China’s moon sample return mission landed safely.
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SpaceX launching a falcon heavy tomorrow morning melb time at 7:16am. 2 hour launch window. Falcon heavy launches are pretty cool with the 2 side booster landings.
I know you guys have more knowledge than me, but on this stuff a bit of that is drinking the Kool aid right? You compare 50 yo technology and costs to 2020s development. NASA had plenty of failures back in the day, and in the SpaceX case the US government is still finding a whole heap of their operations??
SLS costs over $2billion per launch as it is not reusable. It cost $20 billion to develop and the engine are the same as the space shuttle used. Boeing and the rest of them involved in building the SLS use old and very expensive methods.
Space shuttle cost double that to develop. It took months and more than $200+ million to refurbish. Also another that much to replace the solid rocket boosters as they were dispensed of after each use. They also had to rebuild the shuttle engines each time it flew due to it not being designed for reusability. Fuel used being hydrogen/oxygen pretty much destroyed the engines because of soot.
SpaceX is getting ~$5.4 billion from NASA to develop the starship with SpaceX putting in around the same amount. It’s a bargain for NASA. Also the cost per flight and turnaround time will be much less. SpaceX has developed the methane/oxygen raptor engines that don’t need to be rebuilt after each use.
SpaceX is amongst 7 companies that NASA has asked to propose a solution for the Mars sample return mission as the estimated NASA cost of over $11 billion was ridiculously high. Guarantee they will be a lot cheaper than the competition.
NASA had to rely on Russia and their Soyuz rocket to get them to the space station until SpaceX came along. SpaceX built the crew dragon capsule which docks with the international space station for half the cost of ~$3 billion and in half the time that it took Boeing to build its version the Starliner. The Starliner is currently stuck at the space station as it has safety issues and will probably be discontinued given Boeings issues with it here and with airplanes.
ADD: in summary the new private companies like SpaceX, rocket labs, etc do things quicker and cheaper and that’s why NASA will use them going forward.
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What do you do if you see a spaceman?
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Wave first and then ask for a selfie. I’d then ask him for a lift.
Park in it, man.
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I love hippy jokes!
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Nah. Compare SpaceX with the remainder of the current launch industry. SpaceX has something like 90% of the total global launch market, with all these organisations competing with the same 2020s tech.
There is real value in a fail fast approach to engineering development. None of the others in the market have really adopted that and have continued with an engineer everything to ensure success on the first attempt.
I’m rather worried about a single company having a global monopoly on the space launch market, but if you look at the style of the competition such as the European Space Agency, the rest of the market pretty much deserve the failures they are having.
There’s no reason NASA couldn’t have done this style of cost effective launch tech, they had all the right people and knowledge. What they didn’t have was a tolerance to be seen to fail.
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I should wander into this thread more often to read of man’s triumphs, rather than every other thread to read of man’s failures.*
*Lid-Off thread excluded.
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SpaceX Prepares Chopstick Test and Advances Second Launch Tower | SpaceX Boca Chica
First Look Inside SpaceX’s Starfactory
Shame Dear Moon has been cancelled and Tim won’t fly as a part of that mission. Elon likes him and gives him these exclusive interviews so I’d bet eon will make sure he goes on a future flight.
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There are some newer companies that are similar to SpaceX. Unfortunately there are some shockers like Blue Origin.
Started years before SpaceX and still hasn’t got a rocket to orbit.
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Boost
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Starship Mark 1 referenced at 59:00 in the Starfactory walkthrough video
When it was compared to the Far Side rocket
That a rocket hobbyist made and actually flew
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Is it churlish to point out that they cheated on the fins?
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Yes.
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A de orbit vehicle, is that like a missile ?
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