>The main problem I'm seeing here is that all of the contracts they have don't require manned flights.
They can't satisfy their existing launch contracts yet, until they do they can't be taking on new contracts/missions

>I don't really see any economic benefit for getting people into space.
Meanwhile the single largest reasonpeople fly in planes is tourissm

>>8742638

The space age has always been happening, it's just that NASA has been on hiatus since 2013 because they fucked up the shuttle replacement schedule. But now everything has come together, as now NASA has multiple private vendors (ULA, SpaceX, BO) to do LEO missions while they themselves focus on manned exploration. Even better, we're now seriously looking a Republican dominant government for the next twenty or so years, meaning funding will be more stable and reliable.

But it's still slow to spin up. Even if NASA manages manned landings during Trump's term, Pence will be the President overseeing the really big things like a the ISS replacement, a Lunar fuel refinery, Venus flyby, and Martian landing. NASA still needs another decade to develop things like landers, ground hab modules (and support equipment), nuclear reactors, and most importantly more powerful engines. This is where VASMIR research is showing a lot of promise.

>>8742707
>NASA has been on hiatus since 2013
I feel like NASA has more or less been on hiatus since 1972

>we put an RC car on Mars
And I fucking love it but come on senpai

>>8742707
>NASA has been on hiatus since 2013 because they fucked up the shuttle replacement schedule.

Some would argue the fuck-up goes back further than that, to when the fucked up the Apollo replacement schedule with the huge diversion that was STS.

>>8742725

>I feel like NASA has more or less been on hiatus since 1972

That's because you don't appreciate how important it was to do joint missions with the Soviet Union in the late 70s, and the creation of the ISS in 2000. From a pure politics angle both those things were massive successes and people felt good about them. It's only now in 2017 are people tired of just "cooperation" and want something more tangible. It says more about the times we live in than anything else.

>>we put an RC car on Mars
>And I fucking love it but come on senpai

If NASA can land a rover on Mars, they can land a rocket. NASA has done this five times now so they have a lot of data on how to do Mars landings without fucking it up (unlike the ESA, whose lander crash landed last year). It's certainly not sexy or fun but real data was generated. Although this reinforces my first point: NASA has landed five things on Mars now most people want them to expand and do bigger things.

And again, there's VASMIR research which itself could make a Mars mission financially feasible sooner rather than later.

>>8742707
>BO

Oooh, what vehicles do they have?

>>8742766

don't they own the dream chaser?

>>8742775
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Chaser

no

>>8742752
>If NASA can land a rover on Mars, they can land a rocket.
JPL wouldn't be building a manned lander, though. Their manned program people aren't accustomed to developing new things and achieving new results. No one currently working there has had a job like that.

NASA's not this tight-knit group, it's a sprawling assemblage of smaller organizations that don't like or trust each other very much.

>>8742546
only because they are too lazy to develop the tech

Skylon is the future

>>8742793

Yes hence why having more lander landings is important.

>>8742795
Skylon is expensive and not operable before mid/end 2020s. It's only going to LEO.

>>8742732
The apollo program itself was a pointless boondoggle
Footprints and flags on the moon

It was successful, but still pointless, and at the end of it they scrapped everything

>>8742707
>VASIMR
>more powerful

Don't make me laugh, power is energy over time not specific impulse you nigger.

VASIMR is a meme anyway.

>>8742752
>VASMIR research which itself could make a Mars mission financially feasible sooner rather than later

Having more efficient propulsion does not imply a cheaper ride. Reusable rockets are the future of economic space ventures, and they'll do it without SEP, because the efficiency of chemical is just fine and dandy if you can apply it correctly using a vehicle designed for that purpose.

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>>8742546
>implying this is any better or safer

>>8742775
Sierra Nevada does Dreamchaser.

Blue Origin has New Shepard currently and are working on New Glenn for the 2020's.

>>8742793
>NASA's not this tight-knit group, it's a sprawling assemblage of smaller organizations that don't like or trust each other very much.

this this this this this.

Anyone who thinks NASA is a unified organization all on the same page that wants to come together to accomplish great things needs to read about The 90 Day Report, and notice that every single department of NASA shoehorned in their own pet technology/project and ended up producing the worst plan to go to Mars, ever.

>>8742952
Robert Zubrin please go.

>>8742795
>Skylon is the future

Only if we can figure out the materials technology, and only if the space market expands by the time it's built to have a need for a human transport vehicle able to carry dozens of people at a time into LEO, which will be all Skylon is realistically going to be good for.

When it comes to cargo, Skylon gets BTFO by reusable booster launch vehicles.

>>8742947
People talk about the shuttle like the problem was safety, but that was far from the main problem.

1) they insisted on flying it manned every time, even for satellite launches, so they couldn't try things out without risking human life,
2) it had a low flight rate, so it took decades to get through what would have been only a preliminary test flight program for an aircraft,
3) it was completely uneconomical to fly, so flying it meant not much money for more development,
4) the vehicles were too expensive to construct, so even if they took the crew out, they couldn't do any destructive or risky testing,
5) there was no subscale model to base it on, and no plan to build a better one based on the experienced gathered, they built the first model big and just kept on using it.

ITS addresses all of those issues.

>>8742947
>no wings

Automatically better. Also, no extremely fragile TPS, no large cryogenic tank mounted next to that fragile TPS that sheds foam on ascent, no solid boosters, reusable first stage, and enough cargo capacity to lift the equivalent mass of three entire space shuttles full of cargo in reusable mode. You'd probably have to crush them into bricks in order to fit them though.

>>8742969
>they insisted on flying it manned every time

There was a conscious decision during development to have a manual switch be flipped in order to lower the landing gear after a mission. This was literally the only thing that humans needed to be on board to do, the Shuttle flew itself from launch to approach and during the landing, but had no autopilot control of the landing gear.

>>8742976
That's bullshit, it was piloted for the landing.

>>8742969
>>8742970
>no abort system
>has to land perfectly or everybody dies
>if a landing engine fails, everybody dies
>if any of the 51 engines on the rocket fails, everybody dies
>if both the solar panels don't deploy, everybody dies

>>8742981
>no abort system

Neither did Shuttle, that's one point in which they score the same. Except, ITS doesn't have any solids that can't be shut down, and the ship itself has enough thrust to fly itself back to the pad and land if the Booster were to fail.

>has to land perfectly or everybody dies

Same with Shuttle/Apollo/747/Literally any vehicle involving a landing sequence.

>if a landing engine fails, everybody dies
>engines cannot be made reliable or have the ability to reliably start up

Falcon 9 first stage center engine fires 4 times during a mission at multiple throttle settings and in different ambient atmospheric pressures. SpaceX hasn't had any core be lost because the center engine failed to start up, even long before they ever actually landed the thing.

>if any of the 51 engines on the rocket fails, everybody dies

The whole point of having so many engines is engine-out capability dumbass, along with the ability to use them for landing.

>if both the solar panels don't deploy, everybody dies

At least ITS has panels, Shuttle couldn't remain in orbit for more than 14 days before its fuel cells would run out.
Also there's no reason to think that solar panel unfolding isn't reliable and won't be reliable in the future.

>>8742976
>>8742979
I mean, remember when they were developing it, this was the 1970s. The design proposal was accepted in 1972, the year that the Intel 8008 was released, and it was originally scheduled to launch in 1977, the year that the Apple II was released (although the schedule slipped to 1981).

So they were barely in the era of microprocessors. The shuttle's flight computer even used core memory (little magnet rings wrapped with wire for each bit). They didn't have a lot to work with to automate landings.

It was a rational decision at the time to require a human pilot for landings, although they should have upgraded quickly.

>>8743015
>Neither did Shuttle
at the very least, they could have bailed out post-reentry if a landing were impossible
>and the ship itself has enough thrust to fly itself back to the pad and land if the Booster were to fail.
no it doesn't
its twr is barely >1 using all 9 engines
>Same with Shuttle/Apollo/747/Literally any vehicle involving a landing sequence.
vertical landings have been done <100 times in all history whereas airplane landings are done tens of millions of times per year
>SpaceX hasn't had any core be lost because the center engine failed to start up
merlin is only reliable because it is incredibly simple
>The whole point of having so many engines is engine-out capability dumbass
a failure of any raptor would destroy the entire rocket, thanks to extreme chamber pressures in the engine
>Also there's no reason to think that solar panel unfolding isn't reliable and won't be reliable in the future.
multiple progress&soyuz missions have failed/been aborted due to solar panel problems

>>8743046
>its twr is barely >1 using all 9 engines

That's enough to cancel horizontal velocity and hover while burning off fuel mass until enough margin is available that it can land. It's more feasible than the Shuttle option, which was to hope the SRB's don't blow until they burn out, then spin the orbiter+tank around and cancel velocity, then descend and glide to a runway.

>vertical landings have been done <100 times in all history

What are helicopters, harrier jets, etc. A vertical landing with a rocket is actually simpler than a helicopter landing, because there is no torque or gyroscopic effects to deal with. It can be modeled with a point source of thrust stabilizing a reverse pendulum, it's hard to get simpler than that. Reliability comes down to engine reliability, and as I mentioned there's no reason to think it can't be achieved.

>merlin is only reliable because it is incredibly simple

No, it's reliable because it is well designed to be reliable. There have been plenty of engines as 'simple' as Merlin that were not as reliable, modern design and manufacturing techniques as well as a better understanding of fluid and combustion dynamics have made very reliable rocket engines achievable.

>a failure of any raptor would destroy the entire rocket, thanks to extreme chamber pressures in the engine

No, a flak jacket to isolate shrapnel and a computer to monitor the engine as it runs to fast detect anomalies would be sufficient to protect the vehicle's other engines and superstructure. SSME ran at high chamber pressures (though not Raptor level pressures exactly) and was able to shut down the engine before performance anomalies became explosive failures.

>multiple progress&soyuz missions have failed/been aborted due to solar panel problems

Multiple Russian rockets&spacecraft have failed because of poor quality control and operator error (guy killed a proton launch because he installed an accelerometer upside down).

>>8743094
>That's enough to cancel horizontal velocity and hover while burning off fuel mass until enough margin is available that it can land.
not possible
imagine a failure 1 second after liftoff
>What are helicopters, harrier jets
have <1 twr and use simple engines
not comparable
>it's reliable because it is well designed to be reliable
nope
it's gas generator rather than staged combustion
completely different ballgame
>a flak jacket to isolate shrapnel
are you retarded?
>Multiple Russian rockets&spacecraft have failed because of poor quality control
just like spacex rockets

>>8743046
The shuttle was a glider, and a shitty brick of a glider at that. The reliability of aircraft landings depends on being able to make second and third tries.

>merlin is only reliable because it is incredibly simple
Merlin's not all that simple. It's regeneratively cooled, restartable, and throttleable, with four fluids (helium, TEA-TEB, kerosene, and oxygen). Raptor has some simplicity advantages from the full-flow design, since two fully separate turbopumps mean no shaft seals between the fuel and oxygen pumps, and it all runs on two fluids (methane and oxygen).

Raptor is certainly designed to be more reliable and longer-lasting than Merlin.

>a failure of any raptor would destroy the entire rocket, thanks to extreme chamber pressures in the engine
Combustion chamber explosion is only one failure mode, and it's pretty unlikely in an extensively-tested reusable engine. The SSMEs had very high chamber pressures too, but they never had one straight-up explode.

>>8743115
>Merlin's not all that simple
it's literally the simplest liquid engine used in the launch industry today

>The SSMEs had very high chamber pressures too, but they never had one straight-up explode
raptor flights should exceed ssme flights in only 8 missions
there's plenty of opportunity for these shitboxes to go wrong
also consider that the raptor chamber pressure (design goal) is 25% higher than the next highest chamber pressure in a rocket engine ever

>>8743121
>>Merlin's not all that simple
>it's literally the simplest liquid engine used in the launch industry today
No, it's not simpler than hypergolic engines.

Anyway, it's a very high performance engine. Extremely high thrust-to-weight.

>raptor flights should exceed ssme flights in only 8 missions
>there's plenty of opportunity for these shitboxes to go wrong
Exactly. And they're going to start out flying unmanned (in fact, after finishing ground testing, they're going to start suborbital and work their way up). That's how they'll work the bugs out quickly.

With the rapid-turnaround reusable ITS, Raptor flights can exceed SSME flights in a week.

>>8743106

>imagine a failure 1 second after liftoff

In that case it's probably inescapable. That being said, the whole point of the ITS is to be so reliable that failures like this essentially never happen, just like how modern airliners accept the risk that there is a tiny chance that they are going to crash a plane today and kill several hundred people. You can't make any system of transport 100% safe, so you may as well focus on just making it safe enough then move on.

>have <1 twr and use simple engines

Jet turbines are just as complex if not more complex than rocket engines.

>it's gas generator rather than staged combustion
>all gas generator engines have always been reliable
>and no staged combustion engines are ever reliable

Raptor is a FFSC engine by the way, which is actually easier on the turbopumps and is more reliable than regular staged combustion despite being more complex.

>>a flak jacket to isolate shrapnel
>are you retarded?

Are you? Falcon 9 already does this. It's the same technology used for airliner jet engines. Higher chamber pressure means a thicker jacket.

>just like spacex rockets

CRS7 was caused by poor quality control in a factory ran by a contractor supplying struts. SpaceX had been doing batch tests to verify quality, but after the incident the went back and tested every strut and found about 1 in 10 failed at well below their spec. Now SpaceX no longer uses that supplier and tests every strut.

Amos-6 was not caused by a quality control issue.

No Dragon has had a failure to deploy solar panels or other failure caused by quality control.

>>8743121
>these shitboxes

I can't tell if you're a Lockheed/Boeing shill or a BO shill

>>8743182
>Anyway, it's a very high performance engine. Extremely high thrust-to-weight.

Merlin has the highest Isp ever achieved in a gas-generator RP-1 engine. Isp becomes exponentially harder to increase for any given combustion cycle, so it's safe to say Merlin 1D is a high performance and advanced engine, even if it is a gas generator.

Even the capability of multiple restarts during flight makes it advanced, the SSME for all the praise it gets couldn't and can't do that.

>>8743182
>it's not simpler than hypergolic engines
I wasn't aware that kerosene melted skin upon contact.

>>8743188
>Jet turbines are just as complex if not more complex than rocket engines.
kek
you have a genuine mental illness

>>8743188
You know, though, for all the talk about ITS not having an abort option, it's not unthinkable that they'd build one that carries a cluster of Crew Dragons (possibly under blow-off panels) for Earth-LEO passenger shuttling.

300 tonnes to LEO. If a loaded Dragon is 10 tonnes, 15 Dragons carrying 7 passengers each would be enough for 100 passengers while using only half of the capacity. With 17 Dragons, they could have an attendant in each one to take care of the passengers, and they'd still have plenty of leftover capacity for the support structure and a common inner space which could be accessed once in orbit to make the transfer to a station or Mars-bound ship.

>>8743216
>it's not unthinkable that they'd build one that carries a cluster of Crew Dragons (possibly under blow-off panels) for Earth-LEO passenger shuttling.
what do you mean "it's not unthinkable"?
it's literally the most retarded idea I've ever heard

protip: ITS will never carry payloads to orbit
only the ship and tanker

>>8743207
Okay, so we've established that you're using your own personal made-up concept of "simple" which will be arbtrarily reinvented on any challenge to ensure that Merlin remains the "simplest".

Now please go be garbage somewhere else.

>>8743220
>propellant type is not a factor and shouldn't be considered

>>8743219
>ITS is terrible it doesn't even have abort capability
>>hey, they could put the passengers in escape pods with abort capability, in fact they're already building something that would work fine for that
>literally the most retarded idea I've ever heard

>protip: ITS will never carry payloads to orbit
>only the ship and tanker
Of course it'll carry whatever SpaceX can make money carrying. Why would you even imagine that it would be limited to the variants they've shown so far?

>>8743230
>they could put the passengers in escape pods with abort capability
>(possibly under blow-off panels)

>>8743224
What the propellant does to human skin is certainly not a factor in how complex or simple the engine is.

It's generally agreed in the industry that hypergolic-propellant engines are simpler and easier to make reliable.

>>8743234
If you've got something to say about that, say it plainly so we can all have a good laugh at the childish stupidity of it.

I'm not going to play "guess what I was implying" whack-a-mole.

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>>8743210

Rocket engines are hard because you have to balance all the thermodynamics and flow rates and so forth.

Jet engines are hard because you have to get the right compression ratios and rpms and be able to run everything as hot as possible without melting your blades.

They're different problems, but a rocket engine is easier than a jet engine in some ways and vice-versa. In a jet engine it's way easier to get more efficient, but you won't ever achieve the TWR of a rocket, and you can't run as hot as you'd like to. Likewise in a rocket your combustion chamber pressure and temperature can be insane because you're pumping your fuel as coolant so the heat flux isn't that big a deal, but you have to design your fuel injector to prevent the flame from spinning and destroying your nozzle, as well as make sure you're actually flowing enough coolant over the combustion chamber and nozzle,etc. In both cases producing a reliable machine is difficult.

So do you want to add any substance you this discussion or are you just going to keep making assertions?

>>8743238
see >>8743224

>>8743247
Okay, so you have no point.

>>8743246
the simple fact that they don't require oxidizer, let alone cryogenic or hypergolic propellants, makes them simpler by default, let alone all of the thermo issues

>>8743207
>>it's not simpler than hypergolic engines
>I wasn't aware that kerosene melted skin upon contact

I wasn't aware that fuel toxicity has any bearing on how simple or complex an engine can be.
A pressure fed engine is simpler than a GG. A GG using a third fuel to provide the gas (for example the hydrogen peroxide used to power the Soyuz rockets' first stages) is simpler than a GG that uses the same propellant mixture to drive the turbine as is used in the engine itself. Now there are even rocket engines that use electric motors to turn the pumps instead of a gas generator.

>>8743252
Care to point out just one (1) engine on the launch market today that is simpler than merlin?

I'll wait

>>8743241
A person who makes such a retarded statement as
>it's not unthinkable that they'd build one that carries a cluster of Crew Dragons (possibly under blow-off panels) for Earth-LEO passenger shuttling
doesn't have thoughts worthy of any consideration

>>8743254
>they don't require oxidizer

Yes, they do, they just have to intake the air in front of them and highly compress it using hundreds of machined turbine blades spinning at thousands of rpm to do it. Jet engines easily have more parts than the vast majority of rocket engines, and many of those parts (namely the bits spinning around inside the combustion chamber of the jet engine) have to deal with operating at higher temperatures than what rocket engine parts have to withstand, because all the really hot parts of a rocket engine are cooled by the fuel being pumped around.

>>8743262

All solids

All pressure fed engines, upper or lower stages

>>8743254
>the simple fact that they don't require oxidizer, let alone cryogenic or hypergolic propellants, makes them simpler by default
Ultimate brainlet. By default? Maybe in an "all other things being equal" sense, but all other things aren't equal.

Neither crygogenic nor hypergolic propellants are necessary for rockets (and you're really, really stupid if you think hypergols make an engine more complex). For instance, you could use NTO/kerosene (and no, NTO isn't hypergolic with kerosene), or H2O2/kerosene, or N2O/propane, or even ammonium nitrate slurry / alcohol. Nor is any turbomachinery whatsoever necessary. You can have pressure-fed rockets, or pistonless pumps (staged pressure-fed). The turbopumps that do get used in rockets can work under lower temperature conditions than jet engines designed to squeeze out as much fuel economy as possible by running as hot as the turbine can be made to take.

Much more engineering effort goes into designing a market-competitive jet engine than a rocket engine, because it's a harder problem.

>>8743278
Yeah, you obviously can't defend your position at all.

>>8743283
Not sure what you're trying to prove here.
>jet engines are complicated!
what an incredibly profound statement.

The engines that SpaceX, Blue Origin, and NPO Energomash are working on today are an order of magnitude more complicated than the most complicated turbofan jet engine.

>>8743293
still waiting on examples
and soilds are not "liquid" as framed in >>8743121

>>8743296
Could an airplane store hypergolics in its wing fuel tanks?

>>8743262
You never made your case in the first place that Merlin is simpler than other engines.

I already pointed out some of its complexities: throttleable, restartable, regeneratively cooled, non-hypergolic.

But sure, here's a plainly simpler engine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikas_engine

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>>8742519
>Starliner
>first flight June 2018
>second flight is manned a scant three months later
you couldn't fucking pay me to go up on that

At least Dragon 2 has a six month period between first flight and manned, and uses components from the prior one.

>>8743313
SpaceX is more likely to have two launch failures before their first crew mission than they are to launch crew in 2018.

>>8742530
>SpaceX would do it much faster otherwise
They wouldn't be doing it at all, as they would be down $2.6 billion in funding.

>>8742610
>orbit the moon
They will not be "orbiting" the moon; and they certainly won't be pioneers since the the first people to visit the moon did so nearly 50 years ago.

>>8742649
>nasa gets 20 billion a year
>Thats plenty of money to live on for SpaceX
NASA wouldn't be given even 5% of that money by congress if it was all "going to spacex"

>>8743316

source

>>8743340
SpaceX missions between now and first crewed mission: about 25
SpaceX chance of launch failure: 10%
Chance of getting through 25 missions without launch failure: 7.2%

>>8743300
>The engines that SpaceX, Blue Origin, and NPO Energomash are working on today are an order of magnitude more complicated than the most complicated turbofan jet engine.

Really, these rocket engines are 10x more complicated than the most complicated turbofan engine? Amazing, how did you come to that conclusion? Did you carefully analyze jet engine designs while applying a fair assessment of complexity then apply the same assessment to current rocket engines and find that they are that much more complex?

Or are your completely talking out of your ass right now?

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>>8743300

>>8743351
kek

you are clearly a butthurt GE employee or some shit

what are you going to do when Elon's engineering team finishes their little Mars project and comes swooping in to put you out of the job with their VTVL aircraft?

>>8743329
No, they'd have proceeded with it regardless. There are other customers, and investors, and the development cost would be much lower without having to satisfy NASA bureaucrats. They'd probably launch around the same time, too. Without the NASA contract, the bottleneck would be having a mature launch vehicle with flights to spare.

It's not like NASA handed them $2.6 billion up front. So far, they've probably only seen a couple hundred million. There's no guarantee they'll get the full $2.6 billion either, that's the maximum contract value if NASA exercises every option with an additional cost.

Most of it is for crew rotation flights, with new Dragons on new Falcon 9s. Private customers will likely fly on reused Dragons and reused-booster Falcon 9s.

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>>8743300

This engine is plainly simpler than Merlin, made by ISRO, currently flies on the GSLV.

>>8743360
If it weren't for NASA funding, they would be desperately trying to make money with falcon-5 right now or just out of business altogether.

>>8743333

A hyperbolic orbit is technically an orbit :^)

>>8743370
yeah but it's just a high earth orbit

>>8743219
The ITS will be able to transfer payloads between ships in orbit, it will OBVIOUSLY be able to carry payloads then release them in GTO or LEO or w/e

For an abort system they could just shove 100 super draco's into an ITS if they really wanted to.

>>8743393
>The ITS will be able to transfer payloads between ships in orbit
?
You mean fuel?


> it will OBVIOUSLY be able to carry payloads then release them in GTO or LEO or w/e
How do you conclude this?
SpaceX is developing a spaceship, not a proper upper stage.

>For an abort system they could just shove 100 super draco's into an ITS if they really wanted to.
but they won't
the writing is on the wall
Any ITS "fan" has no right to criticize the shuttle.

>>8743382

Not once the spacecraft is passing deep within the Moon's Hill sphere. During that phase of flight it's on a hyperbolic trajectory, during all other times it is on a highly eccentric Earth orbit.

>>8743393

I don't think the ITS will have an abort system.
I also don't think that is a bad thing.
Case in point, no commercial airliner has an abort system, at most they have a few little bits of hardware to assist passengers leaving the plane after an emergency landing.

>>8743407
It's actually not looping around the moon though. With an apogee of 400,000 miles, it will pass by the moon just once and keep on going for some time.

>>8743413
I'm sure your opinion will swiftly change when SpaceX's failure rate is realized in ITS and they crater 100+ people on the surface of Mars every ten flights.

>>8743398

The ITS won't have an abort system, but the vehicle itself won't have to deal with any of the glaring design flaws the Shuttle did, namely the solid boosters and the extremely fragile heat shield system.

The only thing that would force an ITS abort would be severe engine anomalies. Considering that SpaceX already understands this and is working to make Raptor the most reliable large rocket engine in the world, I don't see this as a problem.

>>8743425
>the vehicle itself won't have to deal with any of the glaring design flaws the Shuttle did
see >>8742981

>>8743416

I know, that's what makes it a hyperbolic trajectory. It's still well within the Moon's sphere of influence at the time though so the spacecraft will technically be orbiting the moon, even if it is orbiting on an escape trajectory and doesn't slow down into an elliptical orbit or otherwise.

I'm not saying they will go around the Moon, more accurately they will pass next to it, but will be under the influence of its gravity far more than the Earth's and thus be 'orbiting' the Moon.

That apoapsis of 400,000 miles is around the Earth, around the Moon they will pass as close as a few dozens of miles, having first gone past the Moon's altitude, then fallen back to intercept it, then being flung away again, coasting to an apoapsis high above the Earth then falling back on their elliptical orbit to hit the upper atmosphere.

>>8743420
>I'm sure your opinion will swiftly change when SpaceX's failure rate is realized in ITS and they crater 100+ people on the surface of Mars every ten flights.

>implying I give a fuck

>>8743398
>SpaceX is developing a spaceship, not a proper upper stage.
Why do you think you need a "proper" upper stage to launch satellites.

They can flight test each vehicle numerous times to ensure they are in good working order. It'll be safe.

>>8743430
see >>8743425

For where I specified the Shuttle stack arrangement and use of solids as the glaring design flaws in question.

>>8743445
you can't just open the hatch and throw the satellite out, idiot

even the shuttle had a full cargo bay and they still had major problems deploying satellites

>>8743447
spacex has lost more rockets to liquid fuel problems in 2 years than nasa lost shuttles to SRBs in its entire history

>>8743451
Thats literally what the shuttle did, you opened the hatch and kicked it out.
The satellite can figure out its own fine details of orbit/orientation/etc

>>8743451

To be fair Shuttle had major problems with everything.

That being said I don't see ITS being used as another satellite launch vehicle. Maybe there's a niche for a cargo variant of the ITS that would support someone else's Moon base ambitions, but ITS is supposed to be a Mars transport architecture primarily.

>>8743454

They haven't lost as many astronauts :^)

>>8743454
SpaceX lost ONE rocket to a bad supplier issue
Then lost a rocket during testing because they are advancing state of the art tech.
The shuttle was blowing up because it was an unsafe piece of shit

>>8743458
The ITS will have down time between mars launches, and SpaceX ofc still needs their revenue streams, if people are paying billions to be delivered to the moon, they will do it.

>>8743349
that assumes failures are randomly distributed

>>8743465
You're right. I should assume that their failure rate is increasing over time (which it is)

>>8743462
>SpaceX lost ONE rocket to a bad supplier issue
>Then lost a rocket during testing because they are advancing state of the art tech.
>The shuttle was blowing up because it was an unsafe piece of shit
Literally not an argument.
SpaceX has really shat the bed in the last couple of years.

>13 posters

It's the SAME PEOPLE
week after week
making the SAME ARGUMENTS

Everyone should be ashamed of themselves

>>8743454

The solids were what made aborts impossible during the first couple minutes of a launch. The intense vibrations where what caused foam chunks on the external fuel tank to break off and strike the TPS of multiple shuttles, eventually dooming the crew of Columbia when they reentered after their mission was over, and almost did the same to Atlantis. A liquid booster may have had similar problems with vibration that would have still lead to foam strikes, but at least the shutdown ability would be there.

A foam strike is impossible for the ITS, for obvious reasons.

>>8743369
Now you're talking about ancient history, rather than the Crew Dragon contract in particular.

I doubt they'd have stuck with Falcon 5, though. Without NASA (and assuming the DOD didn't step up), the big money is in GTO launches which even Falcon 9 1.0 was underpowered for (hence the early talk about Falcon Heavy).

Merlin 1C's power and manufacturability was much more suited for Falcon 1 than for Falcon 9 (in fact, the ablatively cooled 1A would have been much more suitable for Falcon 9 -- it's not easy to mass produce regeneratively-cooled rocket engines). The NASA contract wasn't just an opportunity for them, it also threw their roadmap into disarray. They've been scrambling to do things that their vehicle wasn't ready for ever since.

Merlin 1D didn't happen faster because of NASA, and I think Grasshopper and F9R would have happened around the same time anyway. Sometimes money just can't speed things along. I think it's quite likely they'd have put their effort into a reusable upper stage first rather than a crew capsule, without the NASA money. In many ways, it's an easier problem.

>>8743470
>Literally not an argument.

Literally not an argument.

>>8743475
the foam was for covering a liquid fuel tank, idiot

>>8743473
>Everyone should be ashamed of themselves

Yes, but that applies to every human on Earth.

>>8743477
they were completely out of money until they won the COTS contract

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How will SpaceX even compete?

>>8743479

And the ITS Ship won't be struck by it because it sits on top of the stack you double nigger.

Further, because PICA-X is actually robust and doesn't have the consistency of sun damaged styrofoam, even if it WERE somehow able to be struck by foam, the damage wouldn't be severe enough to cause TPS failure and vehicle breakup on reentry.

>>8743420
>crater 100+ people on the surface of Mars every ten flights
There's never been a spacecraft that had an abort option for the entry and landing phase, and yet it hasn't been a problem.

It's ridiculous to speculate that they'll have a 10% failure rate just for entry and landing, on a mature spacecraft.

>>8742795
Skylon is retarded. Airbreathers are a meme.

>>8743489
their current landing failure rate is 39% and that doesn't include the earlier tests

>>8743483

Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, both in the block 5 configuration.

Later the ITS will be launching and BO will be releasing showcase videos for New Armstrong.

>>8743487
Even if it did get a hole punched it in by a bird or w/e, it has enough duration to sit in space until a rescue mission can be sent up

>>8743487
>And the ITS Ship won't be struck by it because it sits on top of the stack you double nigger.
right, now what does this have to do with SRBs again?

>>8743491

SSTO around Earth is a meme.

At least it isn't as bad as the Space Elevator people.

>>8743487
yeah I held a piece of carbon carbon heat tiling, shit was crumbling in my hand.

>>8743495

All landings of Falcon 9's first stage so far have been experimental, if Falcon 9 Block 5 keeps up the same failure rate then you'll have a point.

>>8743503
I have just one word for you:

High specific impulse tri-propellant liquid rocket engines.

>>8743481
No they weren't. SpaceX would have survived without the COTS contract, and things would have picked up for them after their first successful orbital launch. Not just customers, but investors.

>>8743511
>SpaceX would have survived without the COTS contract
how?

>>8743483
>2021-2022

HAAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHA

>>8743219
>ITS will never carry payloads to orbit
>only the ship and tanker
It would be a missed opportunity

Throwing up 300 tons at a time opens up so many opportunities, imagine an ISS type platform built of 300 ton chunks instead of 20 ton ones

>>8743516
They weren't "completely out of money". Anyway, you're changing your bullshit. Before you said without the NASA money they'd be flying Falcon 5s now, now you're implying they were about to declare bankruptcy when NASA decided an insolvent company was the perfect place to contract for services to deliver cargo to the ISS, and that was the only thing that kept the company alive.

>>8743483
>CGI rockets
lol

>>8743501
SRBs cause disproportionately high levels of vibration for the amount of thrust they provide.

Vibrations from the SRBs is what was causing foam insulation to break off of the external fuel tank of the Shuttle

Those chunks of foam were then able to strike the TPS of the Shuttle and damage it severely due to the fragile nature of the silica tiles, thus hindering or destroying the Shuttles ability to reenter the Earth's atmosphere safely.

The foam strike problem was a DIRECT result of both using SRBs and mounting the Shuttle on the side of the stack, which was necessitated by the choice of having the orbiter carry the main engines.

If Shuttle used liquid boosters the vibrations would have been considerably lessened and foam strikes would have been far less frequent.

Oh also the SRBs failed that one time and caused the Shuttle stack to pivot hard to starboard and break up.

>>8743524
>or just out of business altogether.

>>8743523
>It would be a missed opportunity
they are already clueless on how they will get the funds for the main thing
they won't waste funds building a second stage that nobody needs

>>8743509

Use them on a TSTO reusable booster and you'll have better payload performance and about the same cost while only having to put heat shield hardware on your second stage/orbiter.

Doing SSTO is a meme because every technology that would make it practical just works better on a TSTO reusable system.

It's an R&D money pitfall trap, don't fall for it my dude.

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>>8743106
>helicopters and jump jets have <1 twr
Tell you what, why don't you take your <1 twr and go jump off a bridge?

>>8743527
more blowing smoke

ITS is still insanely dangerous and one failure with deaths will put spacex out of business

>>8743535
We know from 2 key facts
That it can be unloaded on mars & it can sit in orbit for months
That it WILL be capable of deploying payloads in orbit

>>8743536
SSTOs are perfect for passenger transport and nothing more

Do people drive around in semi truck trailers on the road?

>>8743539
>That it WILL be capable of deploying payloads in orbit
provide a source for this claim you retarded moron

>>8743535
It would be a phenomenal waste to build that much rocket and not take advantage of it

Even the Saturn V was used for Skylab

>>8743543
BECAUSE IT'LL BE CAPABLE OF RAPIDLY DEPLOYING ITS PAYLOADS ON MARS
ERGO: it has to be deployable anywhere else

>>8743549
What would it be used for other than the space ship and tanker that couldn't be launched by FH or New Glenn?

>>8743550
see >>8743451

>>8743556
What do you think a rocket does to deploy a satellite? They open the fairings then kick it out

An ITS could fire thousands of cubesats out a door with rails.

>>8743538
>ITS is still insanely dangerous
For all the talk about launch abort systems, in the hundreds of manned launches, there has only been one time that one was used for its intended purpose and saved any lives, and there was another time when one went off and killed a bunch of ground crew. So they've been a wash in terms of human life, while adding considerable cost.

There are lots of reasons airliners don't have ejector seats. One is that they'd be less safe with them than they are without them. They impose a risk, so the flight itself has to be high-risk for the abort option to reduce rather than increase risk.

The best safety measure is to make all reasonable effort to ensure the flight proceeds as planned.

>one failure with deaths will put spacex out of business
Ridiculous.

>>8743552
Anything that weighs more than 70 tons? Imagination is the limit. If you can get a launch that big for $100-$120 million why not drop a massive habitat on the moon? Or a robotic rover the size of a monster truck? Or a new generation of ultra mega space telescope?

>>8743559
what part of
>even the shuttle had a full cargo bay and they still had major problems deploying satellites
did you not understand?

>>8743562
>Anything that weighs more than 70 tons?
Like what?

>>8743552
>What would it be used for other than the space ship and tanker that couldn't be launched by FH or New Glenn?
With no hardware expended, the cost per launch, let alone cost per tonne, will be lower for ITS than either FH or New Glenn, so there will be no purpose for either vehicle once ITS is mature. Furthermore, it will be capable of advanced services such as launching even very large satellites directly to GEO, rather than GTO.

They'll be able to send up space ships manned by technicians to do final tests and tweaks of satellites in space before final deployment, and even bring them back down if they need extensive alterations. It'll completely change the way the satellite business works.

>>8743577
>With no hardware expended, the cost per launch, let alone cost per tonne, will be lower for ITS than either FH or New Glenn
kek

>>8743581
Why is SpaceX the first company that has ever considered reusing Fairings?
Apparently they just fall into the ocean in perfectly good condition

>>8743540

No, but they drive around in cars. A semi truck would more accurately be analogous to a reusable rocket system (big heavy payloads), whereas a Skylon analog would be something like a bus, which is of a similar size but can't carry nearly as much.

SSTOs like Skylon have terrible payload fractions because they're SSTO. That's fine if you want to bring up people, because people don't like to be packed tightly and thus make a low density package. This low density means you can fill the 'cargo bay' of Skylon with passengers in a cabin and not go over your payload mass limit. Also, Skylon has an advantage over a reusable rocket when it comes to manned transport in the sense that it takes off and lands horizontally, which is much more comfortable.

>>8743574
see >>8743562

>>8743594
Skylon has the issue that it'll never work & never be cost effective even if it did get built

>>8743577
>They'll be able to send up space ships manned by technicians to do final tests and tweaks of satellites in space before final deployment, and even bring them back down if they need extensive alterations. It'll completely change the way the satellite business works.

This will never happen, even in the low cost launch regime of ITS it's way cheaper to just redesign satellites to be cheaper and replaced more often. Also, manned technical operations in space are hideously complex and difficult.

>>8743597

I agree, I'm saying even if we did get it to work it would not be anything close to revolutionary, it'd just allow more comfortable transport of many people to and from space, which is a capability we don't currently have any use for anyway.

>>8743601
You can build your GEO satellite be be modular and have new segments attached as needed.

>>8743593
probably because they're really cheap and spacex only wants to reuse them because they take up too much floor space in the factory?

>>8743617
Still millions of dollars, unless these other rockets use cheaper fairings

>>8743609

But why would you want to, when you can just afford to build your GEO satellite for much cheaper and replace it every four years using a cheap launch vehicle?

>>8743601
>it's way cheaper to just redesign satellites
Currently, satellites cost hundreds of millions of dollars. A million or two dollars per satellite to have technicians work on it in space and get it set up is nothing.

The base cost of an ITS launch looks to be around $4 million. So maybe $24-30 million to put a fully-loaded space ship in GEO (with the ability to come home after it deploys). You can have twenty 5-tonne satellites (remember, they don't need propellant for circularization from GTO, just stationkeeping, so these are huge satellites by today's standards), and there's still plenty of room for a bunch of technicians and equipment and the supplies to keep them alive and productive. That's fucking nothing for each satellite.

>manned technical operations in space are hideously complex and difficult.
The only manned spacecraft with an appreciable amount of elbow room ever launched was Skylab, and it was still cramped. Nobody's ever had a real workshop in space.

There's just no experience with practical manned spaceflight. Only symbolic efforts with grossly uneconomical, low-launch-rate systems.

>>8743662
Yet if this cheap launch vehicle can ALSO carry technicians/engineers to go deploy sats then do trouble shooting or upgrading at other GEO sats that would be the way to go.

Same reason you do maintainance on anything on Earth.

What does a month of time for a couple technicians cost? Almost nothing compared to millions on satellites.

>>8743667
>a real workshop in space

Are you talking about somehow having a large volume capable of opening up and taking in a satellite, then sealing and pressurizing to allow shirtsleeve astronauts to do work?

That sounds expensive, dangerous, unnecessary (because as I said, cheap launches are going to lead to cheap satellites and not repair missions), and retarded.

Satellites currently cost hundreds of millions but they could easily be manufactured for less than ten million. The reason people don't do this is because it reduces lifetime, which means more hundred-million-dollar launch vehicles to pay for.
However, a launch vehicle two orders of magnitude cheaper means that you can afford to make and launch an entire satellite every few years and actually pay less overall, as long as the sat is cheap as well.

Also, there's no fucking way a manned spaceflight involving satellite repair and so forth would end up costing 'a million or two dollars per satellite', even if they were working on dozens of satellites to spread the costs around.

>>8743674
>What does a month of time for a couple technicians cost? Almost nothing compared to millions on satellites.

Not true if you're operating in space, nor if the satellites in question have been designed to be disposable after 3-4 years instead of having to last 15.

>>8743698
>they could easily be manufactured for less than ten million. The reason people don't do this is because it reduces lifetime
Based on: nothing.

No, the reason people don't do this is because it often won't work. And even with cheap launch, it's no good to throw a lot of cheap, low-quality satellites up there and have them blow up and make a bunch of shrapnel.

Satellites are expensive to ensure they'll work without testing in the real space environment, and because they're packed full of expensive, cutting-edge electronics. Computer chips aren't cheap by the pound, much less custom ones.

Having technicians check things out while in orbit would be a huge gain.

>there's no fucking way a manned spaceflight involving satellite repair and so forth would end up costing 'a million or two dollars per satellite', even if they were working on dozens of satellites to spread the costs around.
Incredulity isn't an argument.

>>8743747
>Based on: nothing

No, it's based on the fact that SpaceX is planning on doing that exact thing with their internet satellite constellation. Mass producing cheap satellites is an attractive venture only stopped by launch costs. The satellites don't have to be low quality, they're just mass produced and simpler, since A; mass production on its own lowers costs, and B; they don't need to last more than a few years. For example, road vehicles are mass produced yet highly functional and reliable.

>Incredulity isn't an argument.

Incredulity is not my argument, my argument is that there's no way a manned mission to service satellites would be anything close to as cheap as you suggest. It's simply not feasible even with the cost reductions SpaceX is talking about for the future. The economics do not work.

>>8743785
>it's based on the fact that SpaceX is planning on doing that exact thing with their internet satellite constellation. Mass producing cheap satellites is an attractive venture only stopped by launch costs.
...and the lack of a need for large numbers of identical satellites. SpaceX is planning a special strategy which can make use of such a swarm. It's not at all clear that they're going to be allowed to do so, since they're planning to launch more satellites than have ever been launched in history, and put them in crisscrossing LEO orbits where they pose an alarming Kessler Syndrome threat.

>my argument is that there's no way a manned mission to service satellites would be anything close to as cheap as you suggest.
That's your position. An argument is something to support a position. Asserting your position isn't making an argument.

>The economics do not work.
I've described the launch costs. You haven't given a reason why there would be any major additional costs. Remember that SpaceX is already developing the space ship, so no development cost needs to be factored in for a large habitable space and the means to support people in deep space for months if necessary, as well as the means to unload large amounts of cargo into a near-vacuum environment (Mars), and allow crew to come and go. Furthermore, none of the launch hardware or in-space habitat is being expended.

>>8743810
>alarming Kessler Syndrome threat

Not really, considering in such a low orbit even if there were any collisions the debris orbits would decay within months, as opposed to the decades or millennia expected in higher orbits.

>That's your position.

Pedantic, but fine. On-orbit repair/modification of satellites will not ever be economical because satellites are already not expensive enough to justify the huge costs in time and money involved, and the cost of satellites is only expected to go down in the future.
On-orbit repair/modification will never be easy, because doing things in zero G is difficult, requires lots of time, and carries the risk of completely bricking the satellite anyway. Source, that time we did things to Hubble while it was in space. Even ignoring the launch costs (because including Shuttle's launch cost would throw any calculation out of whack), the cost of the modules and the amount of effort and time spend performing the repairs was immense.

>I've described the launch costs

And I'm talking about operations cost. I'm also asserting that a much loser launch cost actually increases the incentive to make cheaper satellites, because the economies of scale favor many cheaper sats instead of fewer more expensive ones if the risk involved with having a dead-on-arrival is much lower, which is true when a rocket launch costs 1/100th of current day prices.

>>8743825
>because satellites are already not expensive enough to justify the huge costs in time and money involved

It doesn't matter how cheap they are, replacing some small modular part of the satellite that has stopped working will be cheaper than sending a whole new one up. Or doing some other technical work that needs to be done in person.
There is no magical extra cost involved in doing work in space.

>>8742610
Absolutely laughed my fucking ass off at that webm. Thank you anon.

>>8742610
There are two rich businessmen willing to make a gamble for a cool experience and lots of publicity, but are not yet willing to release their names and look like fools.

>>8742945

>Having more efficient propulsion does not imply a cheaper ride.

Yes it does. Less fuel consumption = more movement from the same size fuel container.

>Reusable rockets are the future of economic space ventures

yes, and how does that have ANYTHING to do with engines on interplanetary spacecraft?

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>>8742938

zurbin pls go

>>8743560

>There are lots of reasons airliners don't have ejector seats.

That comparison doesn't work when a Launch Abort System would simply eject the entire passenger/crew cabin from the out-of-control vehicle. This is enough to save lives, even if the first stage simply flares out (as opposed to exploding or gimballing wrong) the LES is the thing that holds all the parachutes that can safely land the capsule.

>>8745339
>>There are lots of reasons airliners don't have ejector seats.
>That comparison doesn't work when a Launch Abort System would simply eject the entire passenger/crew cabin from the out-of-control vehicle.
Sure it does. If it goes off at the wrong time, it can kill people. Furthermore, it'll have energetic mechanisms that can fail in other ways.

Everything in a system can fail, so adding more parts that can fail isn't a good way to make a system safer.

It's not at all normal to have a bail-out system for civilian aircraft. It's standard in military aircraft because even if everything works fine, you're still likely to get shot down.

>>8745447

>Everything in a system can fail, so adding more parts that can fail isn't a good way to make a system safer.

Yes, but it's not as if making an LES is complex. All it has to do is cut all power, eject the cabin and ignite the LES SRBs. 60 seconds later it deploys the chute. This whole thing can use a simple mechanical button and fuses without any computer controls. Even then, my point is that an LES system is not analogous to individual ejection seats. The former can be configured to operate without any user input while the latter requires intense training. Which is why LESes are less complicated than ejection seats, and thus much safer.

>It's not at all normal to have a bail-out system for civilian aircraft.

A normal airplane doesn't use parachutes to land either, unlike nearly all spacecraft (except the STS and x-37). Spacecraft are designed to freefall towards the ground, this is a feature built into them so there is no reason why after a failed launch the cabin cannot thrust away from the rest of the vehicle then initiate a landing procedure.

More importantly, it avoids SpaceX wrongful death penalties. There's a big difference between "the rocket had a problem after liftoff and the crew couldn't do anything so they exploded" vs "the rocket had a problem after liftoff and the crew exploded while the LES was deploying".

>>8742981
>>if any of the 51 engines on the rocket fails, everybody dies

If the Saturn 5 second stage could fly on if one of 5 engines shut down, I there is likely some margin for engine loss with ten times as many engines.

>>8743046
Yeah,that's why they stopped flying Soyuz and Progress.

>>8745626
It's not just about engine out capability in launching, but also for engine out during landing too
Thats one of the big points of doing all those engines.

Question inspire by the general tenor of this and similar threads:

There seems to be a huge level of partisanship, verging on fanboi-ism, among modern space enthusiasts. This reads like folks are not interested in success in furthering spaceflight unless it is achieved by the right Team, and that it is as important for The Other Guys to fail as it is for your Team to succeed.

This seems very strange to me. I'd be best pleased with a large number of successful companies and agencies flying into, exploiting and exploring space.

Which I guess is a statement rather than a question, so:

Why you gotta be like that?

>>8745520
>A normal airplane doesn't use parachutes to land either, unlike nearly all spacecraft
ITS won't use parachutes to land.

>it avoids SpaceX wrongful death penalties
No it won't. Reminder: airliners don't have ejector seats. Sometimes they crash and everyone dies. The fact that they don't have ejector seats isn't brought up.

Like an airliner, ITS will have a certain amount of capability for graceful failure (engine out, early staging, landing at improvised sites), and like an airliner, it'll have failure modes that mean near-certain death for everyone onboard.

>There's a big difference between "the rocket had a problem after liftoff and the crew couldn't do anything so they exploded" vs "the rocket had a problem after liftoff and the crew exploded while the LES was deploying".
What about, "an abort motor unexpectedly blew up during a routine launch"?

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>>8746052
More spaceships is better than fewer spaceships.

>>8742981
>has to land perfectly or everybody dies
>if a landing engine fails, everybody dies
>if any of the 51 engines on the rocket fails, everybody dies
>if both the solar panels don't deploy, everybody dies

Guess I found what I want to do in life.

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>>8746130
Die?

>>8746052
as a person who tends to make little of 'commercial spaceflight' and poke fun at people like musk, while generally evangelizing nasa and other government agencies, I'll try to outline my view.

The way I see it, we aren't several teams usually. There is sorta a 'space industry' which by and large is one entity, for simplicity lets just talk about the USA, where for the most part it consists of NASA, with Boeing lockheed and other contractors.

A great deal of nasa money goes to contractors to get things done. Really, arguably it doesn't matter in most cases who makes a specific launcher or spacecraft or camera, the idea of a competitive contract award is that several entities make an offer and try to pick the best one, and probably that is in many cases a good thing.

What troubles me about groups like spacex is that they are acting rather out of line. They have contract obligations, probably which will be pushed back, and then are making rather outlandish promises.

In principle spacex is just really fuffilling the role of many other contractin gcompanies before it, but it is pretending like its new, and promising to do things that A) in many cases probably don't need to be done or make little sense, b) are on time frames such that they probably won't happen, and missing critical early steps (mars colonies I'm looking at you), and c) have been proposed before and gone nearly as far as I imagine these plans to go.

In the end, the pool of money in the space industry seems like it is in many cases dependant more than anything on outside forces, of politics and market demand to a degree. If we only have a limited amount of cash to spend on all the projects that anyone wants to do, then it seems it could be spent better than having various splinter groups squandering it on making themsleves look good.

>>8742969
Of these problems, all really can be attributed to politics.

>>8742921
and people like shoemaker were trying to make a fuss because they knew that was happening, even before the latter missions were all canceled.

>>8742793
a clarification because you make it sound like jpl is manned people, it probably would be someone else. I think that's what you meant.

Also, JPL's focus and push for just rovers (and rover's in everything) has been irking me a lot recently. I want a balloon, or a glider, or, ya know, something different.

>>8743015
Arguing that something is alright because the shuttle did it is stupid. The shuttle worked. OK. but it wasnt really good, it was far short of what it was supposed to do.

>>8743473
This is my second post in this thread. . . .

>>8746612
Well SpaceX has had delays that are often outside their control
The overselling is more a case of them putting out public the internal aggressive timelines they want to follow.

>>8742552
You could say the same about the first dragon capsule. It's only used to fly to the iss.

And they have a profitable business model. Launching satellites.

>>8742795
Skylon is an orbital plane. It will never leave Earth orbit. It can't shed dead weight.

>>8746733
and pretending that its new, despite the fact that they are just the latest iterations of these proposals that have been around for, in many cases, decades.

>>8746763
They are the first people to be landing boosters.. and reusable capsules with large downmass capacity

>>8746612

>they are acting rather out of line
>and then are making rather outlandish promises.
>in many cases probably don't need to be done or make little sense,
>are on time frames such that they probably won't happen
>and missing critical early steps
>have been proposed before and gone nearly as far as I imagine these plans to go.
>then it seems it could be spent better
>than having various splinter groups squandering it on making themsleves look good

Fill these out with specifics.

>>8746763

>that they are just the latest iterations of these proposals that have been around for, in many cases, decades.

the wright brothers weren't the first to try to fly, but they did have a specific idea that they thought would work and allow them to succeed when previous efforts failed.

X-33 didn't result in anything, but a different approach, first stage booster landing, is trying something different and showing promise.

>>8743509
Fuck that. And while we're at it, fuck anything involving LH2. If the SSTO meme is the goal Propyne/LOX is where it's at.

>>8746084
All those ships are sexy except BSG
Should just call it Chloe

>>8743921

Space is inherently inimical to human life. Food, air and water all have to be brought up. Every hour a human spends working in space it's slowly killing them via radiation and microgravity.

We don't repair TVs any more, not even "swapping out a module". We barely repair computers, and we do it by shipping them to a central refurbishment facility. It's never going to be cheaper to have a human repair something in space than to ship it down and up again - the human life support requirements for time spent doing repairs weigh a lot more than any reasonable satellite. Most likely you'd replace the whole satellite with a newer model instead though.

>>8747061
If you have a bad stick of ram in your PC, you replace that, you don't throw the whole thing out.

These are multi-ton chunks of electronics. Not a household consumer item.

>>8742519
>Who will actually pull it off first?
After extensive research, I've come to the tentative conclusion that May lies before August.

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>>8746733
>SpaceX has had delays that are often outside their control

>>8747107
ULA shooting their rocket is outside their control, yes

>>8747107
>denying space illuminati

anon . . .

>>8747085

Replacing RAM is getting much rarer. Most modern computers come with it soldered or even glued in.

Individual nerds still replace their own sticks sure, but a business doing it under warranty will most likely swap the whole PC out and take the broken one away to a service center.

>>8747137
Just because dumb normies can't even LEGO their PC's together doesn't mean its something hard.

>>8747149

It's not hard. But the fact that businesses don't find it cost-effective should tell you something.

>>8746069

>ITS won't use parachutes to land.

It could though. There is no engineering reason why it can't.

>No it won't. Reminder: airliners don't have ejector seats. Sometimes they crash and everyone dies. The fact that they don't have ejector seats isn't brought up.

Airliners also aren't launched vertically off a launch pad.

>What about, "an abort motor unexpectedly blew up during a routine launch"?

still better than "the rocket had a problem after liftoff and the crew couldn't do anything so they exploded"

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>>8746612
While not agreeing with all of that, I salute a post that is the sort of thing /sci/ needs more of: well reasoned position, explained well, without smothering it in crap better suited for other boards.

>>8747051
Galactica was the first spaceship effects model where I could identify some of the pieces of Revell model tanks and planes glued on for surface texture. It will always accupy a warm place in my heart.

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>>8747095
>O U

But then, "What are 'schedule slippages?'"

>>8747330
Old School

>>8747107
Say what you will, speaking as something of a connoisseur, it was a cool looking explosion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_uVqxpFjUc

>>8746612
>What troubles me about groups like spacex is that they are acting rather out of line. They have contract obligations
SpaceX was going to go forward with or without NASA money. They didn't start out as a government contractor, and becoming one was never the primary purpose of the business.

You're basically a team-NASA insider or fanboy complaining that the NASA contracts haven't succeeded in clipping SpaceX's wings, in diminishing their ambition and making them standard-issue clockpunchers, as they were intended to.

>we only have a limited amount of cash to spend on all the projects
...so you want your buddy-buds to get a slice of that pie, even if they're terminally mediocre people who will make no progress whatsoever.

It's not a zero-sum game, especially in a single country. For instance, SpaceX is winning hundreds of millions of dollars worth of commercial launch contracts that Europe or Russia would have got before, and it's spending less to fulfill them. That leaves money for their research and development.

They're talking about building a huge satellite internet constellation to make billions of dollars providing more bandwidth and better connections to remote areas. They're talking about private space stations and space tourism.

The pie can get higher. And we can stop giving slices at all to worthless assholes who just fight for a bigger slice, and don't contribute anything of value, like the dumb fucks at MSFC.

That's what you people are really against: the incompetence of the spaceflight establishment being revealed, and the gains of their fraudulent pose of competence being stripped away.

>>8747061
>Food, air and water all have to be brought up. Every hour a human spends working in space it's slowly killing them via radiation and microgravity.
None of those things are inherent to space travel. They're the result of flying in small, shitty, primitive spacecraft.

Food, air, and water can all be produced in space. Radiation can be shielded and artificial gravity can be generated.

Furthermore, short-term exposure to microgravity and radiation cause negligible long-term health effects, and short-term supplies of food, air, and water are hardly expensive.

>>8743483
I like how it is hitting the barge while it is under way.

>>8747665
That's an important part of the plan.

They'll be using active stabilizer fins to keep the ship from rocking around or moving up and down while the rocket lands.

>>8743437
>orbiting on an escape trajectory
That is called a flyby, not an orbit.

>>8746802
Perhaps what I should have said is more that they have yet to earn my faith. Eventually probably, people will land on mars. Irregardless of whether I think its a good idea.

Could Spacex be the group that does it? Could this finally be the plan that shall be executed?

Sure. its possible. SpaceX has done some cool stuff and I'll give them that. But there remain many parallels between this iteration of the 'we're going to mars soon' story and previous ones, and not enough difference to make it appear fundamentally different in that important detail: eventual actuality.

>>8747461
Well, as a team nasa insider, I'd say that my desire is less to clip spacex's wings as to make sure that they're doing . . . what we pay them to do on time.

If they do other projects, cool, but if their contracts are late or insufficient, then that seems a problem. Or if sticking in experiments with our paid missions pushes those missions to delay and failure, then I question the motivations of spacex in competing for our contracts.

I am not saying that Boeing or lockheed are somehow perfect, and I know that there are a whole lot of political and otherly motivated shenanigans in the traditional space industry, and it irks me.

But when people pretend spacex is somehow different from those entities, it irks me as well.

>>8748737
LOL dude looks like you are destined to be irked no matter what.

>>8748758
the world is an irksome place, and I am an easily irked individual.

Does my irkedness irk you?

>>8748140
Barge moving hasn't been relevant to SpaceX yet
Doesn't look like it will, the center of the barge is fairly stationary even in choppy waves.

>>8748875
>Barge moving hasn't been relevant to SpaceX yet
For their results? Debatable.

For the difficulty of the engineering? No, that is a serious challenge.

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>>8748767
Nah, I came into this world more-or-less irked in advance.

t. an Irkan

>>8748737
>when people pretend spacex is somehow different from those entities
There's been basically no progress in launch systems, other than modest gains in reliability, since the late 1960s, until SpaceX started landing boosters for reuse.

Do you really want to be this kind of "god of the gaps" clown who keeps claiming that the fatal flaw of their plan is in the next step until they've got a fully mature system that's obviously superior to anything anyone else has ever had?

>if sticking in experiments with our paid missions pushes those missions to delay and failure, then I question the motivations of spacex in competing for our contracts.
SpaceX is making real progress in the stuff that's supposed to be central to NASA's purpose. Something NASA hasn't been doing for decades.

That hasn't stopped anyone else contracting for or working with NASA from delay and failure where launch systems are involved. How about straight-up failing to produce a successor craft to the shuttle for rotating crew at ISS? SLS/Orion was legislatively mandated to be flying now and capable of this mission. MSFC has been trying to slap together a cobble-job rocket from old shuttle parts and recreate the Apollo capsule for longer now than the time from the first man in orbit to boots on the moon, and they've given up on the main practical reason they were asked to do so in the first place.

Do think just flying nothing is more respectable and better service than some delays and a lost cargo? Do you think no plan or vision for the future is a better excuse than an ambitious plan that's clearly moving forward but hasn't quite matured yet?

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>>8742707
>Pence will be the President

>>8749151
Sacrilege against the immortal God Emperor!