201–210 of 260 posts
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There's a really simple strategy to this. One at a time move pitch, yaw, and roll to zero (with 0 velocity). Before touching any translation buttons. Never touch the pitch yaw and roll buttons again. Start moving x, y, and z translation to zero using transnational thrusters. Make sure you zero out y and z before you get close to zeroing out x.
Using this strategy docking is much, much easier than trying to follow hexagons.
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Incredibly impressive, but you have to take into account both more modern technology, as well as the fact that they were able to build off the shoulders of giants. It is still amazing of course, but I doubt they could've done the same thing during the era of the mercury program, so not really apples to apples comparison.
Guidance systems are vastly less expensive now, and can take advantage of things like MEMs, fiber laser gyros, and GPS (and, of course, modern computing power). The tanks on Falcon are welded using Friction Stir Welding, which was invented in the early 1990s. The landing algorithm for the first stage uses convex optimization algorithms based on interior point methods, which were not available in the 1960s. However, s…
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Incredibly impressive, but you have to take into account both more modern technology, as well as the fact that they were able to build off the shoulders of giants. It is still amazing of course, but I doubt they could've done the same thing during the era of the mercury program, so not really apples to apples comparison.
> but you have to take into account both more modern technology, as well as the fact that they were able to build off the shoulders of giants. NASA is currently developing the Space Launch System (SLS) and has spent over $20b with almost nothing to show for it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System
I am so excited by this achievement, and offer hearty congratulations to SpaceX and NASA. That said, I think that everyone anticipating a dramatic reduction in orbital cost needs to temper their enthusiasm a bit. UAL was expensive, as many other have previously noted, because it was a political jobs program. The existence of UAL gave the necessary cover for Musk & Co to envision radically more efficient designs. Howe…
I recall Elon was hoping to get an order of magnitude reduction in cost per launch, but Wikipedia claims it costs $160 million per launch versus the Soyuz price of $76 million per astronaut. That would “only” be a 3x reduction with a crew of seven, but they’ve configured for a crew of four, which is a hair under 2x. I wonder how reuse affects the math, and what they’ll be able to do to lower those prices further. Obv…
Well, we don't know what it costs SpaceX to do these launches. We only know what NASA pays. SpaceX could have very nice margins.
Ultimately it only matters what NASA pays , i.e. how much of the cost savings benefits the taxpayer and how NASA is using that savings
I am so excited by this achievement, and offer hearty congratulations to SpaceX and NASA. That said, I think that everyone anticipating a dramatic reduction in orbital cost needs to temper their enthusiasm a bit. UAL was expensive, as many other have previously noted, because it was a political jobs program. The existence of UAL gave the necessary cover for Musk & Co to envision radically more efficient designs. Howe…
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Few reasons, it's been 9 years since the last crewed spacecraft took off from American soil. Second reason is this is the first time the spacecraft has been built and run by a commercial company (spacex)
For me (as a European) it is mainly exceptional because of the SpaceX effort. It just appeared to me as if it was something America was proud of, because they invented space flight or something, which they didn't. It's just never "celebrated" anywhere when the Russians fly to space over and over.
It's a testament to American capitalism. It's something to be very proud of.
It's the next step in the space age. This paves the way for many more companies and ventures.
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Guidance systems are vastly less expensive now, and can take advantage of things like MEMs, fiber laser gyros, and GPS (and, of course, modern computing power). The tanks on Falcon are welded using Friction Stir Welding, which was invented in the early 1990s. The landing algorithm for the first stage uses convex optimization algorithms based on interior point methods, which were not available in the 1960s. However, s…
One dimension to this that is often forgotten is that SpaceX does things, though. Of course, many problems are solvable now that everything is more advanced, but putting them to use and creating actual progress for humanity is the real fantastic feat of SpaceX.
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Worth noting that Dragon also carries tons of cargo, whereas the Soyuz “sticker price” is for just a seat.
> Dragon also carries tons of cargo Does it? I seem to remember reading somewhere that the "trunk" section will be mostly empty on crewed vehicles. It makes sense. We've seen that Dragon aborts with the trunk attached for aerodynamic reasons. It seems likely that hauling a bunch of cargo together with an escaping crewed capsule isn't feasible. You could also see that during the Demo-2 launch stream when the Dragon se…
I recall Elon was hoping to get an order of magnitude reduction in cost per launch, but Wikipedia claims it costs $160 million per launch versus the Soyuz price of $76 million per astronaut. That would “only” be a 3x reduction with a crew of seven, but they’ve configured for a crew of four, which is a hair under 2x. I wonder how reuse affects the math, and what they’ll be able to do to lower those prices further. Obv…
I think you might be confusing price and cost. What NASA pays doesn’t necessarily reflect the cost since we do not know the margins. However, I do agree that it’s valuable to be skeptical of unproven claims regarding cost reduction, though most of what we say is that we do not know much about the current real cost.