Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SES-10 Mission

spacex.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 368 posts

Re: SES-10 Mission

#351

Post by jacquesm »

mksaunders wrote: post #273
nojvek wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blue origin isn't even in the same league. Their rockets go straight up, stay there for a bit and down again. Spacex achieves magnitudes higher velocity, altitude and actually delivers things to orbit. BlueOrigin is Bezos' pet project akin to taking a heli tour around the city while SpaceX is doing a transcontinental flight half way around the world.

GP said we need a contest – not that we have one. And when New Glenn starts flying in a few years, we'll definitely have that contest. You're right that New Shepard doesn't compare to what SpaceX is doing at the moment, but Blue Origin is working on much, much bigger rockets...

I'd expect one of the current other launch providers to add re-use to their line-up long before Blue Origin manages to achieve orbit.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#352

Post by jacquesm »

ColanR wrote: post #257
jacquesm wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bezos's Blue Origin is on track to have a very similar system in a few years That's on paper, not anything they've flown has come close to what SpaceX is demonstrating as a matter of some routine now. (1) never been to orbit (2) never been to orbit and then back down to a landing (3) 6 flights vs 33 (4) payload At this point in time Blue Origin to me looks like a slightly more serious version of Armadillo Aerospace…

As far as I can tell, Blue Origin is taking their time to ensure the reliability and re-usability of their rockets before they take a shot at reaching orbit. Different strategy that's way less flashy, but I think they end up with a better track record and and a more clearly proven reliability (compared to SpaceX).

There is no substitute for launching. Whether or not Blue Origin will have a better track record and more clearly proven reliability is a complete unknown at this point and if they wait another 3 years before they start launching they'll be roughly a decade behind SpaceX.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#354

Post by valuearb »

falsedan wrote: post #293
msl wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of it put any infrastructure for the long-term access of space into place, or anything to make future moon landings easier. This is not entirely fair. The actual landings (which did teach us a lot about the moon) were just the tip of an iceberg. Consider project Gemini [1] for example. A dozen missions and several astronaut-weeks of space time to get hang of such consepts as rendezvous and docking of two space…

Just a note that the USSR space station program completely outpaced the US with Salyut & had automatic docking procedures for unsupervised unmanned resupply missions in the 70s. The core module for Mir2 became the core of the ISS.

Also the Buran could and did fly totally automated. NASA refused to allow the Shuttle to, because they didn't want it to be used for unmanned missions.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#355

Post by valuearb »

jacquesm wrote: post #351
mksaunders wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP said we need a contest – not that we have one. And when New Glenn starts flying in a few years, we'll definitely have that contest. You're right that New Shepard doesn't compare to what SpaceX is doing at the moment, but Blue Origin is working on much, much bigger rockets...

I'd expect one of the current other launch providers to add re-use to their line-up long before Blue Origin manages to achieve orbit.

ULA is relying on Blue Origin for it's next engines, so my bet is they rely on BO for re-use as well.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#356

Post by valuearb »

jccooper wrote: post #234
jacquesm wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bezos's Blue Origin is on track to have a very similar system in a few years That's on paper, not anything they've flown has come close to what SpaceX is demonstrating as a matter of some routine now. (1) never been to orbit (2) never been to orbit and then back down to a landing (3) 6 flights vs 33 (4) payload At this point in time Blue Origin to me looks like a slightly more serious version of Armadillo Aerospace…

It's easy to confuse Blue Origin with other companies with paper plans, but they're the real deal. Besides having demonstrated clear competence with New Shepard (with an LH2 engine no less), the orbital version is well underway. They've leased the pad, are currently building the factory, and are testing the engine. And Bezos definitely has the money. They may not be flying the New Glenn yet, but they will.

We are a decade away from even knowing the reliability rate for BO orbital rockets.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#357

Post by di4na »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #345
di4na wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about Mars is that it does not solve any problem. It just give us time to solve the problem. It mulitply the chance of humanity surviving a problem that kills our only "capsule", Earth. And that dangerous event could be external to humanity. So Mars is a part of a solution for all that : buy all the rest of humanity time to solve that problem and making sure enough humans can be born and live so that at lea…

There are no plausible scenarios where survival of the species is easier on Earth than on Mars. Even in the worst runaway climate change scenarios or the worst nuclear war scenarios, Earth is still more habitable than Mars.

I never said easier. You just add a bit of redundancy for some events. This is not a "safe" system.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#358

Post by valuearb »

When I was a kid the Shuttle was going to launch every week, but that turned out to be impossible given the amount of rework it required, the most flights it did in a year were 9, and it averaged around 4.5.

Forget the 24 hour turnaround. If SpaceX gets to the point where they have weekly launches it will be utterly delightful and amazing. Essentially to do that they have to not only make re-use work well, but also have to pass cost savings to customers to increase demand.

Re: SES-10 Mission

#359

Post by maneesh »

BigJono wrote: post #187
erikpukinskis wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit disappointing to me that poverty, human trafficking, addiction, habitat destruxtion, cultural erasure, genocide, torture, extinction, etc aren't very powerful motivators for such people. I feel such pressure to use our new skills to solve these problems, but I know 10 years ago they were a combination of invisible/impossible to me. If I hadn't been aggressively pushed by smart feminists to examine my life…

They're not really comparable. You can engineer your way to Mars. You cannot engineer your way to a solution for addiction or violence; unless you want to launch a full-blown dystopian eugenics program.

hehe i think you can engineer a solution for addiction

Re: SES-10 Mission

#360

Post by sixQuarks »

greeneggs wrote: post #332
sixQuarks wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nasa was spending close to 5% of the federal budget back then, about $35-40 billion per year in today's dollars. The space program cost hundreds of billions. spaceX has done it by raising less than $1.5 billion total

> spaceX has done it by raising less than $1.5 billion total NASA has itself given SpaceX more than that. Wikipedia says SpaceX has taken $5 billion from NASA, with over $1 billion more from US defense contracts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX#NASA_contracts

yeah, but that's revenue, not the same thing.
Post reply on HN