21–30 of 34 posts
Musk says Merlin-1C has the highest thrust-to-weight ratio of any (liquid fuel) rocket today. Well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33 Merlin 1C is 96:1, while NK-33 is 133:1 Obviously Musk knows what he's talking about, so where's the discrepancy?
Musk says Merlin-1C has the highest thrust-to-weight ratio of any (liquid fuel) rocket today. Well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33 Merlin 1C is 96:1, while NK-33 is 133:1 Obviously Musk knows what he's talking about, so where's the discrepancy?
It's on Google video here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5787437371570928
"""The escape system's motors will allow the capsule to land anywhere in the solar system ...""" Must. Not. Become. a Fanboi.
Musk says Merlin-1C has the highest thrust-to-weight ratio of any (liquid fuel) rocket today. Well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33 Merlin 1C is 96:1, while NK-33 is 133:1 Obviously Musk knows what he's talking about, so where's the discrepancy?
There's a documentary about the NK-33 called "The engine that came in from the cold". Pretty amazing story - the Russians had these engines hidden in a warehouse for over 20 years before the Americans found out about them and they were better than anything that had been developed in the meantime. It's on Google video here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5787437371570928
"In 2010 stockpiled NK-33 engines were successfully tested for use by the Orbital Sciences Antares light-to-medium-lift launcher."
If I'm not mistaken, isn't the Antares lifter the other lifter by Orbital that's currently in parallel production to SpaceX's (but not almost never talked about in the media)?
Insufferable nitwit interviewers at New Scientist, not so much.
I am really sick of interviewers using language as a weapon and having hostile confrontational interviews with scientists and entrepreneurs, when the same interviewers and periodicals don't have the balls to even ask questions of the various criminals in society who are actually worthy of such contempt in an interview.
In particular, the interview starts with the phrase "You claim to be...". This phrasing establishes that the subject is suspected of lying. A respectful neutral question is "You have said that..." Such language use is not unintentional. It is designed to impeach the credibility of the subject in the reader's view by painting him as someone who is dishonest and can not be trusted.
"""The escape system's motors will allow the capsule to land anywhere in the solar system ...""" Must. Not. Become. a Fanboi.
I always enjoy reading what Musk has to say. Insufferable nitwit interviewers at New Scientist, not so much. I am really sick of interviewers using language as a weapon and having hostile confrontational interviews with scientists and entrepreneurs, when the same interviewers and periodicals don't have the balls to even ask questions of the various criminals in society who are actually worthy of such contempt in an i…
Textbook response, if you know that you can put the other person out of their depth.
It is very good to finally see the newspace ethos being distributed in the media. The loose newspace community has been saying these things for decades. To summarize, it goes something like that: The aim is spacefaring. 1. We need reusable rockets 2. We should lower cost for space 3. Reliability follows automatically from above 4. We must iterate reasonable size projects to progress 5. We must tolerate failures 6. We…
But I did not realise the reusability cost structure quite so well as Elon's explanation - 200k on fuel, 60m on a one shot rocket.
Before that I truly thought we had no hope before a space elevator.
Call me a reluctant convert.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I trust you've heard of Planetary Resources and their asteroid mining plans? (Just surprised they didn't make your list.)
I imagine that Planetary Resources may just be using someone else's launch tech, though the asteroid mining tech might be developed in-house (vs. out-sourced).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I trust you've heard of Planetary Resources and their asteroid mining plans? (Just surprised they didn't make your list.)
For now, they seem to be in the pie-in-the-sky type of stage, where all they have are "plans" and paper. Comparing the two is a bit premature.