Earlier quoted context omitted.
WAG: data connectors.
WAG?
Wild Ass Guess :)
And there's also the SWAG: Scientific Wild Ass Guess, for when some thought went into it :)
Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
171–180 of 305 posts
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would cost 10x as much and would be 5 years behind schedule, intended to be the main vehicle for several decades (rather than soon to be replaced by an even more capable vehicle), entirely expendable, still stuck to its original parameters due to risk averseness and not at all commercially competitive. See: SLS, Space Shuttle (and to a lesser extent, Ariane 5 & 6) Falcon reusability was perfected through lots of e…
> Falcon reusability was perfected through lots of explosions in landing attempts, good luck getting NASA or ESA to risk that given how dumb the average taxpayer can be about iterative development like that. It's even worse than just risk averseness. There was a very telling comment by the CEO of ArianeGroup a few years ago[1] about why they weren't investing in reusable rockets--they were afraid that it would be too…
To be fair, their concern about having so few payloads that they wouldn't be building enough boosters isn't completely wrong for Europe. There is some merit to the idea that they needed to maintain a large workforce trained in rocketry to hold onto their capabilities and that government funded programs are good for that until private industry firmly takes hold.
The issue of course was that they were giving into stagnation and assuming that demand wouldn't grow to meet supply, while SpaceX took it the other way and came up with the demand to utilize the supply they had created (also helps that Russia torpedoed its own commercial launch industry and all other providers are stuck in a delayed generational transition, highlighting the unpredictability of demand in the industry).
Now that European launch companies are starting to make progress, perhaps this need for government 'protection' will also go away. It desperately needs to go away in the US since we already have several private companies who've made it to orbit (plus a nearly 20 year tech lead on the rest of the world courtesy SpaceX) and hopefully SLS's obsolete-ness will quickly become too hard to ignore when the Artemis 3 crew is shown transferring from the cramped Orion capsule to the spacious HLS.
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#173Seeing 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.
Too bad they didn't recover the third one.
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#174Seeing 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.
Too bad they didn't recover the third one.
AFAIK it was intentional because the payload (from the US Space Force) was going to a geosynchronous orbit.
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#175Earlier 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.
I'm sure the first couple will be preserved, but they'll quickly become as common as derelict airplanes or ships. Has SpaceX kept any of their Falcon 9 boosters besides the first one that landed? I think the old ones are disassembled for analysis, then scrapped.
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#176I'm always a bit bothered by the cheering during a SpaceX launch. Maybe I'm just historically attached to the scenes of stoic engineers at JSC mission control, but space fight is always hard and risky, and cheering at every event shows a lack of humility, IMO. Cheer when the mission is successful. As an extreme case, imagine cheering as Challenger cleared the launch tower.
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#177I'm always a bit bothered by the cheering during a SpaceX launch. Maybe I'm just historically attached to the scenes of stoic engineers at JSC mission control, but space fight is always hard and risky, and cheering at every event shows a lack of humility, IMO. Cheer when the mission is successful. As an extreme case, imagine cheering as Challenger cleared the launch tower.
Imagine being mad at other people’s happiness.
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
>Our brains are wired to see twins (and symmetry) as evidence of intent as opposed to randomness.
This seems like a massive over-generalization.
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#179Possibly the most expensive thing in the world with a publicly listed price ($97M) and sales contact (sales@spacex.com)? https://www.spacex.com/media/Capabilities&Services.pdf Just find that amusingly 'accessible'.
Stock markets and bond markets have public sale offers for high double/triple digit billions /s
Re: Falcon Heavy Launch [video]
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't need to imagine - just look up the SLS program and it's budget + timeframe
Let's not forget Shuttle.... which at some level is a fair amount of SLS as well.
The Shuttle was at least an innovative vehicle and a first attempt at reusability. It was a failure, but most first attempts at anything will be.
This doesn't compare at all with the SLS, which is just recycling old tech, and even going backwards from the Shuttle in that it gives up on reusability entirely instead of trying to learn and improve from the Shuttle's mistakes.