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SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

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Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#41

Post by thelambentonion »

FD3SA wrote: post #9

"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more. What it does is it allows us to land the first stage for GTO missions on the drone ship." I am constantly blown away by SpaceX. This is an absurd level of improvement for an already mature, commercially successful rocket. If even 1% of the world's companies in other sectors worked this well, I can only imagine how much our quality of life would improve.…

Disclaimer: I work in the space industry for one of SpaceX's competitors. None of my work is in competition with SpaceX (totally different systems), but it bears mentioning. I've also never worked for SpaceX, so a lot of what I'm saying here is opinion and hearsay.

SpaceX does excellent work, and has an amazing track record for such a young space company. That being said, it's important to highlight that the 'absurd level of improvement' that we're seeing not just the product of good engineering management practices. Much of it comes as a result of some pretty extreme expectations placed on the employees working there.

I've lost track of the number of people who've told me that they'd love to work at SpaceX, if only the culture wasn't so oppressively work-centric. These comments have come from students looking for full time jobs having previously interned within the aerospace industry as well as NASA civil servants and contractors who have been putting stuff into space for decades.

The aerospace industry is practically built around overworking its engineers, and, for almost everyone in it, working here was a conscious sacrifice to be able to do some Very Cool Shit. SpaceX takes that concept and turns it up to 11, expecting people to eat, breathe, and live their jobs. The last thing I would want is a firm dedicated to propagating these ideals.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#42

Post by PaulHoule »

thelambentonion wrote: post #41
FD3SA wrote: post #9

"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more. What it does is it allows us to land the first stage for GTO missions on the drone ship." I am constantly blown away by SpaceX. This is an absurd level of improvement for an already mature, commercially successful rocket. If even 1% of the world's companies in other sectors worked this well, I can only imagine how much our quality of life would improve.…

Disclaimer: I work in the space industry for one of SpaceX's competitors. None of my work is in competition with SpaceX (totally different systems), but it bears mentioning. I've also never worked for SpaceX, so a lot of what I'm saying here is opinion and hearsay. SpaceX does excellent work, and has an amazing track record for such a young space company. That being said, it's important to highlight that the 'absurd…

There are a lot of places that will work you like a dog for something that feels meaningless. I don't think anybody feels that way at SpaceX.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#43

Post by ufmace »

krschultz wrote: post #22

SpaceX continues to be a PR machine. This news comes barely 24 hours after a significant delay due to a helium tank problem - http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/03/17/spacex-puts-off-next-fa... . I'm not saying SpaceX has a fundamental problem, I just find it interesting how obvious PR planted articles are.

Interesting that you're getting downvoted here...

I do like and support SpaceX, but they sure seem to have an impressive PR machine also. They seem to get a lot more buzz and press than every other space company combined. Maybe it's a Silicon Valley-inspired tradition of working with and courting the press, as opposed to a more secrecy-focused environment in companies that mostly do military contracting?

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#44

Post by 32faction »

eabraham wrote: post #38

Considering that the cheaper "used" launch cost will lower the bar for getting satellites to LEO, I wonder how long until we need to worry about Kessler Syndrome[1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

I did my undergraduate capstone class on the Kessler Syndrome. UNCOPUOS, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space dictate that a satellite must deorbit itself within 25 years after mission completion.

The Kessler Syndrome right now is a potentially exponential problem that we should be conscientious of because our access to space depends on open orbital lanes.

I want to submit a YC application proposing an orbital debris mitigation as a service company but im not sure if it's an idea YC will facilitate

The science behind the movie Gravity wasn't too accurate but the scenario the characters found themselves in is very very plausible.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#45

Post by jccooper »

rst wrote: post #26
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rocket is paid for with its primary mission. Elon has said that the fuel is a very small cost compared to the entire launch, so I would assume the cost to refly a "used" rocket is going to be orders of magnitude cheaper than the original flight. I could see SpaceX segmenting their customers into two tiers: mission completion sensitive, and cost sensitive, with who gets which rockets straightforward.

It's going to be cheaper, but still in the millions, and not just because you still need to pay for a new second stage. There's also nontrivial cost associated with range safety, payload setup, and so forth (which are operations that still involve lots of highly trained personnel, with limited opportunities for automation because, among other things, the payloads aren't all alike).

Millions would be great, as it's currently a matter of tens (or hundreds) or millions. Order of magnitude can make a big difference.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#46

Post by jsprogrammer »

darkmighty wrote: post #35
justin66 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of customers may not want to fly on a used rocket though (no one knows the risks) I am certain the insurers will be happy to take a crack at figuring out the risk. That matters a lot. Whether or not you "want to fly on a used rocket," if your company can purchase a flight and insurance on a used rocket for a lot less than it can purchase a flight and insurance on a new rocket, you might be obligated to try it…

It's not a straightforward insurance matter since many many applications are time critical. If a rocket blows up they may need many more years until a replacement cargo can be manufactured, fitted into the launch schedule, etc. The coverage for that ( specially opportunity costs, which are hard to measure anyway) might be too high, making the insurance premium larger than the gain provided by reusability. I'd believe…

Specially?

You are right though, that there are far more than monetary concerns to consider. Sometimes it seems as though people, particularly on HN, believe that money is the only thing of consideration in any endeavor.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#47

Post by ChuckMcM »

martythemaniak wrote: post #8

Currently they have to throw away the rockets used for GTO missions (around half of them) and can only attempt landings on LEO missions such as the ISS resupplies. Given their last few landing attempts, it's pretty likely that they'll be able to land a rocket sometime this year, which means that starting next year they might be able to reuse all of their F9 Rockets. A lot of customers may not want to fly on a used ro…

   > Anyway, these are probably the most exciting times in
   > spaceflight since the 60s!
Yes it is, and we get to use technology from the future this time :-). It is bittersweet for me, the opportunity lost to keep funding NASA at a reasonable level could have a lot of useful data in the 'bank' as it were, but by and large much of the stuff that makes what SpaceX does possible is relatively new. In particular the avionics and MEMs manufacturing has allowed the mass fraction of the operations bits of the rocket to plummet.

I'm still curious though how they got a 30% improvement, and if it was a retelling of the Merlin 1C -> 1D evolution of if this is really a Merlin 1D+. They have also hinted at a project "Raptor" which is a ginormous engine.

And finally it really puts a bad light on "Cost Plus" contracts and the folks at Boeing and ULA who have supplied launch platforms for the last few decades. Clearly nobody in the "old guard" really cared about space, they just wanted to keep the money flowing. I am profoundly glad that they are being shaken up. Perhaps some of the management there will actually listen to what the engineers have been proposing for years and years.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#48

Post by pogden »

darkmighty wrote: post #35
justin66 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of customers may not want to fly on a used rocket though (no one knows the risks) I am certain the insurers will be happy to take a crack at figuring out the risk. That matters a lot. Whether or not you "want to fly on a used rocket," if your company can purchase a flight and insurance on a used rocket for a lot less than it can purchase a flight and insurance on a new rocket, you might be obligated to try it…

It's not a straightforward insurance matter since many many applications are time critical. If a rocket blows up they may need many more years until a replacement cargo can be manufactured, fitted into the launch schedule, etc. The coverage for that ( specially opportunity costs, which are hard to measure anyway) might be too high, making the insurance premium larger than the gain provided by reusability. I'd believe…

All true. The first used F9 payloads will likely be Geosynchronous communications satellites, where the smaller payload is mostly fuel for apogee kick and station keeping, and the rest is mostly off the shelf hardware.

Alternately, operators of large constellations, eg. Iridium that can replace the payload relatively quickly and cheaply. Opportunity cost can be mitigated if some of the payload is intended as on-orbit spares.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#49

Post by termain »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #47
martythemaniak wrote: post #8

Currently they have to throw away the rockets used for GTO missions (around half of them) and can only attempt landings on LEO missions such as the ISS resupplies. Given their last few landing attempts, it's pretty likely that they'll be able to land a rocket sometime this year, which means that starting next year they might be able to reuse all of their F9 Rockets. A lot of customers may not want to fly on a used ro…

> Anyway, these are probably the most exciting times in > spaceflight since the 60s! Yes it is, and we get to use technology from the future this time :-). It is bittersweet for me, the opportunity lost to keep funding NASA at a reasonable level could have a lot of useful data in the 'bank' as it were, but by and large much of the stuff that makes what SpaceX does possible is relatively new. In particular the avionic…

"It is bittersweet for me, the opportunity lost to keep funding NASA at a reasonable level could have a lot of useful data in the 'bank' as it were, but by and large much of the stuff that makes what SpaceX does possible is relatively new."

Minimally, the pintle engine technology came out of NASA work and I suspect much of their technical knowledge comes either directly or indirectly from NASA funding.

" Clearly nobody in the "old guard" really cared about space, they just wanted to keep the money flowing. I am profoundly glad that they are being shaken up."

I think many of their engineers cared. But their corporate culture doesn't seem that interested in spaceflight, or at least spaceflight beyond the status quo.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#50

Post by TeMPOraL »

FD3SA wrote: post #37
msandford wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Musk should open an engineering management consulting firm, and hire a few smart people to analyze SpaceX and transfer some of its engineering management methodologies into a set of training modules. It's a nice idea, but it wouldn't make any sense. Big institutions are arranged a certain way because of the incentives. You're not going to change the incentives because the people at the top fundamentally don…

I completely agree, and if you look at my past posts, I am quite cynical with most modern companies precisely because I understand that human primal impulses, such as the insatiable drive for status and wealth accumulation, tend to completely sabotage any potential for innovation. Musk's companies are two of the very few exceptions to this universal empirical reality, and as such underscore the need to try and unders…

There is one possible answer that is both obvious and unfortunate (for businesses) - it's because they actually care. For most of the companies, profit is the primary goal and the thing they do is an afterthought (I like to call such entities "toilet-paper companies", because they'd happily drop whatever they're doing and start selling toilet paper if that was more profitable). For SpaceX and Tesla, making humanity multiplanetary and electrification of transport seem to be the primary, terminal goals, while profit is only instrumental. I don't know how many employees care about those goals the way Elon does (but I suspect many, at least in SpaceX - from what people are telling, you wouldn't be able to stand working there otherwise), but if there is enough of them, if that forms the company culture, then it's quite easy to see how the operations will be mostly immune "insatiable drive for status and wealth accumulation". I bet many would love to work for them even for free. I know I would.

Why is this answer unfortunate (for other businesses)? Because you can't really fake caring about something. Many of the problems you see in most modern companies stem from the very fact that they exist primarily to make money, and they comprise of people thinking mostly profit - looking at their company through IAbstractMoneyMakingEntity interface, without really caring about what services or goods the company actually provides.

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