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SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

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Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#571

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bryananderson wrote: post #403
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should have, but didn't. At least not for manned spaceflight. We learned how to keep humans alive in space way back with the Gemini project. A long-duration orbital sojourn could have been had for the cost of the ISS. At the end of the day, I struggle to think of a single big thing we can do post-ISS that we couldn't without.

It may not make headlines, but the knowledge we have gained about long-duration human health in space from ISS is utterly beyond price. For all its problems, that alone makes ISS worth it.

> the knowledge we have gained about long-duration human health in space from ISS is utterly beyond price

The knowledge was valuable, but not priceless. The same data could have been gathered, many times over, with long-duration multi-member orbital missions. We could have probably gotten an interplanetary flight in, too. The staggering cost of the ISS crowded out a lot of good science.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#572

Post by NamTaf »

avmich wrote: post #538
NamTaf wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comparison was that N1 had a some 30 engines (Falcon Heavy has 27, given it's 3x Falcon 9's) and that was its downfall. In comparison, the Saturn V used only 5, they were just that much bigger. It's widely regarded that the 5 vs 30 was the difference as to why Saturn V was successful and N1 was not, as the Soviets simply had to roll too many dice in a situation where a failure resulted in complete mission loss. I…

It's interesting that in Soviet rocket engine school engines count by pumps, so, e.g. RD-180 is one engine, one pump, two chambers. In American rocket engine school engines used to count by chambers. In this sense R-7 is remarkable because it has a good overall success record (most launched rocket) and 32 chambers working at liftoff. Some of those chambers are rather small - about 3 metric tons of thrust, about as mu…

My feel/understanding is that chamber design is something that gets more difficult as it increases in size (obviously), but also by combining multiple smaller chambers you only suffer minimal downsides from a reliability perspective. After all, it's not like multiple smaller chambers result in heaps of extra moving parts, so a lot of the risk of duplicating components is gone.

You're right, though, the R-7 is a fantastic achievement not only for the chambers, but also considering how many engines and pumps it has. All those spinning, moving parts are another point of failure and they're all necessary for success.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#573

Post by ncallaway »

avmich wrote: post #528
InclinedPlane wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falcon Heavy is 1/10th the cost of other heavy lift launchers, and able to launch 10x (or more) often, with a higher payload. This is no baby step.

Yes, that's important. Wonder what success of FH would do to works on BFR? If BFR would be as successful as Musk writes, would SpaceX make two rockets - or optimization will lead to just one?

If BFR is as successful as Musk hopes (_especially_ around the reusability aspect), I think BFR would replace the F9 and Falcon Heavy as a lift vehicle.

If BFR is actually fully reusable it would be cheaper to launch than the F9 (due to the non-reused second stage).

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#574

Post by ricardobeat »

joering2 wrote: post #554
dingo_bat wrote: post #547

It's such a shame that so many people with Elon kind of money aren't doing anything to transform us into a spacefaring species. Why doesn't apple have a mars program? What the fuck are people doing with all the money? Awesome work by spacex. They are peerless, except if you want to count massive superpower governments as peers.

> It's such a shame that so many people with Elon kind of money aren't doing anything to transform us into a spacefaring species. "Elon kind of money?" Heard of government subsidies? https://ideapod.com/elon-musks-business-empire-fueled-4-9-bi... Edit: not taking sides and adding my subjective point to the article; just merely stating fact that Mr. Musk projects are in large part government-funded.

Pardon my French, but that’s a load of bullshit in this context. SpaceX is privately funded and only receives money from the government from the launch contracts it sells.

That amount is for Tesla and SolarCity combined. To put things into perspective, GM received a $50B bailout, Ford got almost $6B for “energy-efficient” cars, as did Nissan with $1.6B.

Finally, almost all of those are loans, tax credits and incentives, not money 'out of pocket'. The goal is always to generate more wealth than was “spent”.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#575

Post by naikrovek »

leetrout wrote: post #155
jagger27 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see the flame from the other booster.

Agree, same view of the flame of the same booster, indicating it's the same camera on the same booster... the glare shows up in both feeds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c&feature=youtu.be... If it were two different cameras we'd see two different landing pads. In the end of the video both feeds are coming down on the northern pad. Edit: Here's the sat image from december with notes added https://imgur.co…

They were two feeds from two cameras on the same rocket.

Since they are on the same rocket, you see them land on the same pad.

The rockets have redundant cameras, and through a probable misconfiguration we saw two feeds from two cameras on one rocket.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#576

Post by corobo »

Simon_says wrote: post #530
tastyfreeze wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I first read that as 2.3 millimeter people... who busted out the shrink ray?

I did too. mm is millimeter. MM is million. It comes from the Roman numeral M, so it has to be capitalized.

People can recognize context though. You are not the Google calculator

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#577

Post by jacquesm »

robotresearcher wrote: post #536
jacquesm wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a great movie about a great example why you do not pilot your ships with computers all the time. No, it merely illustrates why you want your AI properly bottled up and airgapped that way the flight computer will follow your instructions after you consult with the AI (assuming an AI is ever built...). Computers can control spacecraft just fine in the present without AI so really there…

Since 2012 the SpaceX Dragon capsule has been under AI control for rendezvous with the International Space Station for grasping and docking. It uses computer vision to estimate its pose relative to the ISS and steers accordingly. Source: Andrew Howard of SpaceX, who is in charge of this software and has to endure the stress of each rendezvous. Screwing up could kill the ISS crew.

Between 'HAL' and auto-dock I can see some differences.

Unless your connection confirmed that the onboard computer of the SpaceX Dragon capsule is sentient.

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#578

Post by emsy »

CydeWeys wrote: post #283
mabbo wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I love the live streams hosted by John Innsprucker. He doesn't look like a TV star, he looks like an engineer, a rocket scientist. He looks real. The other hosts are great, but if you told me they were hired actors or PR people I'd believe it.

You're showing your biases here. The other people on the livestream are also rocket scientists. They aren't PR people. They just happen to be younger, or women, or of color. So you might want to re-evaluate what you think a rocket scientist "looks like", because your notion is outdated. Sorry to call you out like this, but these kinds of prejudices about who is the "correct" kind of person for tech jobs are harmful a…

What happened to the concept of the most charitable interpretation?

Re: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully launches

#580

Post by naikrovek »

quentusrex wrote: post #78
yetihehe wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were not, I've watched closely and right before slowdown burn, attitude engines were firing a little late on one. It was only parts of a second, but clearly visible if you watched closely.

There was a mistake as in the feed they claimed they were separate, but in fact it was a duplicate of the same stream: https://youtu.be/wbSwFU6tY1c?t=2268

Two cameras on one rocket, not the same stream twice from one camera.
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