41–50 of 91 posts
"...kids today can now dream of one day walking on Mars." Hell, I dreamed of walking on Mars when I worked on the Apollo Project. I never dreamed that 2011 would come and we would never have even gone back to the moon. It makes me regret even more that I never made the trek to Florida to see a Saturn V launch.
Expand on this, please.
"...kids today can now dream of one day walking on Mars." Hell, I dreamed of walking on Mars when I worked on the Apollo Project. I never dreamed that 2011 would come and we would never have even gone back to the moon. It makes me regret even more that I never made the trek to Florida to see a Saturn V launch.
I know it's not logical but I was disappointed that the new "deep space exploration system" didn't look like something out of Star Trek. Instead they made another fucking rocket.
I would obsess less over the form factor and more over efficiency.
If SpaceX and friends can reliably launch cargo and eventually humans into LEO, why can't NASA focus on what to put into space, rather than how to get there? I'm sure I don't understand the mechanics of it, but wouldn't it be possible to put up a few smaller cargo carriers containing fuel and pieces of a trans-mars ship and assemble it in orbit?
Sure, but something that can assemble things in space (as well as raw materials) is going to be heavy and if its heavy its going to need a heavy launcher. Fuel is heavy too. At the end of the day, you need a powerful rocket to do the heavy lifting. NASA doesn't want to turn into an agency that just gives seed money to SpaceX and wants its own heavy human-rated lifter and capsule. Not to mention, there's political wil…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"So to match 1 SLS launch you are looking at 6-12 Falcon 9s (which have flown) or 2-3 Falcon Heavy launches (which have not flown)." It is my impression that SpaceX anticipates doing exactly that sort of thing.
Elon Musk has said in public, that they hope to build an ultra heavy lift vehicle which would be more powerful than the Saturn V.
So NASA now has incentives to kill SpaceX, since they'll never be able to compete (except with political weight)? :-(
Edit: OTOH, I guess NASA will never make the SLS fly anyway...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"So to match 1 SLS launch you are looking at 6-12 Falcon 9s (which have flown) or 2-3 Falcon Heavy launches (which have not flown)." It is my impression that SpaceX anticipates doing exactly that sort of thing.
Elon Musk has said in public, that they hope to build an ultra heavy lift vehicle which would be more powerful than the Saturn V.
I'm guessing it's the least-questions-asked shape as far as aerodynamics goes, and gives good weight efficiency assuming you can build what you need into a round shape. Is there anything more fundamental than that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
" use shoddy designs " Given that NASA's shoddy design of the Shuttle has killed two of them along with their crews, somehow I don't find that to be a strong argument. If SpaceX is going to "land a monopoly on heavy launches" then by definition their vehicles will be at least somewhat reliable.
Call me when dragon has gone to space as many times as the shuttle and we'll compare safety records, thanks.
The SRBs saved money on development but are very bad for human flight, you want engines you can turn off.
The insane fragile tile and leading edge heat protection, all to satisfy a "requirement" the Air Force didn't care about, a Vandenburg single orbit polar mission (to return to the same spot on Earth while it's rotated under you requires serious maneuvering using your initial high energy state).
No crew escape system after the first few test flights with only pilot and co-pilot, who had SR-71 class ejection seats (the best available). The state of the art of "rocket science" simply isn't good enough to forgo this.
Since then we've learned from the two fatal missions:
The SRB joints were grossly misdesigned, forcing their O-rings to seal on expansion (any of us who've worked with a faucet or shower head know how terribly wrong this is).
Especially after it was made in a more "green" fashion, the fuel tank sheds ice and insulation chucks with sufficient momentum to destroy the above mentioned fragile heat protection systems.
That's all that immediately comes to mind, and I've already pointed out one Ares I inherited potentially fatal design flaw in the Senate Launch System. How many obvious design flaws can you or anyone else point out in SpaceX's systems? (I don't know, I haven't been closely following them.)