131–140 of 260 posts
Currently they have problems with the voice between ISS and Dragon. There is a huge interference and they can't read it. Funny enough we the viewers hear it loud and clear
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Can’t tell if serious or troll. Successful human spaceflight on reusable hardware > lower cost to orbit of personnel > increased economic activity in orbit > construction of manufacturing facilities > scale up of materials, capability, endurance and knowledge > ability to construct and launch Mars ships and supply a colony Or something like that.
The problem of getting to Mars is bigger than “just do more spacey stuff in space” though. There are some massive physical limits, in terms of fuel efficiency, that make it really really hard to get there and come back . That’s the main challenge and I don’t think SpaceX moved us particularly closer on that point. I’m in my forties and I don’t expect to see us on Mars in my lifetime, except on some poetic suicide mis…
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You only do new things if you believe you will fail if you don't. Established companies have an expectation of success if they just keep doing what they are doing, so anything new is an unacceptable risk.
At the same time "startups" are also not able to reach any of the tangible results musk is producing. He seems to be able to benefit from the resources of a big company, while at the same time keep the fresh mindset of a relatively small company.
An actual non-monetary goal is what's missing, IMO, for most companies.
SpaceX runs basically as a giant R&D program that also happens to accomplish useful things as byproducts of its approach (with the miracle of insurance to cover costs if things get explody). Every flight is data for incremental improvement. If you think of all SpaceX has ever done was try to get to this point, with somewhere around 80 flights on the Falcon 9, but for a variety of mission buyers (NASA, USAF, Commercia…
Incredibly impressive, but you have to take into account both more modern technology, as well as the fact that they were able to build off the shoulders of giants. It is still amazing of course, but I doubt they could've done the same thing during the era of the mercury program, so not really apples to apples comparison.
NASA is currently developing the Space Launch System (SLS) and has spent over $20b with almost nothing to show for it.
I recall Elon was hoping to get an order of magnitude reduction in cost per launch, but Wikipedia claims it costs $160 million per launch versus the Soyuz price of $76 million per astronaut. That would “only” be a 3x reduction with a crew of seven, but they’ve configured for a crew of four, which is a hair under 2x. I wonder how reuse affects the math, and what they’ll be able to do to lower those prices further. Obv…
I’m guessing the current price has to pay for a whole new rocket, as NASA probably won’t use a used (“flight-proven”) one for humans. Eventually I expect used ones to be not only cheaper, but also more reliable. Like for (water)ships - they say “it’s new after you’ve owned it for a year”, the implication being that you spend the first year discovering and fixing manufacturing defects.
SpaceX runs basically as a giant R&D program that also happens to accomplish useful things as byproducts of its approach (with the miracle of insurance to cover costs if things get explody). Every flight is data for incremental improvement. If you think of all SpaceX has ever done was try to get to this point, with somewhere around 80 flights on the Falcon 9, but for a variety of mission buyers (NASA, USAF, Commercia…
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Did it really cost only 5B$ to get there? I just ask because if confirmed it’s unbelievably cheap. I am /stunned/.
In direct investments perhaps yes, but like all things it is bit more complicated, it can be cheaper in each generation, you can leverage existing talent and their experience from before . In theory a new entrant could achieve similar feats with lesser money . For example rocket lab is doing pretty well for their size with some real innovation based out of New Zealand! Extremely likely part of their staff would come…
Rocket Lab isn't out of New Zealand, that's a popular underdog myth at this point. They're an American company, funded overwhelmingly by big US venture capital, that built their current technology primarily in the US.
The initial low scale efforts for Rocket Lab originated out of New Zealand, with sounding rockets. They moved to the US because they could go no further with the limited native aerospace and funding capabilities of New Zealand.
Their name is now Rocket Lab USA. Their headquarters has been in the US for most of their existence and progress.
And most of their efforts and expansion are now also focused in the US:
https://www.rocketlabusa.com/news/updates/rocket-lab-expands...
New Zealand didn't have the native aerospace engineering capabilities to build what Rocket Lab has. Most of the advanced engineering was done in California, leaning on the massive aerospace resources of the state.
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Incredibly impressive, but you have to take into account both more modern technology, as well as the fact that they were able to build off the shoulders of giants. It is still amazing of course, but I doubt they could've done the same thing during the era of the mercury program, so not really apples to apples comparison.
Guidance systems are vastly less expensive now, and can take advantage of things like MEMs, fiber laser gyros, and GPS (and, of course, modern computing power). The tanks on Falcon are welded using Friction Stir Welding, which was invented in the early 1990s. The landing algorithm for the first stage uses convex optimization algorithms based on interior point methods, which were not available in the 1960s. However, s…
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Didn't Space X also benefit from NASA launch facilities? I imagine their payroll also includes quite a few NASA trained people too. They certainly aren't doing rocket science from scratch or in a vacuum. Not too say this isn't a big deal. Just that it's not all Elon and his wunderkind.
Some are meant to teach, others are meant to do. NASA and their bureaucracy have been sliding out of the "do" category for some time.
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sensors and wiring always weighed more. Of course now the wiring COULD be CANbus or similar in concept instead of individual (heavy) wires. Or move the analog processing and microcontroller to the sensor itself instead of running wires all over the place to a central computer.
Iirc the computers are connected by commodity cat 6e Ethernet.