51–60 of 140 posts
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OK that may be the long term goal, but what is the short term goal? What is the goal of landing this rocket stage on earth? Is it to use this model to land on another planet, or is it to use this model to reduce costs and reuse the first stage of the rocket?
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> They need to be able to stabilize the rocket's landing in all sorts of conditions if they want to have any hope of landing it on another planet. Well, not really. Dragons (and Red Dragons, for interplanetary travel) are way, way less sensitive to the whims of weather. The issue with the first stage is that you have a very large, very fragile, very bottom-heavy tin can that you're trying to balance on a moving platf…
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We will refuel the pod, which has its own rocket engines on it, and use that to get back up (with a tiny fraction of the original payload) from the surface. Mars' gravity well and atmosphere are a fraction of Earth's, so there's really no need for a multi-stage rocket and all that. A refueled and weight reduced pod will do it just fine.
How about an oil rig like structure at sea?
Those are expensive structures. Also there probably aren't spares lying around that can be tasked and moved into the range.
This is an old rig which you could probably get for less than scrap value since it's going to take a bunch of effort to break it down into things which you could actually re-melt. http://www.worldoils.com/searigs/jackuprig101.php
Looking here, depending on where you park it that gets you anywhere from a couple of miles offshore up to say 100 or more. It depends on the topography of the ocean's floor. http://maps.ngdc.noaa.gov/viewers/bathymetry/
Land the rocket on some flame-proof air bags. It doesn't have to land vertically does it? Let it fall over gently if need be.
No flame-proof airbags are available on Mars. AFAIK most of SpaceX's design decisions are based around this.
Or even better, how about getting it to land sideways on purpose? I don't see how that would be more difficult than doing it upright.
What was the % cost reduction in being able to land the boosters again? I read it somewhere a while back but can't find it. It was pretty significant if I recall. TIA.
The booster is $60 million, the fuel charge for it is $200k. Other costs are involved in the final price per kg of payload, obviously.
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They need to be able to stabilize the rocket's landing in all sorts of conditions if they want to have any hope of landing it on another planet. It's not like interplanetary launches will be able to schedule launches to choose optimal weather conditions for the landing. Maybe, if they're lucky, they'll be able to orbit briefly to avoid bad weather at the landing site, but moderate winds and wind gusts are going to be…
I agree, but I think right now, even more important, is getting the model for private space flight/exploration right. Currently, the majority of SpaceX's revenue is through government contracts. Cost savings through reuse-ability should be the number one focus, not the technology on how to land on another planet through adverse and unpredictable conditions. The ASDS is really cool and all, and could definitely be som…
Is Miami important to our overall goal of becoming a multiplanetary civilization? I don't see what Miami adds to the mission and I am quite sick of everyone being so precious about it. I have an ex girlfriend from Miami and honestly, I think we would all be better off if we stopped making excuses for her, defending her, covering for her and just let Elon give her what's coming to her!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, but I think right now, even more important, is getting the model for private space flight/exploration right. Currently, the majority of SpaceX's revenue is through government contracts. Cost savings through reuse-ability should be the number one focus, not the technology on how to land on another planet through adverse and unpredictable conditions. The ASDS is really cool and all, and could definitely be som…
I'm not sure... Is Miami important to our overall goal of becoming a multiplanetary civilization? I don't see what Miami adds to the mission and I am quite sick of everyone being so precious about it. I have an ex girlfriend from Miami and honestly, I think we would all be better off if we stopped making excuses for her, defending her, covering for her and just let Elon give her what's coming to her!
*I don't really have an ex from Miami. Never been there. No ill wishes for the city. ..just to be clear.
Are there any articles or press out there that describe the stabilization tech used on the barge? A lot of the things when looking through Google seem to focus on the challenges of guiding the rocket but not stabilizing the platform. I guess it tends to be a non-issue since it seems their plan all along was landing it on land, but I'd be really interested to see the design story that went into the barge.
The only unusual thing about it is that the azimuth thrusters are a lot more powerful than would normally be put on a barge that size to give it better positional control in rough seas.