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Falcon Heavy Launch [video]

spacex.com

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Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]

#161

Post by wongarsu »

pencilguin wrote: post #123
yellowapple wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's indeed kinda refreshing to see a company actually put such a high pricetag out there... and all the more frustrating that so many companies demand contact info for a "quote" when I don't need to do that to launch something into outer fucking space .

Of course nobody actually pays that.

That goes for anything sold B2B for more than a couple hundred dollars.

But still, I can immediately budget it at that price, and if the price comes down 20% in negotiations that pays for everything else that's behind schedule and over budget

Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]

#162

Post by TOMDM »

elil17 wrote: post #130
capableweb wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was gonna reply with some random island for sale, as those usually are very expensive. But they don't come near the 442.2 million USD figure, most expensive I can find is 133,467,632 EUR ( https://www.jamesedition.com/real_estate/ko-kaeo-thailand/pr... ). Interesting that a whole island costs the same amount or less than just one airplane.

The planes are so expensive because they're specialized planes meant to be in the air nearly 24 hours a day - this justifies spending a huge amount of money on improving their fuel efficiency. A friend who works in large commercial aircraft once told me that the break-even point for money spent redesigning planes to be lighter was $1,000,000 in R&D spending per pound of weight saved. Older models which are typically…

$1,000,000 per lb for R&D is steep, but at this stage in the game makes sense.

I wonder what the unit price for a break-even 1lb saving would be. Is it worth spending $20,000 to shave off a pound with expensive materials?

Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]

#163

Post by s1artibartfast »

CommieBobDole wrote: post #144
mordae wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am there with you. If only we could somehow make the public sector hire it's own personnel, pay it well and let it build the rockets instead of feeding either Boeing shareholders or the narcissistic idiot. Most people convinced of public sector inferiority only perceive the hollowed out and thoroughly corrupted husk left by the neoliberal policies. Mostly because it's been systematically destroyed their whole life…

As others have noted, NASA's rockets have largely been designed, built, and operated by private contractors for its entire history. The difference was that those projects were managed by NASA via cost-plus contracts, often at mind-boggling cost. The crowning achievement of this system was the Apollo program. Which was followed up by the Space Shuttle, a system so expensive and full of compromises that it wasn't reall…

NASA Rockets projects were never largely designed by the corporations. NASA has always been deeply involved in the design and micromanaged decisions down to the nuts and bolts.

Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]

#165

Post by billfruit »

bpodgursky wrote: post #36

3,700 kg to geosynchronous orbit... man that is a hefty satellite. Would love to know what they packed in there.

Is that a high number? An upcoming Viasat- 3 communication satellite is expected to weigh 6400 kg and one of them is planned to launch on an Atlas-V.

Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]

#166

Post by TOMDM »

oorza wrote: post #115
chroma wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably more cost-effective to keep the craft and scrap it. The structure itself is a significant amount of steel, and the engines contain expensive superalloys.

If a spacefaring vessel lasts long enough that it needs to be decomissioned due to wear and tear, that mf'er belongs ONLY in a museum. I hope to live to the day where that isn't universally true, but it is not today.

Makes sense for NASA to donate, but say SpaceX could recover $10m in materials from an expended Starship, that's a steep ask.

When the time comes, I hope they choose to donate it to a museum, or if not, the funds are raised to buy it off them.

Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]

#167

Post by brookst »

WithinReason wrote: post #41
post_break wrote: post #14

Seeing those boosters land will never get old. I drive by one on my way to work every day and it's just amazing how large they are.

And for some reason seeing 2 land at the same time is a 100 times cooler. Seems like coolness is non-linear.

Our brains are wired to see twins (and symmetry) as evidence of intent as opposed to randomness. Lots of examples in art, and of course both the WTC twin towers and the 9/11 attacks. There’s more power seeing two of something.

Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]

#168

Post by digerata »

somenameforme wrote: post #140
wzyoi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, to some degree, this is because we got used to seeing one landing.

It's hard to measure objectively but I feel I was dramatically more impressed seeing first Falcon Heavy come down than I was seeing the first successful (non-heavy) landing. I've shown a lot of people (who aren't otherwise into space) the original Falcon Heavy landing video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c The most common response, by far, is: "Is that real?" It really is just that amazing. Even look at t…

I think two rockets landing at the same time, in unison, more accurately displays the fact both are under computer control.

One landing could just be some person steering it. But two?

Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]

#169

Post by arrel »

samizdis wrote: post #93
post_break wrote: post #14

Seeing those boosters land will never get old. I drive by one on my way to work every day and it's just amazing how large they are.

When I was a kid, I used to watch Thunderbirds [1], which I loved dearly - except that I always thought it fanciful to show Thunderbirds 1 and 3 landing upright back at the Tracy Island base. Many, many years later, of course, my scepticism was erased by watching exactly that happen in real life, courtesy of SpaceX's Falcon 9. Inspirational and astonishing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_(TV_series)

Here’s the vertical landing scene: https://youtu.be/JuhahPrF7gk

Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]

#170

Post by elfchief »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #17
usrusr wrote: post #15

Now that Falcon 9 landings have become so routine, it feels surprisingly wasteful to see that mission profile with the center booster burning up without even trying. I wanted to write something about that lack of center booster reuse on falcon heavy feeling irrationally worse than a single F9 launch in the non-reusable profile (for a slightly higher payload iirc), but then I discovered that the non-reusable F9 profil…

>"wasteful to see that mission profile with the center booster burning up without even trying." My understanding was that the intended orbit / mission profile means that they must fly the center core in expendable mode. Otherwise, the satellite wouldn't be able to reach the intended orbit with the intended amount of fuel for the mission's duration.

At one point (I don't know if it's still the case) for certain launches the US government laid claim to "100% of the thrust available from a booster" or somesuch, basically not leaving anything left over for landings. I'm not sure it was ever documented why they had this requirement.

What surprised -me- was that all three boosters were brand new, rather than, say, expending a booster that's already flown half a dozen times or such.

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