Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area. Not an impossible scenario. Lots of energy stored up in one of those rockets. Just like when we test software, they want to have everything as close to what they would expect on launch day as possible (2 days from now). All the stresses, the structure, etc. That means putting stage 2 and the paylo…
Nitpick: you're thinking of a ballistic missile. Cruise missiles are more like exploding fixed-wing drones. The V-1 flying bomb was a cruise missile, and the V-2 rocket was a ballistic missile.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
181–190 of 560 posts
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a deal breaker most likely, the terms of the deal were based on AMOS-6 becoming operational by march 2017. There has been high level of criticism in Israel about the deal as many seen this as giving up it's sovereignty over its space platforms even tho under the deal the all operations of spacecom platforms would be still handled from Israel proper, I'm sure the r/conspiracies is already booming with sabotage th…
Sounds like SpaceX just killed multiple deals for this company. Could someone who knows about this kind of stuff (I assume this subset of the population is small) comment on whether there is recourse against SpaceX for losing the payload?
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're advocating the Broken Window Fallacy. http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fal...
Not quite. The Broken Window Fallacy hinges on the fact that the son breaks the window for a reason that doesn't further any other economic cause. That is, he didn't break the window for research, so nothing new was gained from it. Resources were merely shifted from the shopkeeper to the glazier. When it comes to innovation, however, failure is often the impetus to more efficient design. Not only was that $200m shift…
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're advocating the Broken Window Fallacy. http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fal...
No, in this field sometimes stuff blows up unexpectedly and it's part of the cost of doing business. It's like feeling bad for a life insurance company when someone dies.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a deal breaker most likely, the terms of the deal were based on AMOS-6 becoming operational by march 2017. There has been high level of criticism in Israel about the deal as many seen this as giving up it's sovereignty over its space platforms even tho under the deal the all operations of spacecom platforms would be still handled from Israel proper, I'm sure the r/conspiracies is already booming with sabotage th…
Won't they just relaunch in a few months? Not sure what the rebuild timeline is.
All of the contracts were based on AMOS-6 being operational by a given date, AMOS-6 has been "under construction" for probably 4-5 years, SpaceX was selected as the launch contractor in late 2012 originally for a mid 2015 launch but the launch was delayed for various reasons.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area. Not an impossible scenario. Lots of energy stored up in one of those rockets. Just like when we test software, they want to have everything as close to what they would expect on launch day as possible (2 days from now). All the stresses, the structure, etc. That means putting stage 2 and the paylo…
Insurance isn't magic pixie dust, it just moved the cost around.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Won't they just relaunch in a few months? Not sure what the rebuild timeline is.
It takes years to build a satellite, the bus, and every component is purposely built each component and the satellite itself goes through months of testing and even if they could build one within 6 months all of the contracts would expire by then which will require Spacecom to open the bids again. All of the contracts were based on AMOS-6 being operational by a given date, AMOS-6 has been "under construction" for pro…
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area. In that case the rocket has a flight-termination system, though, which should activate as soon as it veers too far outside the planned/expected parameters of the flight.
For more context, all (edit: American!) rockets for decades have had onboard self destruct systems and a "Range Safety Officer" on the ground whose entire job is to determine if and when to deploy this self destruct system. The cruise missile scenario is highly unlikely as the rocket itself would be destroyed soon after leaving its intended trajectory.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A $200 million loss there, which sucks for the insurance company but better than losing a $2b custom government bird. In fairness, when did the government last lose a bird? Doesn't the ULA have a '100%' success rate (where success is getting payload to space, though some payloads fail to make it to the planned orbit)
I suspect the $2b custom government bird refers to the space shuttle. Of which we have, in fact, lost more than one.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty well documented that people at SpaceX work 80+ hours a week consistently: https://www.quora.com/How-many-hours-a-week-does-a-typical-S... http://spacenews.com/op-ed-3-things-to-know-if-you-want-to-w... https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/25ixxq/is_spacex_wo...
Wouldn't be surprised if some overworked engineer made a mistake.