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SpaceX Successfully Soft-Landed Booster Rocket in the Atlantic

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Re: SpaceX Successfully Soft-Landed Booster Rocket in the Atlantic

#121

Post by ericcumbee »

keehun wrote: post #98
lutusp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly have not been at sea, close to the water. A cylindrical object, without a sea anchor, in moderately rough seas, would naturally turn sideways to the waves and be destroyed very quickly in the breaking waves. I don't know whether SpaceX has fitted their boosters with sea anchors yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see this addition after the present loss. In windy conditions, a sea anchor provides some dra…

How much weight would be such an anchor to hold down something as large as a rocket? Wouldn't you have to launch that into space, too?

Probably not going to happen since the ultimate goal is return to launch site.

Re: SpaceX Successfully Soft-Landed Booster Rocket in the Atlantic

#122

Post by ericcumbee »

BrandonMarc wrote: post #94
kindredlight wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Atlas V first-stage engines (RD-180) are manufactured in Russia. That the second stage engines are made in the US doesn't change the fact that you're dependent on Russian supply. In response to your edits: >but they can't get more flights because of their record The Air Force required 3 successful flights in the exact configuration the Air Force would fly. SpaceX provided the "record" as stipulated by the Air For…

I've heard it's a common practice in defense contracts to carefully write the requirements such that you are in effect pre-selecting your desired vendor, while providing the appearance of impartiality and neutrality.

That's common I think in just about every government procurement deal. In higher ed we would choose the service or software we wanted to buy. then write the procurement request to fit that product. And in many cases the vendors that deal with Higher ed and government contracts, provide guidance with writing the request.

Re: SpaceX Successfully Soft-Landed Booster Rocket in the Atlantic

#123

Post by mikeyouse »

BrandonMarc wrote: post #84

Wait ... did Elon mention building a spaceport in Brownsville, TX? I can see how that would work well for GEO and GTO launches. That's an interesting breakdown for launch manifests: - FL, 39a: the NASA launches - FL, 40a: the DoD launches - TX: the GEO launches - CA: the polar launches (Vandenberg) It is interesting, that by bringing the lawsuit, Elon is essentially saying "hey! how come the block buy deal magically…

Yep, they've been seeking environmental approvals for a little while. They've leased a site off shore on an island in the Laguna Madre.

http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/local_news/article_1e5...

Re: SpaceX Successfully Soft-Landed Booster Rocket in the Atlantic

#124

Post by clarky07 »

kristofferR wrote: post #57
mikeash wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strange how many people seem unable to understand this. SpaceX got a bunch of testing essentially for free. NASA was gracious to allow it. They could have easily said, "We're paying you to launch stuff to ISS, keep those crazy landing legs far away from our payload." Sea conditions were too rough for recovery. Their options were to wait for better weather, annoying the customer and possibly losing the launch (th…

NASA isn't stupid, they know that if SpaceX manages to get rocket reusability they'll save a lot of money which would otherwise be spent on rocket launches.

On the other hand, it probably just means their budget will be cut by a similar amount. NASA isn't a for profit company. It's tax payer funded. No guarantees they really benefit much from saving money.

Re: SpaceX Successfully Soft-Landed Booster Rocket in the Atlantic

#125

Post by tsotha »

BrandonMarc wrote: post #94
kindredlight wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Atlas V first-stage engines (RD-180) are manufactured in Russia. That the second stage engines are made in the US doesn't change the fact that you're dependent on Russian supply. In response to your edits: >but they can't get more flights because of their record The Air Force required 3 successful flights in the exact configuration the Air Force would fly. SpaceX provided the "record" as stipulated by the Air For…

I've heard it's a common practice in defense contracts to carefully write the requirements such that you are in effect pre-selecting your desired vendor, while providing the appearance of impartiality and neutrality.

Yes, it's called "wiring" a contract. When I worked at a company that sold specialized processors to the government we ran into that all the time. Usually it was something defensible on its face, at least, like software compatibility with a previous piece of hardware.

But sometimes we would see unimaginative stuff like a specification of the LED layout on the front panel or very specific weight restrictions that happened to fall between our hardware and the preferred vendor.

In the government's defense, though, the system is set up to combat this tendency, at least for smaller contracts. When I was on the other side (having left the vendor to work for our civil service customer) we would routinely get pointed questions from the purchasing people regarding this or that line of the RFP - was it really required, or were we trying to wire the contract?

Re: SpaceX Successfully Soft-Landed Booster Rocket in the Atlantic

#126

Post by lutusp »

ericcumbee wrote: post #121
keehun wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much weight would be such an anchor to hold down something as large as a rocket? Wouldn't you have to launch that into space, too?

Probably not going to happen since the ultimate goal is return to launch site.

Yes, that's the goal, a descent to land instead of water. One hopes SpaceX will be granted permission to move ahead with that scheme instead of having to perform more tests into water.

I'm sure there are safety concerns that have prevented this until now. The successful retro-file to zero velocity over water may help resolve those concerns.

Re: SpaceX Successfully Soft-Landed Booster Rocket in the Atlantic

#127

Post by gdy »

avmich wrote: post #112
trhway wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you're dependent on Russian supply and my understanding that this supply is limited to the what had already been manufactured long time ago. Beside the inventory issues, one can easy imagine Putin saying "bad Americans, no more gas ... err... rocket engines for you"

RD-180 are being manufactured continuously last ~20 years. All new, not manufactured long time ago. NK-33 - from which AJ-26 are made - aren't manufactured today. It's a question if the manufacturing will restart. There are a few tens of them in US. Orbital Sciences has that question in the middle of their table, or close to it. Russian-American relationships in space trace back to at least 1975, deep Cold War. We're…

There is a successor NK-33A engine being produced for Russia's own Soyuz-2-1v. http://www.uk-odk.ru/eng/presscenter/odk_news/?ELEMENT_ID=20... http://www.samspace.ru/news/press_relizy/4228/ (in Russian)

Re: SpaceX Successfully Soft-Landed Booster Rocket in the Atlantic

#130

Post by lttlrck »

BrandonMarc wrote: post #94
kindredlight wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Atlas V first-stage engines (RD-180) are manufactured in Russia. That the second stage engines are made in the US doesn't change the fact that you're dependent on Russian supply. In response to your edits: >but they can't get more flights because of their record The Air Force required 3 successful flights in the exact configuration the Air Force would fly. SpaceX provided the "record" as stipulated by the Air For…

I've heard it's a common practice in defense contracts to carefully write the requirements such that you are in effect pre-selecting your desired vendor, while providing the appearance of impartiality and neutrality.

It's common in telecoms too. We get RFPs that are pretty much lifted from the spec page of a competitors (incumbent) product.
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