My favorite way to describe orbits is 'constantly throwing yourself at the ground but moving so fast that you just keep missing', hence the constant free-fall/zero-g.
I like it. My go-to is "Going so fast sideways that you fall around the world."
Background on the Falcon 9 Launch
81–90 of 142 posts
Re: Background on the Falcon 9 Launch
#82Clearly this man's intellect is through the roof. Reading this post and him explaining these concepts in such first-principle terms (despite not being a physicist/rocket engineer) indicates his in-depth understanding (nothing new there). I know he has a Bachelors in Physics but bear with me. But, I'm just in awe and I keep thinking 'how does he do it?'. He's running two intensely technical and risky companies. Yet he…
It's a response to Bezos's Blue Origins tweet. Getting to orbit takes far more energy than just getting to orbital altitude, which is the main point Musk is making.
Blue Origin isn't a serious competitor, though. United Launch Alliance (Lockheed-Martin and Boeing) is the real competitor. It's amazing that they're still using Atlas/Centaur, which, although there have been major redesigns and upgrades, first flew started in the 1950s. (Yes, the current Atlas is really a new design, using Russian engines. The Centaur upper stage hasn't changed as much; it still has the 1950s Rocketdyne engines.)
Space-X still wants the capability of landing on the barge, so they don't have to expend so much fuel to kill the horizontal vector and get back near the launch point. They may end up going with expendable boosters when lifting to geosync orbit. But they may be able to reuse ones recovered from previous low orbit missions.
Re: Background on the Falcon 9 Launch
#83Clearly this man's intellect is through the roof. Reading this post and him explaining these concepts in such first-principle terms (despite not being a physicist/rocket engineer) indicates his in-depth understanding (nothing new there). I know he has a Bachelors in Physics but bear with me. But, I'm just in awe and I keep thinking 'how does he do it?'. He's running two intensely technical and risky companies. Yet he…
This hero worship is utterly stupid. It's also a disservice to children. We're teaching them that there are heroes, and then everyone else.
Bull. Work as hard as Elon did, and you'd make the same progress. It also required luck. No PayPal, no Elon. And there could only be one PayPal, at precisely that time in history.
A better question is, why did Carmack fail where Elon succeeded? Armadillo Aerospace was supposed to be SpaceX.
Re: Background on the Falcon 9 Launch
#84Clearly this man's intellect is through the roof. Reading this post and him explaining these concepts in such first-principle terms (despite not being a physicist/rocket engineer) indicates his in-depth understanding (nothing new there). I know he has a Bachelors in Physics but bear with me. But, I'm just in awe and I keep thinking 'how does he do it?'. He's running two intensely technical and risky companies. Yet he…
This hero worship is utterly stupid. It's also a disservice to children. We're teaching them that there are heroes, and then everyone else. Bull. Work as hard as Elon did, and you'd make the same progress. It also required luck. No PayPal, no Elon. And there could only be one PayPal, at precisely that time in history. A better question is, why did Carmack fail where Elon succeeded? Armadillo Aerospace was supposed to…
Tim Urban, who co-hosted the live coverage, has written four in-depth articles on Musk and SpaceX. In the last article he attempts to describe the reason behind his success. TL;DR: Thinks from first-principles instead of analogy, treats human brains like computers.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-musks-se...
Re: Background on the Falcon 9 Launch
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX own the first stage. You pay to get your payload delivered to a specified orbit. You don't actually buy the rocket. It's like flying, you buy a ticket, not the plane.
Just for reference, I got an inside look at what it took to get OSCAR16[1] launched and it isn't like flying :-). Now I don't doubt things are more streamlined now but every launch starts with a basic contract and that contract has to cover everything from contingencies to insurance to liability to disposal. Trying to search for a boilerplate launch contract I found an article[1] where it discusses that Spaceflight I…
I see what you mean and a literal reading of those words implies ownership but what if the intended meaning was that they were the sole occupant/tenant on that flight? My gut feeling is that the rocket company owns the rocket.
Re: Background on the Falcon 9 Launch
#86Clearly this man's intellect is through the roof. Reading this post and him explaining these concepts in such first-principle terms (despite not being a physicist/rocket engineer) indicates his in-depth understanding (nothing new there). I know he has a Bachelors in Physics but bear with me. But, I'm just in awe and I keep thinking 'how does he do it?'. He's running two intensely technical and risky companies. Yet he…
This hero worship is utterly stupid. It's also a disservice to children. We're teaching them that there are heroes, and then everyone else. Bull. Work as hard as Elon did, and you'd make the same progress. It also required luck. No PayPal, no Elon. And there could only be one PayPal, at precisely that time in history. A better question is, why did Carmack fail where Elon succeeded? Armadillo Aerospace was supposed to…
Carmack invested about $2 million into Armadillo in its first 6 years. Elon invested $100 million in that time frame (actually, the first 4 years of SpaceX).
Armadillo did OK actually, they just were on a completely different trajectory. It was very much a hobby project for Carmack.
Re: Background on the Falcon 9 Launch
#87Clearly this man's intellect is through the roof. Reading this post and him explaining these concepts in such first-principle terms (despite not being a physicist/rocket engineer) indicates his in-depth understanding (nothing new there). I know he has a Bachelors in Physics but bear with me. But, I'm just in awe and I keep thinking 'how does he do it?'. He's running two intensely technical and risky companies. Yet he…
He works stupendously hard. Growing up my dad was always working, and it factored heavily into my decision to not pursue a career of long hours, it's a trade-off I wasn't willing to make. As a consequence, I won't have the financial resources he has. The amount of dedication that it takes to run businesses like tesla and spacex well is intimidating. To quote princess bride, it leaves no room for dilly-dallying.
Another take-away I get from musk's achievements is that the best software businesses are about applied software. Paypal is software applied to finance, tesla is software applied to cars, spacex is software applied to rockets. Combine great software with great hardware, and you get companies like apple, tesla, spacex, companies that change the world.
Re: Background on the Falcon 9 Launch
#88This all seemed reasonable except this paragraph:
"The reason they are floating around is that they have no net acceleration. The outward acceleration of (apparent) circular motion, which wants to sling them out into deep space, exactly balances the inward acceleration of gravity that wants to pull them down to Earth."
There is no "outward acceleration". The weightlessness is because the craft they are in is accelerating towards Earth with exactly the same acceleration. The reason they don't hit the ground is that they have a suitably high tangential velocity.
Re: Background on the Falcon 9 Launch
#89Clearly this man's intellect is through the roof. Reading this post and him explaining these concepts in such first-principle terms (despite not being a physicist/rocket engineer) indicates his in-depth understanding (nothing new there). I know he has a Bachelors in Physics but bear with me. But, I'm just in awe and I keep thinking 'how does he do it?'. He's running two intensely technical and risky companies. Yet he…
The main difference between Elon Musk and 'the rest of us' is that he set himself a bunch of ambitious goals and applies each and every bit of his funds and intellect towards achieving those goals and inspires a large number of very smart people around him to share his dreams. It's a tough act to follow, but if you really wanted to you probably could. Whether or not you're prepared to pay the price is another matter.
“My proceeds from the PayPal acquisition were $180 million. I put $100 million in SpaceX, $70m in Tesla, and $10m in Solar City. I had to borrow money for rent.”
Re: Background on the Falcon 9 Launch
#90Great and easy to understand article, thanks for posting it.
Does anyone know it the spacex team uses the imperial or the metric system for development? Elon switches between both systems and it's messing with my head.