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I understand the enthusiasm, but I don't see enough hard data to convince me this will be a commercial success. Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He... , SpaceX has launched and landed about 10 of these rockets, and has so far reused one. That rocket was first used about a year ago. Factors that might prevent this from making this economically superior to 'just' ramping up productio…
I can't wait until I have a talk with my kids when they realize the significance of this day: Kid: Daddy, ou mean when you were growing up, they threw away rockets each time? Me: Yes Kid: Doesn't that make them expensive? Me: Yes. And then not long after will be the other talk: Kid: Daddy, you mean people used to be in charge of driving themselves in cars? Me: Yes Kid: Did people ever die? Me: Millions Good job Elon…
I understand the enthusiasm, but I don't see enough hard data to convince me this will be a commercial success. Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He... , SpaceX has launched and landed about 10 of these rockets, and has so far reused one. That rocket was first used about a year ago. Factors that might prevent this from making this economically superior to 'just' ramping up productio…
Yeah, my understanding is that you're wrong on this, though I too am not a rocket scientist. But a few points:
> SpaceX has launched and landed about 10 of these rockets, and has so far reused one. That rocket was first used about a year ago.
While this is factually correct, extrapolating from this will not give any useful insight.
> the amount of effort needed to prepare a rocket for reuse relative to that needed to produce a new rocket
It may be somewhat counter-intuitive, but an already-flown rocket is easier to fly a second time than it is the first time: it's already been "flight-proven." For example, a lot of defects on a microscopic scale simply cannot be detected ahead of time, and the only way to truly detect them is to test the rocket. This is why there are static fires ahead of launch. And it is also why there is a lot of over-engineering (in many things, not just rockets, but airplanes etc.)
The important thing here is that they land the rocket without too many additional stresses. It's not like the Space Shuttle boosters which were dumped into the ocean and had to deal with a lot of refurbishment.
> if they were, I think they would have launched a used rocket earlier.
The first one will always take longer. They're also finalizing the design, and had an accident investigation last year that was a big burden.
> I understand the enthusiasm, but
I'm not sure you do, but I hope I may have convinced you otherwise ;) The answers to your questions could really be "close to 100%" and "a few weeks to months" (more optimistic people will say "days or hours" to that last question).
What they've managed today is a huge milestone, and they're iterating on an astonishing timeframe. They hadn't even landed a single rocket a few years ago, and that was the truly difficult part. It's incredible how fast their progress has been, especially in the context of the space industry generally.
I've noticed that during the webcast they talked much more about their planetary colonisation project than they usually do. I guess it makes sense since today is the first time they actually implement the re-usability plan they believe is the key to this colonisation. But frankly, is the cost of going to mars really that important for its colonisation? I mean, I wouldn't move to mars even if going there was free. For…
Cities on Mars - it's not productive debating this at such an early stage, though it makes for an interesting discussion.
I've noticed that during the webcast they talked much more about their planetary colonisation project than they usually do. I guess it makes sense since today is the first time they actually implement the re-usability plan they believe is the key to this colonisation. But frankly, is the cost of going to mars really that important for its colonisation? I mean, I wouldn't move to mars even if going there was free. For…
Dreams are good, they allow people to expend energy chasing that dream and the spin-offs from that may be worth as much or more to humanity than the original dream, even if we may not be able to figure out what path that might take today.
I'm certainly not complaining, hope they dream a lot more and will produce many more useful milestones, and if they don't end up achieving their dream I'll feel sorry for them but thank them for their incredible service anyway.
Think of that dream as a very powerful motivator for a lot of extremely smart and talented people. It's the fox to a whole pack of hounds that would very much like to gain ground and as such it seems to be doing a very good job.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That cut to black nearly gave me a damn heart attack haha. Satellite connection lost because rocket exhaust is basically a giant ionized cloud of noise. Elon looks like he hasn't been getting enough sleep or showers, and like he's about to back flip and start happy crying.
My heart attack moment was during the launch when I started seeing flame flickering around the tops of the engines... and then I thought to look at the altitude indicator, and realised they were at about 10km, and it was just the plume expanding as the atmospheric pressure dropped.
Check this page, the Merlin uses an open cycle, where fuel/oxidizer used to fuel the pumps is just dumped overboard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas-generator_cycle
This picture clearly shows both exhausts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family)#...
I can't wait until I have a talk with my kids when they realize the significance of this day: Kid: Daddy, ou mean when you were growing up, they threw away rockets each time? Me: Yes Kid: Doesn't that make them expensive? Me: Yes. And then not long after will be the other talk: Kid: Daddy, you mean people used to be in charge of driving themselves in cars? Me: Yes Kid: Did people ever die? Me: Millions Good job Elon…
The real-time streaming made me really excited for the future. Elon is truly a genius... SpaceX will save so much money. I can't wait to see what comes next. Honestly, the rate at which technology is growing is truly absurd if you think about it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But you'd have to compare their first thirty launches with these to compare. Anyway, notice has been served today I think, now let's see what it leads to. For comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Thor_and_Delta_launche... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He... Of course the beginnings of what is now ULA were much more innovativ…
Well no, you don't have to compare to the first thirty launches with those when we're talking about competition for launch services. Somebody choosing a launch provider for their satellite today doesn't care what the reliability of the Atlas was in the 1960s, they only care what it is today. If I was arguing that "SpaceX sucks and they deserve to fail because they're so unreliable" then you'd have a point, but I'm no…
"Of course the beginnings of what is now ULA were much more innovative than what SpaceX is doing because we simply had not launched any rockets of that size at all and so there were many more failures."
So of course the situation is not 1:1 comparable. But given that it is a new platform some failures were to be expected, it doesn't take a lot in rocketry to have a failure. How many launch failures would you consider to be acceptable over the course of the first 30 launches for a new platform?
I've noticed that during the webcast they talked much more about their planetary colonisation project than they usually do. I guess it makes sense since today is the first time they actually implement the re-usability plan they believe is the key to this colonisation. But frankly, is the cost of going to mars really that important for its colonisation? I mean, I wouldn't move to mars even if going there was free. For…
#/media/File:SpaceX_Testing_Merlin_1D_Engine_In_Texas.jpg){kind=link}