I am still not comfortable with SpaceX, and I still feel that scrapping the NASA LEO vehicles was a mistake.
It's true, performing a successful cargo run is still a long way from having a reliable crewed craft. Then again, NASA and Roscosmos have had a fair share of crewed vehicle failures in their time. Hopefully such incidents can be reduced with what we know about past events. In my view, unless NASA had a massive increase in its budget the switch to commercial LEO vehicles was inevitable. There are so many better uses for funding than having a suite of vehicles designed and operated in-house.
Commercial LEOs are probably the way to go now anyway. We've got the tech ironed out pretty well, let NASA set sights to other cool stuff.
I am still not comfortable with SpaceX, and I still feel that scrapping the NASA LEO vehicles was a mistake.
Why?
The objective of NASA is doing science for the sake of doing science. This has lead to a lot of incidental benefits & information, which NASA always just openly shared.
SpaceX's single mission, as with all businesses, is to make money. The science is tertiary, and you can see it in the way they operate (piggy-backing off of existing systems rather than making their own, hiring as few staff as possible, no doubt cutting cost corners where they can, no active research arm, etc).
A transition of space initiatives to the private sector, to me, would mark the end of any hope for space exploration. It would become just an eccentric pursuit for the super rich, without any intent to share what they discover with the rest of the world (at least, not unless they're paid handsomely for it).
I am still not comfortable with SpaceX, and I still feel that scrapping the NASA LEO vehicles was a mistake.
Why?
The objective of NASA is doing science for the sake of doing science. This has lead to a lot of incidental benefits & information, which NASA always just openly shared.
SpaceX's single mission, as with all businesses, is to make money. The science is tertiary, and you can see it in the way they operate (piggy-backing off of existing systems rather than making their own, hiring as few staff as possible, no doubt cutting cost corners where they can, no active research arm, etc).
A transition of space initiatives to the private sector, to me, would mark the end of any hope for space exploration. It would become just an eccentric pursuit for the super rich, without any intent to share what they discover with the rest of the world (at least, not unless they're paid handsomely for it).
I don't know, the current asteroid mining project being started by the mega-rich nerds (coz let's face it, that's happening because the IT generation went into it exactly as our space travel dreams were being crushed) certainly may end up accomplishing more in terms of providing day-to-day space capability then NASA has.
I am still not comfortable with SpaceX, and I still feel that scrapping the NASA LEO vehicles was a mistake.
Why?
The objective of NASA is doing science for the sake of doing science. This has lead to a lot of incidental benefits & information, which NASA always just openly shared.
SpaceX's single mission, as with all businesses, is to make money. The science is tertiary, and you can see it in the way they operate (piggy-backing off of existing systems rather than making their own, hiring as few staff as possible, no doubt cutting cost corners where they can, no active research arm, etc).
A transition of space initiatives to the private sector, to me, would mark the end of any hope for space exploration. It would become just an eccentric pursuit for the super rich, without any intent to share what they discover with the rest of the world (at least, not unless they're paid handsomely for it).
True, as SpaceX is a corporation its goal is to turn a profit. However, the bit about piggy-backing off of existing systems and having no active research is BS. That issue has been addressed several times, and I'll let a recent interview with Elon Musk provide the answer:
NS: And SpaceX manages that by doing everything possible in house, without significant outsourcing?
Elon Musk: We are trying to make a huge difference - by advancing space technology substantially. To do that we had to design the Falcon rockets from scratch because the space supply chain is just not an effective one. At SpaceX we make the engines, the avionics, the primary structure - I think we've got a fundamentally better design: our airframe, engines, electronics and launch operations are much lower cost.
NS: What about performance though? Anyone can cut costs..
Elon Musk: Our engine has the highest thrust to weight ratio of any engine in the world, our airframe has the best mass fraction of any rocket in the world - and our electronics are the lightest and have have the most computing power over that of any other rocket.
BREAK
NS: It strikes me that your tight in-house control of product design mirrors the way Apple works. Do you see similarities? Is SpaceX aiming to be the Apple of spaceflight?
Elon Musk: Yes, I guess there are similarities. In the case of Apple they did originally do production internally but then along came unbelievably good outsourced manufacturing from companies like Foxconn. We don't have that in the rocket business. There's no Foxconn in the rocket business. And rocket technology is also considered an advanced weapons technology so you can't really have such a situation - so in our case manufacturing is necessary.
All of their hardware is designed and built in-house for not just cost effectiveness and performance, but safety. A single screwup at this stage could kill SpaceX, if not the entire commercial spaceflight industry. Space agencies have also cut corners in the past [see: the Soviet Space Program], and as such we're much more aware of the consequences of those kinds of decisions now. As such, quality assurance is key to any successful commercial space venture, and SpaceX has taken that to heart.
As for your perception that commercialized spaceflight will end space exploration is incredibly naive. While information regarding something like asteroid mineral compositions may remain in the hands of corporations until mining operations are well underway, there is a large volume of scientific research made and published by corporations each year. The exploration will not stop and will most likely expand, just in a few new directions.
Wait, if the international space station has garbage, why aren't they just shooting it towards the sun?
So maybe this makes me a horrible gross spaceman, but why don't they just shoot it anywhere?
I imagine because it wouldn't be cost effective to provide them with enough thrust to get them out of Earth orbit. After all, the ISS is still orbiting the Earth.
I am still not comfortable with SpaceX, and I still feel that scrapping the NASA LEO vehicles was a mistake.
Why?
The objective of NASA is doing science for the sake of doing science. This has lead to a lot of incidental benefits & information, which NASA always just openly shared.
SpaceX's single mission, as with all businesses, is to make money. The science is tertiary, and you can see it in the way they operate (piggy-backing off of existing systems rather than making their own, hiring as few staff as possible, no doubt cutting cost corners where they can, no active research arm, etc).
A transition of space initiatives to the private sector, to me, would mark the end of any hope for space exploration. It would become just an eccentric pursuit for the super rich, without any intent to share what they discover with the rest of the world (at least, not unless they're paid handsomely for it).
True, as SpaceX is a corporation its goal is to turn a profit. However, the bit about piggy-backing off of existing systems and having no active research is BS. That issue has been addressed several times, and I'll let a recent interview with Elon Musk provide the answer:
NS: And SpaceX manages that by doing everything possible in house, without significant outsourcing?
Elon Musk: We are trying to make a huge difference - by advancing space technology substantially. To do that we had to design the Falcon rockets from scratch because the space supply chain is just not an effective one. At SpaceX we make the engines, the avionics, the primary structure - I think we've got a fundamentally better design: our airframe, engines, electronics and launch operations are much lower cost.
NS: What about performance though? Anyone can cut costs..
Elon Musk: Our engine has the highest thrust to weight ratio of any engine in the world, our airframe has the best mass fraction of any rocket in the world - and our electronics are the lightest and have have the most computing power over that of any other rocket.
BREAK
NS: It strikes me that your tight in-house control of product design mirrors the way Apple works. Do you see similarities? Is SpaceX aiming to be the Apple of spaceflight?
Elon Musk: Yes, I guess there are similarities. In the case of Apple they did originally do production internally but then along came unbelievably good outsourced manufacturing from companies like Foxconn. We don't have that in the rocket business. There's no Foxconn in the rocket business. And rocket technology is also considered an advanced weapons technology so you can't really have such a situation - so in our case manufacturing is necessary.
All of their hardware is designed and built in-house for not just cost effectiveness and performance, but safety. A single screwup at this stage could kill SpaceX, if not the entire commercial spaceflight industry. Space agencies have also cut corners in the past [see: the Soviet Space Program], and as such we're much more aware of the consequences of those kinds of decisions now. As such, quality assurance is key to any successful commercial space venture, and SpaceX has taken that to heart.
As for your perception that commercialized spaceflight will end space exploration is incredibly naive. While information regarding something like asteroid mineral compositions may remain in the hands of corporations until mining operations are well underway, there is a large volume of scientific research made and published by corporations each year. The exploration will not stop and will most likely expand, just in a few new directions.
Especially given the mentality of the people running SpaceX and other commercial ventures.
If these people were just out to make a buck they'd all be researching their next tech company, an industry in which they've literally made billions of dollars.
Is the concern that private space ventures will eventually supplant NASA? Because, for the time being, SpaceX and others are freeing NASA from having to split their budget between research and cargo/crew runs, which seems like it's the best way for all parties to move forward.
Wait, if the international space station has garbage, why aren't they just shooting it towards the sun?
So maybe this makes me a horrible gross spaceman, but why don't they just shoot it anywhere?
The ISS, while in Orbit, it's Low Earth Orbit and that is just "really high up". The ISS requires an occasional corrective burn in order to stop it from falling completely back down into the atmosphere and burning up. The amount of energy required to shoot it anywhere BUT the Earth would be more than just having a ship come, pick it up, and bring it back down because shooting it away from the station you still need to beat Earth's gravitational pull. Here's a picture on satellites and orbits: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Orbitalaltitudes.jpg
This is how I like to believe the future of Space flight is handled: focus NASA into constantly raising the bar of where humans can go, what we can do there, what may be required and let the private industries handle all that. Let NASA do all the science stuff and exploration things, freeing it from having to constantly do mundane tasks like resupply or private flights, let the private industry handle those. Mainly, get NASA out of LEO and out further into space.
Neil deGrasse Tyson has said, paraphrasing: when we started only using the shuttles, we boldly went where hundreds have been before. Earth orbit is no longer the frontier.
With that, SpaceX has successfully completed all COTS objectives and can begin regular cargo delivery missions to the ISS. In the coming months, SpaceX will have their first Falcon Heavy launch which will likely bring price per pound to orbit below $1000. So, what's next for SpaceX and the other commercial space companies?
CCDev is the next big goal, with these companies competing for contracts:
Boeing
Blue Origin
Sierra Nevada Corporation
SpaceX
Excalibur Almaz
United Launch Alliance
Alliant Techsystems
Paragon Space Development Corporation
And SpaceX is already in the lead there, as Dragon was designed to be a crewed vessel. There's little difference between Dragon's crew and cargo configurations.
I'm so glad this kind of stuff is starting to happen. NASA has been so underfunded for so long that nothing too significant has really been happening with space travel. Maybe we can actually start *exploring* space at some point in the near future.
Commercial space travel will never lead to exploration. But, hopefully this will free up NASA's budget so that we can go to strange new places.
See I disagree with this. There are enough billionaire nerds out there that would love to make a for-reals Enterprise. Hell, isn't one of the Google founders going to mine asteroids?
And anyways, exploration can lead to huge profit if they find something particularly valuable.
And SpaceX is already in the lead there, as Dragon was designed to be a crewed vessel. There's little difference between Dragon's crew and cargo configurations.
Yeah, they basically already have that. Elon said in an interview that if someone had stowed away on board this Dragon as it is, they would have been able to make the trip without any problems. Although that for a crewed Dragon, they were planning on adding more to the life support, and adding a launch-abort system into the capsule, that could also be used to make a powered landing, and land on land with the accuracy of a helicopter.
And SpaceX is already in the lead there, as Dragon was designed to be a crewed vessel. There's little difference between Dragon's crew and cargo configurations.
Yeah, they basically already have that. Elon said in an interview that if someone had stowed away on board this Dragon as it is, they would have been able to make the trip without any problems. Although that for a crewed Dragon, they were planning on adding more to the life support, and adding a launch-abort system into the capsule, that could also be used to make a powered landing, and land on land with the accuracy of a helicopter.
I spotted something that Elon Musk had on twitter shortly after the launch about upcoming tests at their Texas facility for the reusable Falcon 9 first stage. He referred to it as the Grasshopper Project, so hopefully there will be some cool footage from that test. Blue Origin has already done kind of the same thing (powered landing test with a large-scale liquid fuel rocket), but it's not nearly the same size as a Falcon 9 first stage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NANePoo_p30
And SpaceX is already in the lead there, as Dragon was designed to be a crewed vessel. There's little difference between Dragon's crew and cargo configurations.
Yeah, they basically already have that. Elon said in an interview that if someone had stowed away on board this Dragon as it is, they would have been able to make the trip without any problems. Although that for a crewed Dragon, they were planning on adding more to the life support, and adding a launch-abort system into the capsule, that could also be used to make a powered landing, and land on land with the accuracy of a helicopter.
I spotted something that Elon Musk had on twitter shortly after the launch about upcoming tests at their Texas facility for the reusable Falcon 9 first stage. He referred to it as the Grasshopper Project, so hopefully there will be some cool footage from that test. Blue Origin has already done kind of the same thing (powered landing test with a large-scale liquid fuel rocket), but it's not nearly the same size as a Falcon 9 first stage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NANePoo_p30
McDonnell Douglas had a rocket that took off from one pad, came to a hover, moved to another pad, and landed on it's own plume -- they had successful tests in the early 1990s. It was much larger than the dragon.
And SpaceX is already in the lead there, as Dragon was designed to be a crewed vessel. There's little difference between Dragon's crew and cargo configurations.
Yeah, they basically already have that. Elon said in an interview that if someone had stowed away on board this Dragon as it is, they would have been able to make the trip without any problems. Although that for a crewed Dragon, they were planning on adding more to the life support, and adding a launch-abort system into the capsule, that could also be used to make a powered landing, and land on land with the accuracy of a helicopter.
I spotted something that Elon Musk had on twitter shortly after the launch about upcoming tests at their Texas facility for the reusable Falcon 9 first stage. He referred to it as the Grasshopper Project, so hopefully there will be some cool footage from that test. Blue Origin has already done kind of the same thing (powered landing test with a large-scale liquid fuel rocket), but it's not nearly the same size as a Falcon 9 first stage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NANePoo_p30
McDonnell Douglas had a rocket that took off from one pad, came to a hover, moved to another pad, and landed on it's own plume -- they had successful tests in the early 1990s. It was much larger than the dragon.
Yeah, I've seen the RLV before. It's a shame NASA didn't explore the concept further, but I suppose we can see why in hindsight: money. Though to correct you, the Grasshopper Project is *not* for Dragon's recovery system. It's the development project to make the Falcon 9 entire first stage (a considerably larger object than any previous VTVL research has dealt with) fully recoverable.
And SpaceX is already in the lead there, as Dragon was designed to be a crewed vessel. There's little difference between Dragon's crew and cargo configurations.
Yeah, they basically already have that. Elon said in an interview that if someone had stowed away on board this Dragon as it is, they would have been able to make the trip without any problems. Although that for a crewed Dragon, they were planning on adding more to the life support, and adding a launch-abort system into the capsule, that could also be used to make a powered landing, and land on land with the accuracy of a helicopter.
I spotted something that Elon Musk had on twitter shortly after the launch about upcoming tests at their Texas facility for the reusable Falcon 9 first stage. He referred to it as the Grasshopper Project, so hopefully there will be some cool footage from that test. Blue Origin has already done kind of the same thing (powered landing test with a large-scale liquid fuel rocket), but it's not nearly the same size as a Falcon 9 first stage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NANePoo_p30
McDonnell Douglas had a rocket that took off from one pad, came to a hover, moved to another pad, and landed on it's own plume -- they had successful tests in the early 1990s. It was much larger than the dragon.
Yeah, I've seen the RLV before. It's a shame NASA didn't explore the concept further, but I suppose we can see why in hindsight: money. Though to correct you, the Grasshopper Project is *not* for Dragon's recovery system. It's the development project to make the Falcon 9 entire first stage (a considerably larger object than any previous VTVL research has dealt with) fully recoverable.
Which is essential to the Falcon Heavy, which uses three as its initial stage.
I think they may only be getting the boosters and possibly the second stage back on Falcon Heavy launches. The external boosters are apparently designed to constantly refill the central first stage so that when they separate, that first stage still has its tanks at 100%. I'm not sure it will be possible to re-enter something that large moving that fast, but it may still be possible for the second stage. Additionally, they're working on Falcon 9 v1.1, which will have a 50% taller first stage and maybe a taller second stage as well, most likely to ensure sufficient fuel for recovery.
Posts
Commercial LEOs are probably the way to go now anyway. We've got the tech ironed out pretty well, let NASA set sights to other cool stuff.
The objective of NASA is doing science for the sake of doing science. This has lead to a lot of incidental benefits & information, which NASA always just openly shared.
SpaceX's single mission, as with all businesses, is to make money. The science is tertiary, and you can see it in the way they operate (piggy-backing off of existing systems rather than making their own, hiring as few staff as possible, no doubt cutting cost corners where they can, no active research arm, etc).
A transition of space initiatives to the private sector, to me, would mark the end of any hope for space exploration. It would become just an eccentric pursuit for the super rich, without any intent to share what they discover with the rest of the world (at least, not unless they're paid handsomely for it).
I don't know, the current asteroid mining project being started by the mega-rich nerds (coz let's face it, that's happening because the IT generation went into it exactly as our space travel dreams were being crushed) certainly may end up accomplishing more in terms of providing day-to-day space capability then NASA has.
True, as SpaceX is a corporation its goal is to turn a profit. However, the bit about piggy-backing off of existing systems and having no active research is BS. That issue has been addressed several times, and I'll let a recent interview with Elon Musk provide the answer:
All of their hardware is designed and built in-house for not just cost effectiveness and performance, but safety. A single screwup at this stage could kill SpaceX, if not the entire commercial spaceflight industry. Space agencies have also cut corners in the past [see: the Soviet Space Program], and as such we're much more aware of the consequences of those kinds of decisions now. As such, quality assurance is key to any successful commercial space venture, and SpaceX has taken that to heart.
As for your perception that commercialized spaceflight will end space exploration is incredibly naive. While information regarding something like asteroid mineral compositions may remain in the hands of corporations until mining operations are well underway, there is a large volume of scientific research made and published by corporations each year. The exploration will not stop and will most likely expand, just in a few new directions.
So maybe this makes me a horrible gross spaceman, but why don't they just shoot it anywhere?
I imagine because it wouldn't be cost effective to provide them with enough thrust to get them out of Earth orbit. After all, the ISS is still orbiting the Earth.
Especially given the mentality of the people running SpaceX and other commercial ventures.
If these people were just out to make a buck they'd all be researching their next tech company, an industry in which they've literally made billions of dollars.
--LeVar Burton
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Orbitalaltitudes.jpg
This is how I like to believe the future of Space flight is handled: focus NASA into constantly raising the bar of where humans can go, what we can do there, what may be required and let the private industries handle all that. Let NASA do all the science stuff and exploration things, freeing it from having to constantly do mundane tasks like resupply or private flights, let the private industry handle those. Mainly, get NASA out of LEO and out further into space.
Neil deGrasse Tyson has said, paraphrasing: when we started only using the shuttles, we boldly went where hundreds have been before. Earth orbit is no longer the frontier.
http://m.cnet.com/news/spacex-cargo-ship-returns-to-earth-after-historic-mission/57444574
With that, SpaceX has successfully completed all COTS objectives and can begin regular cargo delivery missions to the ISS. In the coming months, SpaceX will have their first Falcon Heavy launch which will likely bring price per pound to orbit below $1000. So, what's next for SpaceX and the other commercial space companies?
CCDev is the next big goal, with these companies competing for contracts:
Boeing
Blue Origin
Sierra Nevada Corporation
SpaceX
Excalibur Almaz
United Launch Alliance
Alliant Techsystems
Paragon Space Development Corporation
See I disagree with this. There are enough billionaire nerds out there that would love to make a for-reals Enterprise. Hell, isn't one of the Google founders going to mine asteroids?
And anyways, exploration can lead to huge profit if they find something particularly valuable.
I spotted something that Elon Musk had on twitter shortly after the launch about upcoming tests at their Texas facility for the reusable Falcon 9 first stage. He referred to it as the Grasshopper Project, so hopefully there will be some cool footage from that test. Blue Origin has already done kind of the same thing (powered landing test with a large-scale liquid fuel rocket), but it's not nearly the same size as a Falcon 9 first stage.
McDonnell Douglas had a rocket that took off from one pad, came to a hover, moved to another pad, and landed on it's own plume -- they had successful tests in the early 1990s. It was much larger than the dragon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
Yeah, I've seen the RLV before. It's a shame NASA didn't explore the concept further, but I suppose we can see why in hindsight: money. Though to correct you, the Grasshopper Project is *not* for Dragon's recovery system. It's the development project to make the Falcon 9 entire first stage (a considerably larger object than any previous VTVL research has dealt with) fully recoverable.
Which is essential to the Falcon Heavy, which uses three as its initial stage.