Top kek

[Anonymous No.6402409]

>Thinking this will come down in one piece.

Get ready to be owned next week new space fags

[Anonymous No.6403477]

>>6402409
Well, the previous one came down all the way to the surface of the ocean in one piece. Why not this one?

The big innovation is launching it with LEGS. This will test the folded leg aerodynamics on the way up, and leg deployment on the way down. This is the beginning of a brave new era in orbital rocketry, with gas-and-go first stages cutting launch prices by an order of magnitude.

Even better, SpaceX recently announced Raptor, their next generation engine, the first ever full-flow regenerative methane/LOX engine with a full mega-Newton of thrust. Nine of these babies will power a rocket larger than the Saturn V.

And all these innovations weren't done by NASA, but by a private company on a shoestring budget. Brings a tear to my eye.

[Anonymous No.6403550]

>>6403477
>>6402409
Coming down in (two or three) pieces is the eventual goal. Going up properly is all they need to do now.

AFIK they are not going to even attempt first stage recovery on next two launches because they want to dedicate more fuel to the primary mission than would be available with a deceleration burn. They still may launch it with legs even if they are not planning on trying to recover it (^_^)

[Anonymous No.6403847]

>>6403477
>This is the beginning of a brave new era in orbital rocketry, with gas-and-go first stages cutting launch prices by an order of magnitude.
Keep in mind, they said the same thing about the Shuttle.

[Anonymous No.6403868]

What site do you guys find news for on these topics?

[Anonymous No.6403896]

>>6403847
Musk got F9 built with just $100m.
The space shuttle was expected to cost $43b (2011 dollars) but ended up costing $200b.

So you're literally comparing something musk built for 1/2000 the cost with a perpetual government high tech jobs program.

So he is already two orders of magnitude cheaper than the shuttle, and he is planning on getting another order or two out of it before colonising it.

>>6403868
I use lmgtfy or nasaspaceflight.com - the forums are great too

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=spacex+news
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?board=45.0

[Anonymous No.6404178]

>>6402409
If this thing works the shockwave on space geeks will be of epic proportions.

[Anonymous No.6404336]

>>6403896
How does this thing even work?

I was always told carrying fuel up to get back down was way too expensive because the more fuel makes more weight which needs more fuel ...

Or are they cheating again by only going up to space vertically, but not bothering to reach even a low orbit path. That is why SpaceShipOne can just glide back down from space, it only goes to space not to orbit so it doesn't have to deal with all the other issues. It was not some grand new tech or great feat of engineering (relatively speaking), it was just setting the bar lower.

The space shuttle on the other hand had to do everything with tech that had yet to be invented or developed, it even had to do a stable polar orbit drop off of 12,700 kg which is an insane requirement if you stop and think about it. It could have been cheaper and better if it didn't have to do everything at once. So it is a very unfair comparison.

[Anonymous No.6404397]

>>6404336
The first stage (and boosters for the Shuttle) are easier to recover because they only get to a fraction of orbital speed before they are discarded. Because of that, adding weight (legs, reserve fuel) to the first stage is less of a problem than adding weight further up the stack. It also helps that almost all the weight of the first stage is fuel, which is why it only takes three engines to do boost back, and only one engine to do the final braking and hoverslam landing.

And I agree about the Shuttle. It is amazing that it worked at all, it was so fucking complex, and built with 80's technology! Falcon recovery is enabled by faster processors for tighter control loops. It also helps that it was designed by one company, not a consortium of conflicting interests. Also on its second design iteration after only five flights, whereas the Shuttle design was basically frozen from day one.

[Anonymous No.6404405]

>>6404397
Also by getting the first stage back and intact, you can save upwards of 100 million dollars at current first stage prices.(maybe I'm exaggerating a little).

[Anonymous No.6404413]

Its hard to see how the US can have priate industry take over for its space program given the international competition.

Given regulations and oerhead cost imposed by competitive salaries, witthout government subsidies, how will private space programs in the US be able to compete with China, India, and Russia, whose governments will offer to launch spacecraft at a fraction of the cost?

I think priate takeover of space program makes sense, but obiously needs to be insulated from international competition until self-sufficient.

[Anonymous No.6404419]

>>6404405
The shuttle recovered it's first stage, the question is "what level of servicing is required". We won't know that for some time.

[Anonymous No.6404425]

>>6404413
SpaceX do get government subsidies. NASA grants for development and huge government contracts.

SpaceX aren't dependent like ULA but to say they are independent entirely is nonsense.

>whose governments will offer to launch spacecraft at a fraction of the cost
Cost isn't everything Ariane 5 has a huge market share despite being more expensive than Proton.

[Anonymous No.6404426]

>>6404405
Yeah, first stage is the biggest piece, so usually the most expensive piece, with nine reusable engines and lots of tankage.

Although SpaceX has plans to also recover the second stage, I wonder whether it will be worth it. For the investment of full reentry shielding, legs, and separate landing motors and fuel; you only recover one Merlin engine and a smaller stage.

[Anonymous No.6404434]

>>6404413
SpaceX is already doing it! Half their manifest is commercial. Even Arianespace is scrambling to make the existing Ariane 5 cheaper to manufacture and designing a smaller Ariane 6 for launching single commsat payloads, because SpaceX is starting to poach the Ariane 5 secondary payloads.

>>6404419
But the SpaceX first stage is inherently less complex. No ceramic tiles to replace, only one propellent system to refurbish (Shuttle had like a dozen separate systems!) Also, the SpaceX Texas test facility already exists and has been qualifying each new first stage, so we already have an idea on what used first stage qualification will be like: much, much cheaper.

[Anonymous No.6404450]

>>6403550
>they are not going to even attempt first stage recovery on next two launches because they want to dedicate more fuel to the primary mission than would be available with a deceleration burn.
It's not their choice. It was in the contracts, which were signed long before they knew they'd be ready for attempted flyback recovery.

It's like the mission where they had an engine out: there was no reason they couldn't have put both payloads in their proper orbits, but their NASA contract required them to give NASA the option of dumping the secondary (non-NASA) payload in the even of such an irregularity. NASA exercised their option, and so the secondary payload was unnecessarily dumped into a decaying orbit.

Launching one of these many-million-dollar rockets, designed to be reusable, without an attempt to land it for reuse, is like having to cut off one of their own fingers.

[Anonymous No.6404480]

>>6404434
>Even Arianespace is scrambling to make the existing Ariane 5 cheaper to manufacture
No. Ariane 5 ME has been in discussions for a very long time, as far back as 2006. That is not because of SpaceX who hadn't successfully launched anything at that point.
Similarly ArianeSpace made their opinion clear that given a new launcher they would scrap dual launch because it's difficult to organise matching payloads.

[Anonymous No.6404483]

>>6404434
>But the SpaceX first stage is inherently less complex.
People thought the same about SRBs over liquid boosters, they were wrong. We've heard this all before from SpaceX when they were attempting parachutes and water recovery. I'll wait for the results thank you.

[Anonymous No.6404510]

>>6404483
They didn't give up on the parachutes because they couldn't make it work, but because they realized they could do the far superior propulsive landing, and therefore further investment in parachute recovery would be wasted.

If there had been a parachute on the September flight, they'd have succeeded in water recovery of the stage. The original parachute recovery attempts failed during reentry, not because of any problem with the parachute.

[Anonymous No.6404515]

>>6404510
Their early attempts were discouraging. They expected a lot more progress than what they got. They changed tack in light of this, superiority has nothing to do with it.

>If there had been a parachute on the September flight, they'd have succeeded in water recovery of the stage.
There is not enough information to make that claim.

[Anonymous No.6404519]

>>6404434
>only one propellent system to refurbish
Two. In addition to the kerosene/oxygen Merlin engines, they also have cold gas thrusters for attitude control.

Anyway, it's not supposed to need "refurbishment". It's basically supposed to be refuel-and-go.

[Anonymous No.6404526]

>>6404519
>It's basically supposed to be refuel-and-go.
Ohoho. Dont you know, this is the age of hanger EMPRESSES! Nothing that goes in the sky will do with any less than a 50:1 ratio for maintenance time to flight time.

[Anonymous No.6404536]

>>6404515
>Their early attempts were discouraging. They expected a lot more progress than what they got.
Close to true. They hoped it would just work on the first try, which was a lot to hope for. They didn't really "expect" it. They were experimenting.

>They changed tack in light of this, superiority has nothing to do with it.
That's simply false. When they were looking at how to make the parachute landing work, at all of the uncertainties of an unpowered fall into atmosphere, at how their Merlin engine already needed to be restartable for the upper stage, and how they wanted an engine that could be throttled for other reasons, they realized that the upgrades that would make parachute recovery work wouldn't be a lot easier than flyback and landing near the launch site.

Flyback and soft landing is VASTLY superior to dropping it in the ocean. No recovery boat needed. No parachute to repack or replace. No exposure to salt water. No rough impact (parachutes don't set things down all that gently). No slow boat ride home and careful refurbishing of abused components (with flyback, they hope to fly the same booster more than once in a day, like an airliner).

To say that the extreme superiority of flyback recovery had "nothing to do with" the decision to use it instead of parachute recovery is idiotic, insane, or deliberately dishonest.

>There is not enough information to make that claim.
You're full of shit. They beat the hard part: it reentered and descended intact into the lower atmosphere. At that point, parachute recovery would have been trivial.

[Anonymous No.6404553]

>>6404526
That's nice. In this particular example, a 50:1 ratio for maintenance time to flight time would mean about ten hours of booster maintenance for each launch.

You know, they've just done a holddown test burn on the pad for their next launch, this Sunday. They can do an abort after ignition, and just top off the propellant to try again.

The engines are extremely reusable. They're (aside from the nozzle extension) the same as the upper stage engine, which burns for much longer and can relight after significant delays in orbit.

If they pull off a clean reentry and soft landing, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to just fold up the legs, truck it back to the launchpad, refuel, restack, and launch.

[Anonymous No.6404558]

>>6404553
Im joking about advanced modern technology often having obscene maintenance requirements.

[Anonymous No.6404579]

>>6404558
I wasn't sure what you meant by it. But in any case, 50 times the flight time of a booster isn't very long.

[Anonymous No.6404954]

>>6403896
>Musk got F9 built with just $100m.

lol no, he did it with $100m of personal investment but thats not counting other investments and revenue sources.

>>>/wiki/
>In 2011 SpaceX estimated that Falcon 9 v1.0 development costs were on the order of $300 million. NASA evaluated them using a traditional cost-plus contract approach initially at $3.6 billion.

But still, musk sure has some magic. I think he got his rocket designs after finding merlins staff or something.

[Anonymous No.6404981]

>>6404425
>SpaceX do get government subsidies. NASA grants for development and huge government contracts.

Under contracts UAL would have gone bankrupt had they received.

SpaceX got $396 million, NASA got access to a new rocket AND a capsule capable of ferrying ISS racks AND downmass ability.

Do you think for one second that if NASA were to it's capsule on its own and just purchased rocket launches they would have been money ahead?

Getting custom hardware developed is not free. NASA got a screaming deal with SpaceX.

Compare what they spend on newspace with what they wasted on constellation. Someone should go to jail over that farce.

[Anonymous No.6404989]

>>6404450
Actually latest news is they are going to attempt recovery.

The contracts where all issued assuming falcon 1.0, falcon 1.1 has 9000 lbs of extra leo capacity so they have quite a bit of room to play with. This is also how they are doing secondary payloads along side the NASA ones.

[Anonymous No.6404995]

>>6404483
The tanks are not a huge cost, its the engines and more specifically the turbo pumps that make up the bulk of the cost of a rocket. All these parts are modular so reusing even a small subset of the rocket could save millions.

[Anonymous No.6404999]

>>6404336
Powered descent is reasonable. But their eventual goal of a flyback first stage is, IMO, absolutely ludicrous, for the reasons you stated. It takes a shitload of propellant to go from mach 4 in one direction to mach 4 in the complete opposite direction.

[Anonymous No.6405003]

>>6404954
>I think he got his rocket designs after finding merlins staff or something.

so THAT's why he called his engines Merlins. It all makes sense now!

[Anonymous No.6405020]

>>6404999
not true, because the first stage is much much lighter on the way back. see >>6404397

pic is the suggested trajectory

[Anonymous No.6405035]

>>6404954
>>NASA evaluated them using a traditional cost-plus contract approach initially at $3.6 billion.
Note that this isn't NASA's estimate of what it did cost, but their estimate of what it would have cost if NASA had hired contractors to do it in their usual way.

Even at $300 million, Falcon 9 cost less to develop than the cost of one launch on Atlas V or Delta IV.

[Anonymous No.6405033]

So, what's everyones opinion on the Skylon project?
Is it still going?

[Anonymous No.6405034]

>>6404483
>People thought the same about SRBs over liquid boosters, they were wrong.
The hell they were.

[Anonymous No.6405045]

>>6405020
>the first stage is much much lighter on the way back.
Yes, but it's still VERY large, and the delta-V demands are enormous. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I have serious doubts it will be worth it, given the payload-to-orbit penalty it will impose and the resulting lost revenue.

[Anonymous No.6405049]

>>6405033
Yes, it's still going.

And yes, it's still fucking retarded.

[Anonymous No.6405051]

>>6405033

They were totally off their rockers when they first started. Planning on liquefying air separating the nitrogen pumping lox into the engines and shit. They had no plans for what to do about ice buildup on inlets.

There more recent plans seem more doable. Still this looks like space shuttle 3.0, I think even if they get it built and it works it won't be cost effective vs SpaceX falcon 1.2

[Anonymous No.6405054]

>>6405034
The Space Shuttle SRBs?

There was nothing simple about them. Conventional kerosene/oxygen boosters, perhaps using the F-1 engine design from the Saturn V moon rocket, would have greatly simplified operations and reuse.

[Anonymous No.6405058]

>>6405049
>>6405051
So pretty much the only thing it really has going for it is a cool sci-fi look, got it.

[Anonymous No.6405087]

>>6405045
It eats up about 10% of the payload capacity by doing a fly back first stage. Flyback second stage is calculated to eat up another 30%.

[Anonymous No.6405094]

>>6405087
So long as it is cost effective to reduce payload capacity by 40% in exchange for a reusable rocket, it will be successful from a business point of view. I'll leave it up to Elon and his investors to calculate that.

[Anonymous No.6405096]

>>6405045
>the payload-to-orbit penalty it will impose
About 30%.

>the resulting lost revenue
What lost revenue? Just build the rocket 50% bigger.

Now you're paying for 50% more rocket initially (note that this costs less than 50% more due to economies of scale), but you're not throwing them away after each flight anymore.

If the rocket lasts for a good number of flights, and has reasonable maintenance costs, then it's worthwhile to even build a rocket three times the size of an expendable so you can make the upper stage reusable as well. I'm sure you could make an airliner for a third of the price if it only had to fly once, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

I suspect that's SpaceX's plan with the Falcon Heavy configuration and Raptor methane/oxygen engine. They know they need huge lift capacity to make total reusability work, so they're working on a massive Raptor-powered reusable upper stage which can be thrown by either three Falcon 9 cores or an enormous new Raptor-powered booster.

[Anonymous No.6405104]

>>6405054

But the Utah senators need that bacon.

Yes cheaper more powerful liquid boosters for the shuttle where on the original roadmap but the solids became a sacred cow.

>>6405087
>>6405045
So 10% of 13,150 kg is 1,315kg loss.

Cost per kg to leo is $4,109. So attempting to fly back costs spacex $5.4m. But you can't always book your rocket to full capacity. Also the reserve gives higher margins for engine out performance.

[Anonymous No.6405234]

>>6405104
It's worse than 10%. The estimate I've heard is 30%.

The booster might only have 10% of its fuel left at separation, but that costs more than 10% of payload capacity.

[Anonymous No.6405262]

This all sure is way more easier in my KSP...

[Anonymous No.6405388]

>>6405104
>Cost per kg to leo is $4,109
If the ship lands in tact it's only 300 dollars per kilogram

[Anonymous No.6405615]

>>6405234

Musk has stated that fly back of both segments would result in a 40% payload penalty.

Gwynne Shotwell (president of SpaceX) stated when asked about the legs that for every 10 lbs they add to the first stage 1 lb is lost in cargo capacity.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/rockets/elon-musk-on-spacexs-reusable-rocket-plans-6653023

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/AW_03_10_2014_p48-668592.xml&p=5

[Anonymous No.6405622]

>>6405234
Maybe if you were doing single stage to orbit, but these are two stage rockets. Making changes to the first stage has diminished effect on payload mass but changes to the upper stage have an exaggerated effect on the payload mass.

[Anonymous No.6405645]

>>6405615
>Musk has stated that fly back of both segments would result in a 40% payload penalty.
What he said was "The payload penalty for full and fast reusability versus an expendable version is roughly 40 percent".

He may be referring to "full and fast reusability" of the booster..

[Anonymous No.6405675]

>>6405645
>musk saying it could drop cost to orbit to $10/lb
>you still thinking he was referring to only first stage reuse
me not thinks you actually read it

[Anonymous No.6405699]

>>6405675
He's not necessarily talking about the same scenario for every point he's making.

What I heard is that it would cost in the neighborhood of 30% of capacity just for the booster reuse, and 50% of what's left for upper stage reuse, leaving the fully-reusable rocket at about a third the capacity of the fully-expendable one.

The upper stage needs a heat shield for orbital reentry, it takes that and legs and landing fuel all the way to orbit and back, and it needs landing thrusters, separate from the main engine and RCS, which will also add weight. This is substantial.

[Anonymous No.6405707]

>>6405699
It needs landing thrusters, separate from the main engine and RCS

What am I reading? This thing lands using one of the main engines. The cold gas attitude control thrusts are used on ascent as well.

[Anonymous No.6405711]

>>6405699
>>6405699
>It needs landing thrusters, separate from the main engine and RCS

What am I reading? This thing lands using one of the main engines. The cold gas attitude control thrusts are used on ascent as well.

[Anonymous No.6405724]

>>6405699
There is a direct 1 to 1 correlation for extra upper stage mass and reduced payload capacity.

[Anonymous No.6405729]

I feel that SpaceX and others aren't enough to really get the space race going again.

They're merely just moving cargo up and down, where's the real exploration and colonization at?

There's Mars One, but that's it.

I wish Elon would take part in Mars One and beyond! We should of been on mars 25 years ago setting up camp.

I feel that it might be too late unless a HUGE breakthrough in technology and funding takes place.

[Anonymous No.6405740]

when exactly does this happen
and will there be a stream

[Nuka-Cola: Gamma Grape No.6405743]

>>6405729
gotta take things one thing at a time champ, and the current lynchpin is cost of transfer to orbit, which right now is FUCKSPENSIVE
reduce that upfront cost and things out there become more reasonable investments

[Anonymous No.6405749]

>>6405724
In a sense this is true, but you have to count all of the extra mass, including fuel. Increased empty mass will increase the amount of fuel needed for deorbit and landing.

[Anonymous No.6405752]

>>6405729
mars one is a joke

full of ass hats that drink there own urine

Elon will get into research and exploration, but building rockets is the first step.

True story, after he sold Paypal he wanted to do a cute little mission. Send a tiny greenhouse to mars and have it send back pictures of the plant growing. He was told that it could not be done for less than several billions of dollars. So he worked on the design himself and went to find rockets, and could not find one for sure than several hundred million. He even looked at decommissioned Russian ICBM's and was offered an under the table nuclear warhead. But the Russians could not even agree on definite terms for the ICBM. That's when he started talking to builders of amateur rockets and asked those guys if they thought they could make bigger ones. At first he could not higher any real aerospace engineers so he became one. He read all the books and literally tough himself rocket science. Even now that he can attract all the best people in the industry he is still personally the architect of the rockets.

[Anonymous No.6405764]

>>6405752

>mars one is a joke

>full of ass hats that drink there own urine

What's wrong with Mars One? Why are you saying that?

[Anonymous No.6405782]

>>6405764
https://community.mars-one.com/profile/d905d992-0bb5-40da-8454-18649bf593ae

[Anonymous No.6405803]

>>6405764
These are the people who will be colonizing Mars:
https://community.mars-one.com/profile/5f025dee-08c3-49f9-a2ae-c04ad30e8846

[Anonymous No.6405822]

>>6405764
No serous funding strategy. They even failed there kickstarter campaign on indigogo. I seriously think its was all a scam, they got millions from the "aplication fees" from there supplicants.

[Anonymous No.6406024]

>>6405803
>https://community.mars-one.com/profile/5f025dee-08c3-49f9-a2ae-c04ad30e8846

Would hire if proof of knowing how to solve partial differential equations.

[Anonymous No.6406026]

>>6405764

[Anonymous No.6406032]

>>6405729
>I wish Elon would take part in Mars One and beyond!
If they manage to scrape together the funding, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to offer launch services.

But SpaceX is not a charity. They're not going to do it for free.

[Anonymous No.6406034]

>>6406024
I'm not a math major or anything, but how would solving linear partial differential equations be any more difficult than solving ordinary linear differential equations?

[Anonymous No.6406525]

SpaceX just posted this on twitter.

Yep, they're smuggling a girl in a box onto the ISS.

[Anonymous No.6406567]

>>6405045
>Yes, but it's still VERY large, and the delta-V demands are enormous.

Sure but the first half is effectively free - you're in atmosphere, after all.

[Anonymous No.6406582]

>>6406567
I'm not sure what you're talking about here, but waiting for air resistance to slow you down before the boost back would be a bad idea, because you have to boost yourself back that much farther, from lower, after exposing your minimalistic rocket airframe with no control surfaces to that much more stress and risk.

No, you boost back immediately, as soon as possible after separating, while your booster is still ascending.

[Anonymous No.6406623]

>>6406034
Partial means you don't have all of it. You need more steps to be able to find y.

[Anonymous No.6406871]

>>6406582
They do a short burn with three engines soon after stage sep. This reduces the speed allowing for a gentler atmospheric entry, then they fall back to earth using air resistance to slow them to terminal velocity. A single engine lights up near the surface to decelerate from a hundred or two mph to 0 and hover over the landing zone then they drop a few inches to the surface.

This is almost no delta v compared to what it takes to get it up there.

[Anonymous No.6407149]

>>6406871
That's the flight profile for the test-landings in the ocean, which are basically going to destroy the booster anyway.

The reusability plan is boost-back to a landing pad near the launchpad, which will completely reverse the horizontal component of velocity.

There's quite a bit of delta-V involved, but the fuel required is limited because the booster isn't pushing an upper stage or payload, and isn't carrying anything near its full load of fuel.

[Anonymous No.6407353]

>>6407149
>The reusability plan is boost-back to a landing pad near the launchpad, which will completely reverse the horizontal component of velocity.

Am not the original anon you's arguing with but meh even a cylinder has a glide slope a little attitude control and they can take advantage of it. I has no idea if they will try to do it though.

Anyhoo, they could always land it on a barge on the ocean or have the first stage do primarily altitude and let second stage deal with the velocity component.

Hehe they could make a circuit of launch sites around the world and have the rocket land at the next one in sequence.

Them SpaceX folks are smart guys, I'm sure they have already figured out these little details.

[Anonymous No.6407507]

>>6405729
>They're merely just moving cargo up and down, where's the real exploration and colonization at?

For real exploration you need cargo - humans, supplies, etc. until we know how to move cargo human exploration is out of the question.

[Anonymous No.6407679]

>>6403477

>And all these innovations weren't done by NASA, but by a private company on a shoestring budget.

you're leaving out the part where all of this is possible because said company is building off of 50+ years of public research and most of said company's contracts are with NASA and will be with NASA for awhile until the costs come down enough

[Anonymous No.6407729]

>>6407679
true, and they are quick to acknowledge that. (though more than half their manifest is commercial now)

nevertheless, it wasn't NASA or any other space agency that made the first attempt at landing legs or methane fuel. apparently, only a private company has the incentive to make spaceflight cheaper. or make a real long-term plan to get to Mars, for that matter.

[Anonymous No.6407748]

>>6407729

true, but NASA's problem is not a lack of innovation, because they are fully reliant on uncle sam for money (which is always getting cut) they can only invest in projects they are certain that will not fail

[Anonymous No.6407771]

>>6407748

And let's be honest - no one goes into NASA to work on fuel efficiency.

[Anonymous No.6407829]

>>6407748
>>fix'd
>they only invest in projects they are certain will fail

Remember the Canstilation program? My god how many billions.

NASA is a jobs program for high tech types. Senators pick and choose programs based on the impact to their state. They buy sell and trade NASA programs for political chips with each other. Just a big asspile of pigshit. It's amazing they get done at all.

The fucking new "Space Launch System" was congressionally mandated to use the solid rocket boosters from utah to keep jobs there. Why the hell is congress designing our rockets? How fucking broken can the system be?

[Anonymous No.6407835]

>>6407829
holy fuck that looks like it would be fun. So anon... tell me about your pic...

[Anonymous No.6407848]

>>6407835
Sure come over, I can show you.

[Anonymous No.6407867]

>>6407848
I'd love to anon.

[Anonymous No.6407916]

>>6407867

Yeayyy it's a date ^_^

I have allot of other neat toys too.

[Anonymous No.6407947]

>>6407916
are you going to burn/freeze my feet to a crisp anon?~

[Anonymous No.6407970]

>>6407829
>>6405104
>>6405054
>>6404483
>All this SRB hate
You got a problem with rugged simplicity?
>Hurr Utah jobs
You know Thiokol's manufacturing was in Alabama for most of the Shuttle program, right? ATK doesn't win contracts because they're a Utah company; they win contracts because they have a monopoly on the domestic solid rocket industry now.

[Anonymous No.6408005]

>>6407970
>You got a problem with rugged simplicity?

LOL no. That would be a big dumb booster, pressure fed liquid engine; higher isp, lower cost lower risk, lower tank mass, ability to throttle and engine out. I ain't got no beef with that approach.

Solid rockets have shit isp, shit mass ratio, shit safty, and they cost more to reuse than to build new ones. I mean seriously why the hell would you rebuild something at a GREATER cost than building a new one. Fucking each one on the shuttle (the short ones) cost more than $100 million FUCK.

And yes they were selected BY CONGRESS in both SLS and CONSTELLATION because of bitching by powerful Utah senators. What the fuck does it matter that back in the 80's they were built somewhere else you fucking red herring excreting bastard I'm talking about shit that's been going down in the past 10 or so years.

I really shouldn't 4chan when im drunk.

>>6407947
nah man i was just finding some picture to look discomforting, I'm really a cuddly teddy bear, also im not really gay, unless your cute and im drunk, which I am.

[Anonymous No.6408016]

>>6408005
I-i'm totally decent trap tier...

[Anonymous No.6408017]

>>6408005
>>6408016
in addendum, I love cuddling more than... all those other things

[Anonymous No.6408024]

>>6408016
>>6408017
Well come on over. I can get the vacuum bed out if you want, or not i don't care, never used that with a guy before.

I'm in south jordan utah.

[Anonymous No.6408031]

>>6408024
I really can't tell you how much I'd love to come, i'm in New Hampshire. Maybe one day, anon...

[Anonymous No.6408036]

>>6408031
are you a homosexual?

[Anonymous No.6408038]

>>6408005
>Pressure-fed liquid is simpler than a solid
You've gotta be fucking kidding me.
>Solid rockets have shit isp
Not really a big deal for a booster/first stage.
>shit mass ratio
Better than a pressure-fed liquid, owing to the higher density of propellant.
>shit safty
Far more rocket catastrophes have occurred due to liquid rocket malfunction than solid.
>and they cost more to reuse than to build new ones.
Any amateur rocketry enthusiast will tell you otherwise.
>Fucking each one on the shuttle (the short ones) cost more than $100 million FUCK.
For one thing, not all organizations have the same level of operational ineptitude as NASA. And for another thing, I'm pretty sure your figure is double the actual figure.

Liquid rocket performance is unmatched as far as upper stages go, but as far as solids go, SRBs offer profound performance advantages. Just look at Titan IIIC vs. previous Titans.

[Anonymous No.6408042]

>>6408036
As far as I can tell.

[Anonymous No.6408047]

>>6405729
Space X is basically an interplanetary transportation company. You know those companies that own big cargo ships/trucks? That's Space X, but in Space. Eventually it will spark a space race to other planets. Which space X will own the transportation side. Plantary resource inc, is an asteroid mining company/surveyor company. Small steps my boy. If you want to get in on this race, then create small rockets/ships. Space X hired a lot of engineers without degree in the field.

[Anonymous No.6408083]

>>6408036
>>6408042
h-hello?

[Anonymous No.6408098]

>>6408083
hi!

[Anonymous No.6408125]

>>6408038
>>6408038
I give you the point that solids are slightly more simple than pressure fed. But I really don't think its by much. In both the tanks have to have higher pressure than the 'chamber' but solids the entire tank is the chamber and needs to withstand the vibrations and temperatures whereas pressure fed can be isolated from all that.

>Shit isp is not really a big deal for a booster/first stage.
This is rocket science bro, you get anything you can where ever you can.

>shit mass ratio (on liquids)
LOL nope.gif
Your tanks gotta be massive thick and ungodly. Pressure-fed liquid tanks are far lighter than solids. youz all but my fuel is heaver, yah its full of binders and inhibitors ya goof and we aint doing hydrogen here

>Far more rocket catastrophes have occurred due to liquid rocket malfunction than solid.
Nice, you got a red herrings on tap or some shit bro epic debate skillz. Firstly quantity =/= rate of occurrence. Secondly pressure-fed =/= pump fed liquids. I mean by your logic there has never been a catastrophe from a pressure fed liquid rocket so its gotta be the safest ever. Always remember the only astronauts ever killed directly by an engine failure where killed by solids. A solid fails its a fucking bomb, a liquid fails the engine shuts off and you fly home or what ever.

>>and they cost more to reuse than to build new ones.
>Any amateur rocketry enthusiast will tell you otherwise.
>I'm pretty sure your figure is double the actual figure.
45m for refurbished 40m for expendable more than 100m if you amortize the development cost, and what the fuck does it matter what an amateur rocketry enthusiast tells you about refurbishing armature rockets

>>6408083
lol too many anons to keep separated, pic for you Hampshire chan.

[Anonymous No.6408129]

>>6408125
Oh and btw being conceptually more simple does not directly translate into a cost advantage.

[Anonymous No.6408157]

>>6408125
There are reasons SpaceX didn't go with pressure-fed engines (aside from the Kestrel on the Falcon 1 upper stage).

For a start, you need a high pressure tank. The tanks are big. This makes them rather expensive, and also fairly heavy. And it's not as mechanically simple as you might imagine. They do have to keep the tank pressurized as it is depleted.

When it comes down to it, pumps just aren't that expensive or difficult to engineer, even rocket turbopumps. So everyone uses pump-fed engines.

[Anonymous No.6408213]

>>6408125
>In both the tanks have to have higher pressure than the 'chamber'
In solids and hybrids, the tank IS the chamber.
>This is rocket science bro, you get anything you can where ever you can.
Exactly. And SRBs are one of the most effective ways of getting more.
>Your tanks gotta be massive thick and ungodly. Pressure-fed liquid tanks are far lighter than solids.
Both solids and pressure-fed liquids MUST have their tanks built to above the design chamber pressure. In fact, for pressure-fed rockets the margin is actually slightly HIGHER than chamber pressure since it must pass through whatever plumbing you have between it and the chamber. Now, pressure-fed liquids are almost always vacuum-only, and so they can be designed to lower chamber pressures without suffering as much ISP loss, but if you look at vacuum-only solids such as STAR-48 you'll see that they too have remarkable mass ratios.
>Nice, you got a red herrings on tap or some shit bro epic debate skillz.
It's not a red herring.
>Firstly quantity =/= rate of occurrence. Secondly pressure-fed =/= pump fed liquids. I mean by your logic there has never been a catastrophe from a pressure fed liquid rocket so its gotta be the safest ever.
Are you suggesting SRBs are uncommon? The majority of launches in the US use solids in one form or the other. Atlas V is easily one of the most reliable launch systems of all time and it uses SRBs on the vast majority of launches. Pressure-fed rockets, on the other hand, are incredibly uncommon outside of small-scale RCS/OMS applications.
>Always remember the only astronauts ever killed directly by an engine failure where killed by solids.
The crew would have survived had NASA not been so arrogant as to design a launch system with no LES. Likewise, the crew of Soyuz T-10a would have died had they NOT had one.
>A solid fails its a fucking bomb
Challenger's SRB didn't explode until the RSO hit the self-destruct button. And liquids DO explode, contrary to your assertion.

[Anonymous No.6408228]

>>6408157
>For a start, you need a high pressure tank.
yup
>The tanks are big.
yup
> This makes them rather expensive, and also fairly heavy.
It makes them expensive OR fairly heavy. Yah no matter what they are heaver than a non pressure liquid tank but they are sill lighter than a solid.

I'm thinking a big ass cng type tank, filament wound maybe around an aluminum core or maybe with just an impermeable plastic liner, this tech is not super expinsive these days they are even making water towers and shit, it's maybe 2-3x the cost of a steel structure built to the same pressure specs but ~1/4 the mass of steel. http://youtu.be/HPBmbkyi9Tw

>They do have to keep the tank pressurized as it is depleted.
Nope.xls
The top 1/5th of the tank or what ever you calculate is left unfilled, just before take off you charge it with helium. You'll end up with a nice thrust curve, maximum chamber pressure at take off and tapering down as the flight continues. This is actually desirable to maintain constant g loading. Pump fed engines often throttle down or on a multi engine configurations shut down some engines completely later in flight to get this. Solid rockets get cast into crazy ass shapes to make this kind of thrust curve.


So just two big tanks with fat pipes feeding into a combustion chamber, I'm sure we'd need pressure regulators maintain fuil/ox ratios and allow for cut off if desired and whatever. You can set them off ala ssme with pyrotechnics on the pad or add a couple extra nozzles fed with a small amount of hypergols for ignition, this would also allow restart if you wanted to do some crazy ass elon musk maneuver.

[Anonymous No.6408231]

>>6408157
>They do have to keep the tank pressurized as it is depleted.
The same is true of pump-fed rockets; just to a lower pressure.
>When it comes down to it, pumps just aren't that expensive or difficult to engineer
Depends. A gas-generator cycle is straightforward enough, but the engineering behind a full-flow staged-combustion rocket can certainly be quite daunting.

But yes, you're right; pump-fed liquids are often the most favorable option for performance reasons, particularly in upper stages where weight is most critical.

[Anonymous No.6408236]

>>6408228
>Filament-wound LNG tank
LNG is mild cryogenic. Composite materials performance at cryogenic temps is sketchy territory. They're investigating it for ACES, but it's been fairly problematic.
>Widely-variable chamber pressure is desirable
Your ISP will suffer throughout the majority of your burn if you take that approach, as will your mass ratio. You'll have to beef up the tanks to handle the initial pressure, and/or take the hit to specific impulse as pressure declines.

[Anonymous No.6408237]

So you may ask myself >why the fizzle everbuddy uses pumps then.
Well thats simple pump fed liquids are awesome, cant beat them on mass efficiency numbers. BUUUT dem newtons bro. The amount of thrust you can get from one of these would be tremendous, potentially much higher than a solid. You could dump so much fuel so friggen fast your rockets will go off like scared cats. This is really important because a large amount of a rocket's fuel is spent combating gravity loss, the faster you get off the ground the less gravity loss you have. This is a big reason why SRB's are used. To do the same thing with a pump system you have to take the most expensive component in the rocket and make it several times more powerful and you'd need staged pumps to deal with cavitation and a whole load of other shit.


>>6408213

[Anonymous No.6408239]

>>6402409
Well, if it doesn't I hope they get it on video.

[Anonymous No.6408244]

>>6408237
>Well thats simple pump fed liquids are awesome, cant beat them on mass efficiency numbers.
Exactly. They're far and away the best choice for large upper stages where weight is most critical, due to their high ISP AND mass ratios. For first stages or boosters, specific impulse isn't as crucial, since there are no stages below to be slowed down by the additional mass of more propellant.
>The amount of thrust you can get from one of these would be tremendous, potentially much higher than a solid.
No, it wouldn't. A pressure-fed liquid still has a combustion chamber of limited dimensions and fuel flow. A solid rocket IS its own chamber. Literally a fuel tank with a nozzle on it. There's simply no way you can outmatch the thrust:weight ratio of a high-thrust solid.
Case in point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msXtgTVMcuA
http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/sprint.html
http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/hibex.html
>This is really important because a large amount of a rocket's fuel is spent combating gravity loss
Unfortunately, gravity drag and atmospheric drag are at odds with one another. Increasing your thrust:weight ratio beyond a certain point only hurts your overall effective delta-V or payload capability. That's the main reason why the unmanned, draggy, hydrogen-fuelled Delta IV throttles back during ascent until it passes max-Q. There's certainly no passenger comfort to worry about; the reasons are purely performance-based.

Try it in KSP if you don't believe me.

>This is a big reason why SRB's are used.
On massive rockets with a marginal thrust to weight ratio, yes. But the compact, dense, bolt-on impulse offered by an SRB is always the primary benefit.

[Anonymous No.6408263]

>>6408213
>In solids and hybrids, the tank IS the chamber
yah i get that
>solids and pressure-fed liquids MUST have tanks above the chamber pressure.
yah i get that too

>STAR-48 remarkable mass ratio
still has shit isp

>Challenger's SRB didn't explode until the RSO hit the self-destruct button.
If you believe this you really need to have your head examined.
please review
http://spaceflightnow.com/challenger/timeline/

>And liquids DO explode, contrary to your assertion.
An engine failure on a modern liquid rocket does not cause the thing to explode. Firstly the fuel and oxygen are not in the same place, they cant burn when they are separated. Secondly if an engine fails in a non explosive manor you can turn it off. If an engine explodes there is usually shielding to protect the rest of the rocket. Properly designed liquids inherently fail safe, solids unavoidably fail catastrophically. As for Soyuz T-10a another key component was the remarkable amount of time they had before before aborting, where a solid failing there may be no warning. Yes liquids do explode, when they hit the ground, when an rso presses the button, or when tanks structurally fail, or when monopropellents are used.

>>6408236
>Composite materials performance at cryogenic temps is sketchy territory.
Not like I'm proposing hydrogen slush, I think LNG would make a fine fuel but if cryos are an issue kerosene(or another liquid hydrocarbon) and N2O4 could always be used instead.

>Your ISP will suffer
I know, I still think it would be superior to solids. You can always feed it but I wanted to keep things simple. A smaller feed tank of liquid helium, a (decomposition) gas generator or if you're using mild cryos you can use a heat exchanger and boil some of it.

[Anonymous No.6408277]

>>6408244

>No, it wouldn't. A pressure-fed liquid still has a combustion chamber of limited dimensions and fuel flow.

Fat pipes bro. And liquids are more reactive than solids its basic chemistry ok thats bullshit you can make liquid or solid thats virtually explosive you'd need the chamber to be built like an artillery barrel, and some little missiles are. The difference is the tank in a liquid just has to deal with the pressure, which is a nice steady (perhaps declining) pressure. A solid is fucking exploding all around huge pressure spikes, vibrations and acoustics and fucking temperature and the whole thing has to withstand that torment. In liquid you just have a combustion chamber, it can be built quite a bit heavier than the tank and on top of that the combustion is much more clean and smooth.

>atmospheric drag the main reason why Delta IV throttles back for max-Q
LOL nope.html
Atmospheric drag is a side note compared to gravity loss. You throttle back for max-Q primarily to reduce structural load requirements.

>>This is a big reason
>bolt-on impulse is always the primary benefit.
Your point it doesn't counter mine at all, a big dumb booster could offer the same benefits and more.

[Anonymous No.6408280]

>>6408277
>liquid or solid thats virtually explosive
liquid or solid thats LITERALLY explosive

[Anonymous No.6408295]

>>6403896

>yfw da gubament gets btfo at their own game by a private company
>yfw the free market really can fix anything

TO CAPITALISM!

[Anonymous No.6408302]

Just to reassert my assertions. I think a large pressure fed booster be made more economically than a sold, have better isp than a solid, have close to the same thrust to weight and mass ratios as a sold, have dynamic thrust curves and generally be more awesome than solids.


Well good night yallz.

And good luck SpaceX, I hope the SLS jew of an op has to eat crow.

Old space is on life support, new space will be all thats left in a decade or so.

[Anonymous No.6408313]

>>6408263
>please review
Maybe YOU should review. It was NOT an SRB explosion that destroyed Challenger. One of the SRBs sprung a leak, causing the flimsier external tank to explode, not the SRB itself. The SRBs themselves were the only components to SURVIVE the initial stack disintegration, and continued to fly for 45 seconds before they were remotely destroyed by Range Safety.
>An engine failure on a modern liquid rocket does not cause the thing to explode.
Really, now?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSS-8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_5
>inb4 no true Scotsman
Also even when they DON'T explode, the tendency of liquids to fail so frequently can still lead to disastrous consequences:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INSAT-4C
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Bird_7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foton-M_No.1

You're also way off mark if you think "modern" is better than "proven" in terms of safety and reliability.
>I still think it would be superior to solids.
Depends on the particular application and goals. For certain circumstances, I'd be inclined to agree. But with specific regard to boosters, I think solids are generally the most favorable option.

[Anonymous No.6408316]

>>6403896
MFW
>http://lmgtfy.com/?q=spacex+news
and I think its a real news place or something

[Anonymous No.6408326]

>>6408277
>Atmospheric drag is a side note compared to gravity loss.
No, it isn't. ESPECIALLY not for a rocket with high acceleration such as Minotaur or with ample drag such as... well, anything with tubby LH2 tanks.

Here, look:
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/45192/10957_2004_Article_BF00935883.pdf;jsessionid=E5203311A793A815183ACB0BEF4DDE28?sequence=1
You don't even have to read it, just look at it and notice how heavily stressed aerodynamic drag is. It IS a major factor.

And again, just go try it in KSP. You can even observe it with a simple vertical suborbital flight: try launching with one fuel tank and one engine at full throttle, and then try again with the same rocket at half throttle. You'll be surprised which one goes higher.

[Anonymous No.6408329]

>>6408326
Umm I think is point was that atmospheric drag was not a major consumer of deltav and he explicitly stated that the throttle back had more to do with structural issues.

Really you want us to try it in some childrens game. I kinda doubt it has supersonic computational fluid dynamics implemented in its physics engine.

2/10 made me reply

[Anonymous No.6408331]

>>6408326

I think his point was that atmospheric drag was not a major consumer of deltav and he explicitly stated that the throttle back had more to do with structural issues.

Really you want us to try it in some childrens game. I kinda doubt it has supersonic computational fluid dynamics implemented in its physics engine.

2/10 made me reply

[Anonymous No.6408340]

>>6408331
How are you numbskulls not getting this?
http://www.spaceflight101.com/delta-iv-heavy.html
>After initial ascent, 50 seconds after blastoff, the core engine throttles back to 57% to save propellants.

It's simple. The faster you accelerate, the higher your average and max Q are. Eventually this reaches a point where the losses due to drag match and then exceed gravity losses; accelerating any faster than this is suboptimal. If your engines are throttleable and have ample thrust, throttling back around max Q can save significant amounts of propellant.

It's NOT just structural.

[Anonymous No.6408367]

>>6408340
>After initial ascent, 50 seconds after blastoff, the core engine throttles back to 57% to save propellants.
>the core engine
Not the boosters. The CORE engine saves its fuel so IT has more fuel later in flight after the boosters are gone. Thats a system reduction of just 12%. Tell me why wouldn't it throttle back up right after max-Q surely it would be almost all aerodynamic drag by 100 seconds. But now it remains spooled down until 242 seconds when the boosters separate then it goes back to 100%. After booster separation the core still has 88 seconds of full throttle fuel left or about 36%. If it didn't do this the core would run out of fuel at the same point as the boosters and then there would be no difference between boosters and more engines on the first stage. It's really not that hard for you to understand is it?

Every second you spend climbing is a second you are essentially hovering. If you hover for 120 seconds you use up 1.2km/s of your delta v. Now please tell me how much delta v it takes to push through a little air.

[Anonymous No.6408369]

>>6408340
>After initial ascent, 50 seconds after blastoff, the core engine throttles back to 57% to save propellants.
>the core engine
Not the boosters. The CORE engine saves its fuel so IT has more fuel later in flight after the boosters are gone. Thats a system reduction of just 12%. Tell me why wouldn't it throttle back up right after max-Q surely it would be almost all aerodynamic drag by 100 seconds. But no, it remains spooled down until 242 seconds when the boosters separate then it throttles back to 100%. After booster separation the core still has 88 seconds of full throttle fuel left or about 36%. If it didn't do this the core would run out of fuel at the same point as the boosters and then there would be no difference between boosters and more engines on the first stage. It's really not that hard for you to understand is it?

Every second you spend climbing is a second you are essentially hovering. If you hover for 120 seconds you use up 1.2km/s of your delta v. Now please tell me how much delta v it takes to push through a little air.

[Anonymous No.6408590]

>>6408302
speaking of LARGE pressure fed boosters, it would be awesome to build and launch a Sea Dragon to prove out the principle. 500T to orbit, yo.

(this thread is great, but I've never seen rocket science used for gay bondage foreplay before…)

[Anonymous No.6408598]

>>6404954
>I think he got his rocket designs after finding merlins staff or something.

In situ manufacturing everything that can be, no endless subcontractor chains, seems to be the biggest cost saver.

[Nuka-Cola: Gamma Grape No.6408623]

>>6406026
hah, that's hilarious

[Anonymous No.6408872]

>>6408590
Rocket science, no rocket engineering. Does it make sense now?

[Anonymous No.6408880]

>>6408263
Are narwhals born with horns I wonder.

[Anonymous No.6408917]

>>6408598
>In situ manufacturing everything that can be

Not exactly SpaceX puts the stuff out for bids but they also run the numbers on doing it themselves. Musk has stated that he has no ideological reason to build 70% of the rocket in house, he just cant find suppliers more efficient than SpaceX.

[Anonymous No.6409052]

You guys are thinking about this all wrong, thinking we should ONLY rely on commercial spaceflight or that they shouldn't be involved at all and we should ONLY rely on government-operated vehicles.

The ideal scenario is simple - build a space program around utilizing the best that both camps have to offer. Utilize commercially operated vehicles to drastically reduce the cost of transporting crew and cargo to orbit, start building serious infrastructure in LEO like orbital laboratories, manufacturing facilities, maintenance and support stations, refueling depots, etc.

Meanwhile use the billions we save using commercial LVs to reinvest into new NASA operated science and manned missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.


It doesn't have to be one or the other, we can have the best of both worlds.

[Anonymous No.6409062]

Sup yall, its me the rocket guy from last night. I really shouldn't stay up so late arguing with people on the internet but I don't get the opportunity often to discuss this topic and arguing is a great way play out ideas. Also its just damn fun.

>>6408313
>SRB, Challenger

OKOK my bad sorry, I thought you meant the RSO pushed the button when the thing leaked and THAT caused the whole mess. Your right when you slice open liquid fuel tanks with hot plasma they are likely to explode.

>Liquid engine failures
You have maybe one example there of a turbo pump causing Zenit-3SL to explode. That is a serious mishap but one a big dumb booster would be immune to. Another example with an unknown cause. Your other examples demonstrate the point that engine failures often do not cause the explosion. For instance the flight computer on INSAT-4C should have known to shut down the opposite engine if it didn't have enough gimballing to maintain attitude control after it lost the first engine failed. In almost all of these cases a launch abort system would have saved human cargo. Satellites are expensive perhaps they should also be equipped with launch abort systems or at least offer it, could reduce insurance costs.

Regardless logically a big dumb booster is safer than a pump fed liquid it has fewer complex high stress moving parts. But there simply isn't enough empirical data to argue just how safe a bug dumb booster would be.

>>6408340
>Atmospheric drag vs gravity loss.
>>6408331 >>6408369 < this guy totally gets it
Structural load issues are serious and building stronger rockets so you can stress it harder for 20 seconds is a mass penalty they choose to do without. Sure it may have an added benefit of helping with atmospheric drag but the primary reason is a structural one. Atmospheric losses are a fraction of gravity losses.

>>6408590
>gay bondage foreplay
Lol I'm not really gay, ok maybe 85% hetero 15% bi hetero flexible? Whateves just don't tell my folks (^_^)

[Anonymous No.6409082]

>>6409052
Oh I agree with you, but NASA should get out of the rocket design and contracting business. They suck at it. Originally the shuttle was going to do commercial flights if they had operated at a level where they could compete I would have been all for it. But NASA fell on its face hard with the shuttle payload wise (not saying the human science wasn't worth quite a bit though). Then they fell on there face even harder with constellation and they haven't fixed it with SLS (but is better than consolation though).

NASA's roal should be a customer not a general contractor. If they have a requirement for a new bigger rocket then they should push that out to industry. If they have custom requirements then yes they should at least subsidize development but let the manufacturers be in charge of design.

Government should operate the payload not the launch vehicle.

[Anonymous No.6409098]

>>6409082
I dunno, in general commercial industries tend to be much much better at refining technology than creating it.

It's one of the reasons I was really excited about the original space proposal the Obama Administration put out back in 2010, it had a multibillion dollar program as part of the proposal that was all pure spacetech R&D - orbital refueling, autonomous rendezvous and assembly, small scale reactors, new propulsion systems, closed loop life support systems, etc etc. Technology that, once produced, could be turned over to the private sector to be extensively improved, optimized, and integrated into commercial LVs and stations.

I'm not saying commercial companies don't create as well, but there's a lot to be said for having a government budget behind a major engineering project.

[Anonymous No.6409119]

>>6409062
>the flight computer on INSAT-4C should have known to shut down the opposite engine if it didn't have enough gimballing to maintain attitude control after it lost the first engine failed
Which probably would have resulted in not reaching orbit.

>Satellites are expensive perhaps they should also be equipped with launch abort systems
Abort systems are extremely violent, far beyond the envelope of design for payloads.Then you have to gently land it and ensure it is still in a clean environment. Any such system would be heavy and cut into the payload and would not be cheap. Insurance in most cases will be cheaper and more reliable.

[Anonymous No.6409127]

>>6409082
>Originally the shuttle was going to do commercial flights
The shuttle did to commercial launches. It was stopped after challenger.

> Then they fell on there face even harder with constellation and they haven't fixed it with SLS
In both of those cases the problems were government not NASA. Those programs mandated shuttle derived technology.

You're blaming the wrong people.

[Anonymous No.6409198]

>>6409127
They also spent billions of dollars without producing much of value.

Christ, Ares I-X was an off-the-shelf SRB with the words "Ares" painted on the side and a goofy casing on the top.

Only good thing to come out of that whole boondoggle is Orion (testing this year IIRC) and the only thing mandating that it be launched on the fucking SLS is Congress. It could just as easily launch on a man-rated Delta or Atlas or even a Falcon - any of which would be available years before the SLS is even in construction.

[Anonymous No.6409211]

>>6409098
Oh I don't disagree, launch services are way past the point where only governments have a use for them. Let nasa do the science and the missions. Let industry do the rockets.

>>6409119
>Which probably would have resulted in not reaching orbit.
Maybe but I don't know. If you were designing some software for a rocket and you had the choice of will definitely explode in a huge fireball or may not reach orbit or may reach a lower orbit, I think the choice to not explode would be the right one.

>Abort systems are extremely violent
Abort systems are designed for human survival, less than 18 g's. NASA requires experiment hardware to be rated at 12g for the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program, this is to fly on an airplane that provides 0g for 28 seconds. I'm sure rating satellites at 20g is not that big of a stretch. Also this could be an option if your satellite couldn't survive a launch abort then you wouldn't buy the launch abort capability.

>You're blaming the wrong people.
These ARE the people who estimated the cost to develop falcon at 3.6 billion when it actually cost 300 million. NASA does not belong as a launch service provider.

[Anonymous No.6409228]

>>6409198
>They also spent billions of dollars without producing much of value.
Because of a bad bill laid out by bush who then didn't folllow-up the needed funding increase and then the cancellation again by government. All of this is because of the government.

> Ares I-X was an off-the-shelf SRB with the words "Ares" painted on the side and a goofy casing on the top.
Which was a very successful mission because it highlighted problems in the design which were fixable.

Again all roads lead to D.C., the blame lies there.

[Anonymous No.6409254]

>>6409211
It didn't explode, it was a controlled destruction. A mission failure is a mission failure. A loss of thrust that early on will be bad, it will not make it to orbit, that's assuming it can even maintain attitude control with the remaining engines. If it cannot you have a serious problem.

>Abort systems are designed for human survival, less than 18 g's.
Which is a hell of a lot for delicate hardware. You're typical launcher aims for 4-5 g acceleration.
>NASA requires experiment hardware to be rated at 12g for the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program
Surely you can appreciate this couldn't be further from a billion dollars worth of comsat?
> I'm sure rating satellites at 20g is not that big of a stretch.
Uneducated guesswork.
>Also this could be an option if your satellite couldn't survive a launch abort then you wouldn't buy the launch abort capability.
I don't think any could and certainly not for less than the cost of insurance.

>These ARE the people who estimated the cost to develop falcon at 3.6 billion when it actually cost 300 million.
We have no idea what information they had available to them or what assumptions they made.

[Anonymous No.6409272]

>>6403896
>shuttle program
>perpetual
You do know they no longer launch shuttles right?

Also the massive cost of the shuttle was due to the fact that nearly everything on it was new, as in having never been seen before. It costs more to innovate completely new technology than it does to simply improve a design. I am aware that the F9 required plenty of technological innovations, but they are not comparable to the jump required for the shuttle.

[Anonymous No.6409340]

>>6409272
>You do know they no longer launch shuttles right?
No, but they go on spending billions of dollars per year on the shuttle program.

They called it "Constellation" for a while, and now "Space Launch System", but it's a continuation of the shuttle program. They're required to continue using shuttle components, facilities, and contractors.

>Also the massive cost of the shuttle was due to the fact that nearly everything on it was new, as in having never been seen before.
Yes. New for decades.

That's not an excuse for the shuttle even when it was new. Such an experimental design didn't warrant such a large investment in facilities and such a commitment to its use.

They should have made a SMALL shuttle first. Two-man crew, a couple of tons payload, equatorial orbits only, regarded as experimental. Not seven dudes AND 24 tons payload, supporting once-around polar orbits, regarded as suitable for 100% of the USA's orbital launch needs.

Learning something about the technology before massively committing to it is common sense. Not much of that involved in the shuttle program, unfortunately.

[Anonymous No.6409365]

>>6409254
>It didn't explode, it was a controlled destruction.
lol nope.csv
Telemitry data indicated that engen out, then vered off course and disintegrated. When you have a big ass rocket starting to fly sideways things break. When rocket tanks break they esplode. The whole "controlled destruction" bullshit was someone trying to cover asses/put a spin on it.

>You're typical launcher aims for 4-5 g acceleration.
But the launch hardware is required to be rated much much higher than that.

>Uneducated guesswork.
Please enlight me, provide documentation of the structural requirements for comsats.

>I don't think any could and certainly not for less than the cost of insurance.
Uneducated guesswork.

>We have no idea what information they had available to them or what assumptions they made.
Yet everything they build costs billions. Even the things not mandated by congress.

Ares I-X was a fucking shuttle era srb with a mass simulator cost $445 million. They even had the extended segment constructed but they chose to static fire it instead of flight test. Because they are too fucking scared of there own shadows to save half a billion dollars and combine two tests into one. So fucking risk averse and free spending.

It's easy to spend other peoples money, this is why cost plus is always a bad deal, its why NASA sucks and it's why our population has to support such a top heavy government.

[Anonymous No.6409369]

>>6409254
>It didn't explode, it was a controlled destruction.
lol nope.csv
Telemitry data indicated that engen out, then vered off course and disintegrated. When you have a big ass rocket starting to fly sideways things break. When rocket tanks break they esplode. The whole "controlled destruction" bullshit was someone trying to cover asses/put a spin on it.

>You're typical launcher aims for 4-5 g acceleration.
But the launch hardware is required to be rated much much higher than that.

>Uneducated guesswork.
Please enlight me, provide documentation of the structural requirements for comsats.

>I don't think any could and certainly not for less than the cost of insurance.
Uneducated guesswork.

>We have no idea what information they had available to them or what assumptions they made.
Yet everything they build costs billions. Even the things not mandated by congress.

Ares I-X was a fucking shuttle era srb with a mass simulator cost $445 million. They even had the extended segment constructed but they chose to static fire it instead of flight test. Because they are too fucking scared of there own shadows to save half a billion dollars and combine two tests into one. So fucking risk averse and free spending.

It's easy to spend other peoples money, this is why cost plus is always a bad deal, its why NASA sucks and it's why our population has to support such a top heavy government.

[Anonymous No.6409386]

>>6409119
>Which probably would have resulted in not reaching orbit.
Or worse yet, falling back onto the pad.
In a situation like that, a loss-of-vehicle is pretty much inevetable. That's why it's important to reduce these failures as much as possible, and also to protect any valuable payloads (mainly, crewed vehicles) from such catastrophes with a proper LES.

[Anonymous No.6409397]

>>6409198
>Only good thing to come out of that whole boondoggle is Orion
Only because Obama had the program terminated for political reasons. Because having NASA work at improving relations with Muslims is so much better than letting them build a launch system that carries Bush's legacy, right?

[Anonymous No.6409407]

>>6409397
Constellation program cost so much that they couldn't afford to build any missions to use it. It was simply not feasible.

[Anonymous No.6409418]

>>6409386
>Or worse yet, falling back onto the pad.
It was far enough along that it would not have. But yes you do need range safety and a button to press but that should be a choice of an officer or triggered by design for certain situations not a direct result of preventable attitude control loss.

[Anonymous No.6409432]

>>6409407
They continued operating the shuttle in spite of the costs; surely you don't think they'd suddenly turn around and go "you know, now that I think of it, this manned spaceflight business isn't worth the cost."
No, they'd throw whatever money they need to at it, JUST like with the shuttle. But instead they axed the program, for better or worse.

[Anonymous No.6409444]

>>6409418
>It was far enough along that it would not have
My bad, I got the INSAT and Foton incidents mixed up.

[Anonymous No.6409454]

>>6409340
>They should have made a SMALL shuttle first.
The Air Force tried. And tried. And tried again. Eventually they got one, which is now operational, but it's strictly unmanned.

[Anonymous No.6409493]

>>6409454
>The Air Force tried.
In what sense did they "try"? Do you mean they asked to be allowed to do it, and were told not to, or do you mean they built hardware and it didn't work?

>Eventually they got one, which is now operational
No they didn't. They got a winged reentry vehicle that's launched on an expendable rocket and does nothing to contribute to its launch.

[Anonymous No.6409513]

>>6409432
It was "over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation". A review had concluded that it would cost on the order of $150 billion for Constellation to reach its objective if hewing to the original schedule.

The only part of constellation was the commercial crew and cargo section which was designed to offload iss support. Too bad it (the cheapest part of constellation) was underfunded.

>>>/wiki/ In 2009, concerned by price increases on the program, U.S. President Obama ordered a review of the project which indicated that both returning to the Moon and manned flights to Mars were out of NASA's current budget. The Augustine panel proposed various options that included two primary destination points (the Moon, and Deep Space), three different types of Super Heavy Launch vehicles, and utilizing Commercially based crew to LEO transport systems, as well as a robust research and development program that would include work on propellant depots.

Which he proceeded to ignore because he's a bastard.

>President Obama's response to critics is that an additional US$6 billion would be paid to private companies for shuttling astronauts to and from it after the Space Shuttle program ends.

All my rage when COTS level D received no funding at all because Obama's a bastard.

At least we ended up with CCDev which has never been fully funded because bastards.

>>6409493
>No they didn't. They got a winged reentry vehicle that's launched on an expendable rocket and does nothing to contribute to its launch.
I thought that qualified #Buran

[Anonymous No.6409530]

>>6409493
A little of both, actually.

[Anonymous No.6409539]

>>6409493
>No they didn't. They got a winged reentry vehicle that's launched on an expendable rocket and does nothing to contribute to its launch.
Because that's SO much different from wat the Shuttle is, right?

I suppose you think Buran doesn't count either, nor HL-20/Dream Chaser.

[Anonymous No.6409546]

>>6409397
Nope. Bush didn't give constellation the increases in funding it needed. It was starved and as a result billions over budget and years behind. It was a moon mission with the lander scrapped due to budgets.

Constellation was a mess. It was not about legacy.

[Anonymous No.6409551]

>>6409493
>No they didn't.
It has a decent amount of delta-v once in orbit, It can fly around to satellites and spy on them, it could potentially pick up a satellite and fly it home. That's all shit capsules don't really do often.

[Anonymous No.6409563]

>>6409369
>But the launch hardware is required to be rated much much higher than that.
But we're discussing payloads.

>Please enlight me, provide documentation of the structural requirements for comsats.
I'm pointing out they're quite different, this is obliviously true. Why don't you tell me how you could easily constrict a 20 g tolerant comsat.

>Uneducated guesswork.
The insurance on a 700 million dollar comsat cost about 50 million USD. A crew capsule and escape system costs much more than that. You're fairing would be simpler but larger and be required to maintain a clean environment.

[Anonymous No.6409611]

>>6409539
The shuttle at least had its origins in a sensible idea.

Buran was pure cold war paranoia. The shuttle as completed didn't make sense. The Russians looked at it, and didn't believe something so expensive didn't make sense. They thought maybe it did something important, so they needed one of their own.

They made one. Flew it. Said, "Wait... why did we make that?" And that was Buran.

The whole point of the shuttle was to be an RLV. Spaceplane reentry vehicles aren't important. They have slightly more flexibility about when and from what orbits they return than capsules. RLVs are important. They have potential to reduce orbital launch costs by orders of magnitude. The shuttle was just a poor attempt with bad priorities.

[Anonymous No.6409622]

>>6409551
>That's all shit capsules don't really do often.
Yet it's all shit that capsules could do just as easily.

A spaceplane reentry vehicle is just a capsule with wings. The wings only give it a higher lift-drag ratio, and therefore more cross-range capability, and the option of landing on a runway with rolling landing gear (capsules can land on water or any patch of land with parachutes, airbags, and retro rockets -- advanced capsules could soft-land on any patch of land with retro rockets and legs).

[Anonymous No.6409634]

>>6409611
>They made one. Flew it. Said, "Wait... why did we make that?" And that was Buran.

Which is a completely true version of events if you skip the whole "collapse of the Soviet Union" part which might have had some hand in it. The Soviets didn't just build one, many more were in production. Energia the launch vehicle was designed to be flown in many flavours, one is still half constructed today. It was a big plan but the decay of the USSR ended it.

[Anonymous No.6409641]

>>6409622
Which capsule could capture and return a spacecraft?

[Anonymous No.6409640]

>>6408125
D'aww.
>says hampshire-chan, one day later

[Anonymous No.6409683]

>>6409641
>Dreamchaser isn't designed to capture and return spacecraft, so that's something spaceplanes can't do.
Makes as much sense as what you're implying.

Wings aren't magic. Wings don't provide maneuverability in space, or increase cargo capacity. They just increase cross-range capability on reentry, and make rolling landings possible.

[Anonymous No.6409712]

>>6409563
>I'm pointing out they're quite different, this is obliviously true. Why don't you tell me how you could easily constrict a 20 g tolerant comsat.

I use metal and shit. I avoid like mud bricks and wood. And I use the expensive metal space zipties instead of the normal plastic ones.

>The insurance on 700 million cost about 50 million

having a little bit of trouble with le google on this one but I did find

>1997, rates averaged around 16% of the insured values
>http://www.casact.org/pubs/forum/00fforum/00ff047.pdf

So that would be ~120 m for your 700m comsat, in 1997 at least. I know times change and so do insurance rates so please provide a better source.

>A crew capsule and escape system costs much more than that. ($50m)
Where the hell are you pulling that out of. An entire falcon 9 costs $55m.

Throw some fucking super dracos on the bitch, if all goes well use that thrust in orbit as a third stage probably won't get any payload to orbit loss and you may even end up ahead. Dragon rider is built double fault tolerant, ie the rocket fails launch abort kicks in and its got 8 launch abort motors when it only needs 4 so it is tolerant of launch abort engine failure too. Payloads would only need to be single fault tolerant so 4 super dracos (or 3 for gso payloads)

[Anonymous No.6409710]

>>6409683
I'm not implying shit but the guy above did specifically say capturing satellites.

Lifting bodies add simple recovery and reuse, that can be achieved by other means but this is one way.

[Anonymous No.6409721]

>>6409683
>Wings aren't magic. Wings don't provide maneuverability in space, or increase cargo capacity.

You need flame decals, huge spoilers, tiney tiers, and big ass tailpipes requiering cutting up your bumper to get those kinds of results.

[Anonymous No.6409736]

>>6409683
>Dreamchaser isn't designed to capture and return spacecraft, so that's something spaceplanes can't do.

You sitting on classified documents and not sharing the? Common you can trust me with them.

Thought not.

You dont know what dream chaser can or cannot do.

That ability would be very valuable for national security it makes sense to me that they would want it.

I dont know if it can or cannot, even if it can't right now its reusable and its innards are modifiable it could have the ability added.

All I stated is that its potentially capable doing it, and I dont think its possible for you to prove that its not.

[Anonymous No.6409760]

>>6409736
>>6409683

yall confusing dream chaser with the X-37

whateves

[Anonymous No.6409778]

>>6409712
>I use metal and shit
Deflection. Fantastic.

>So that would be ~120 m for your 700m comsat, in 1997 at least. I know times change and so do insurance rates so please provide a better source.
My source was a livestream for a comsat launch on Proton. That's all I have but failures are less common and launchers are more reliable. I would expect rates to decline.

> An entire falcon 9 costs $55m.
Which would a) be more than 50 million and b) not include a capsule or escape system. The commercial falcon 9 is purely a launch vehicle, dragon costs more and currently doesn't do what would be required of your mega fairing.

>probably won't get any payload to orbit loss and you may even end up ahead.
Bullshit. A fairing that could survive landing and maintain a clean environment will be heavy. The nature of using a redundant stage will decrease the payload because Dracos will be less efficient than a proper upper stage. Note also that in a launch escape scenario dragon rider would land on parachutes not retrorockets. It's going to need a lot of fuel.

[Anonymous No.6409779]

>>6409760
>The X-37 was originally designed to be carried into orbit in the Space Shuttle's cargo bay

Yodog

I heard you liked shuttles
so I put a shuttle in your shuttle

[Anonymous No.6409786]

>>6409760
Has quite a small payload bay. Due the very extended nature of it's missions it's most likely that it is simply a platform for experimental remote sensing hardware for surveillance.

[Anonymous No.6409788]

>>6409760
>>6409760 (You)
>The X-37 was originally designed to be carried into orbit in the Space Shuttle's cargo bay

Yodog

I heard you liked shuttles
so I put a shuttle in your shuttle

[Anonymous No.6409792]

>>6409760
Not me (I'm >>6409683). I was making a point. I picked Dreamchaser as a spaceplane which obviously doesn't have that capability.

He said:
>Which capsule could capture and return a spacecraft?
...as if it mattered whether one had ever been built for that purpose.

>>6409736
>That ability would be very valuable for national security
Why would it be?

That was a capability of the space shuttle, but they never used it. Old satellites just don't matter. By their end of life, they're badly obsolete. You can transmit any useful information from them to the ground without bringing them out of orbit, and you can dispose of them by uncontrolled reentry.

Why return them to the ground? And if you want to return them to the ground, why not just build a heat shield into them in the first place? That's going to be far cheaper, simpler, and more reliable than sending up reentry vehicle with a cargo bay to fetch it.

If you think stealing someone else's satellite is both likely to work and worthwhile, you're delusional.

[Anonymous No.6409805]

>>6409788

I've worked on that plane. C-5's are such big whores.

[Anonymous No.6409829]

>>6409778
>Deflection. Fantastic.
I cut like triangles and octagons into it make it all shapey

>Which would a) be more than 50 million
Really don't get how thats a point. I was just pointing out that a standard launch costs about what you think insurance is. And I doubt launch abort system alone would cost the same as the whole rest of the rocket combined.

>dragon costs more and currently doesn't do what would be required of your mega fairing.
Dragon is an entire vehicle, with solar panels and pressurised compartment and advanced space station docking shits. I really don't see how its pertinent.

>A fairing that could survive landing and maintain a clean environment will be heavy.
I dont know what the current fairing is rated to, all im asking for is 20 g's, maybe less las could probably still be effective at 12g's.

>The nature of using a redundant stage will decrease the payload because Dracos will be less efficient than a proper upper stage. It's going to need a lot of fuel.

It's a hypergol you can expect isp around 310s. You dont really want that 45° thrust angle for best results either. In space you can use a proper space expended nozzle to burn the same fuel and just not use the las rockets when things go well.

[Anonymous No.6409833]

>>6409792
>If you think stealing someone else's satellite is both likely to work and worthwhile, you're delusional.
You'd be wrong. That was genuinely a mission scenario for the Shuttle. It was obviously never used but it was considered.

Secondly you ignore the actual cases where payloads have been recovered as part of experiments like LDEF. If NASA could have rescued CGRO it would have made a lot of people very happy.

>why not just build a heat shield into them in the first place?
A heat shield won't land a payload intact.

[Anonymous No.6409838]

>>6409792
>That was a capability of the space shuttle, but they never used it. Old satellites just don't matter. Why return them to the ground?... If you think stealing someone else's satellite is both likely to work and worthwhile, you're delusional.

You're not trying to steal a satellite to use it silly. You're getting encryption keys out of chips. You have years of transmissions recorded that you want to dcypher.

[Anonymous No.6409843]

>>6409829
>Really don't get how thats a point
And I don't see how a launch vehicle cost has anything to do with a reentry vehicle but there you are quoting it.
>Dragon is an entire vehicle
You quoted the price of a Falcon 9 launch, not dragon. Dragon is not part of that cost, this is not a difficult point.

> all im asking for is 20 g's
More guesswork. It's not just the violence of abort but the landing part to. It could land 50 or 500 km away, or in water and yet it has to keep things clean. That's difficult.

[Anonymous No.6409867]

>>6409838
It's awfully easy to build something into a satellite to destroy any encryption keys if it's captured.

Or, you know, to destroy the whole satellite and anything trying to recover it.

Don't think the guys who build spy satellites don't think about this stuff. They're smart guys. They think of lots of stuff.

It's cheap and easy to make satellites useless if they're captured. It's expensive and difficult to capture satellites. It's just not a mission that makes sense.

[Anonymous No.6409868]

>>6409843
>reentry vehicle

It's not reentry, many failures are experienced early in flight. If it failed late in flight it could just continue to orbit instead of returning.

>has to keep things clean. That's difficult.
The fering is already airtight at max q, thats probably a little harder than being airtight while splashing in a bit of water, landing on pavement would be harder but as long as they are not launching from texas (which they are considering) I don't think it will be an issue.

[Anonymous No.6409872]

>>6409867
But did they plan on that when building the satellite in 1996? And now the satellite is dead floating in space with no means of control or communication.

[Anonymous No.6409892]

>>6409868
>If it failed late in flight it could just continue to orbit instead of returning.
Only with a shit load of delta-v and no problems but again you're avoiding the point. What you need is a container with a LAS which Dragon makes up most of. The cost will be much closer to it than a launcher. It will cost serious cash.

It's spelt fairing.

>thats probably a little harder than being airtight while splashing in a bit of water
The difficulty is sitting in water possibly partially submerged after a violent abort. At max q it's only the nose of the fairing that needs to be airtight.

[Anonymous No.6409893]

>>6409872
>But did they plan on that when building the satellite in 1996?
I'm sure they planned on that when building satellites in 1969.

>now the satellite is dead floating in space with no means of control or communication.
Then it almost certainly has no encryption keys to recover. Such things are most likely stored in volatile memory. In cases where they aren't, the storage is probably rigged with some manner of "dead man switch".

Orbital rendezvous was demonstrated several decades ago. It just doesn't make sense to build a spy or military communication satellite which would be useful to an enemy who captured it.

[Anonymous No.6409905]

>>6409893
>I'm sure they planned on that when building satellites in 1969.
Blind faith, fantastic.

>It just doesn't make sense to build a spy or military communication satellite which would be useful to an enemy who captured it.
So there would be no interest in taking apart bleeding edge surveillance equipment? No, when that F-117 was shot down they just threw the bits away, no one was interested in the capabilities or technology of the enemy.

[Anonymous No.6409917]

>>6409892
>What you need is a container with a LAS which Dragon makes up most of.
It's already in a container.
>At max q it's only the nose of the fairing that needs to be airtight.
No these payloads are inert atmosphere purged. It is completely sealed through all stages of atmospheric flight.

[Anonymous No.6409944]

>>6409917
>It's already in a container.
Not one which will survive a splashdown.

>No these payloads are inert atmosphere purged.
I'm aware of that but only the nose is subjected to serious pressure.

I think this discussion has gone on long enough. What we've covered is that you don't know how to build satellites to survive abort, you don't know what the hit to the payload would be, you don't know if the payload would be in a condition to refly and you don't know if it could be cost effective. But you insist it could and should be done.

[Anonymous No.6409958]

>>6409905
>Blind faith, fantastic.
It would take blind faith to spend billions of dollars recovering an enemy satellite, committing a blatant act of war, and assuming that it was built without consideration of the possibility of capture.

>So there would be no interest in taking apart bleeding edge surveillance equipment?
So now you're talking about capturing a new, and still-functional, spy satellite?

That's still assuming that it has no self-destruct, evasion, or ramming capability that would spoil your attempt to return it to Earth. It's also an even more blatantly hostile action than shooting a satellite down, while being about a thousand times more expensive. Note that they don't shoot each others' satellites down, because nobody wants to start that shit.

[Anonymous No.6409963]

>>6409944
>What we've covered is that you don't know how to build satellites to survive abort, you don't know what the hit to the payload would be, you don't know if the payload would be in a condition to refly and you don't know if it could be cost effective. But you insist it can't and shouldn't be done.

[Anonymous No.6409965]

>>6409944
>Not one which will survive a splashdown.
Who's making uneducated guesses, that's you.
ok srry don't mean to be an asshat.
If its not then you make it so.

>What we've covered is that you don't know how to build satellites to survive abort,
Lol what your the one that thinks we should use clay bricks and wood and not cut triangles into the metal.

>you don't know what the hit to the payload would be
It's a splashdown WHOOOO from a parachute WHOOOO

>you don't know if the payload would be in a condition to refly
It would be built to survive the conditions or they wouldn't choose to buy the option

>you don't know if it could be cost effective.
And neither do you, without a detailed study prolly no one knows.

>But you insist it could and should be done.
nope all im saying is it should be considered and possibly offered as an option

[hampshire-chan No.6409977]

>>6408125
so not to pester after all this time, but uh, do you have steam or something? Email?

[Anonymous No.6410001]

>>6409958
>committing a blatant act of war
Hence why it's never been done. But note that never stopped them spending billions in the cold war.

>So now you're talking about capturing a new, and still-functional, spy satellite?
Doesn't have to be functional, new is a plus. It's possible and was considered.

There's no evidence of any kinds of countermeasures and back in those days you only need wait for it to be out of contact to swoop in.

[Anonymous No.6410005]

>>6409977
my 4chan email is [e-mail]
I'm not super into anime but its a nice address to hoard (^_^)

[Anonymous No.6410033]

>>6410001
>There's no evidence of any kinds of countermeasures
It's common sense to take into account that some were likely included, since it's not hard to think of how to build some in at minimal cost.

[Anonymous No.6410092]

>179 posts and 34 image replies omitted
Whats the bump limit on sci?
Be cool if this thread is around on Sunday.

[Anonymous No.6410576]

>>6409228

>Again all roads lead to D.C., the blame lies there.

Nah. Blame lies primarily in Houston and Alabama, then Florida and the lesser manned space states. The Space Shuttle program and Constellation program and now the SLS/Orion program corrupt the culture at the NASA manned space centers due to they being the beneficiaries of these giant wrong make work megaprojects. The culture there is a bizarre patriotic-partisan-paranoid and parochial groupthink at this point. Your own supplicant adoption of their rationalizations is just trickle down nauseating puke from this culture. They want congress to fix contracts to continue to fund them and their buddies and the companies they will climb the ladder within and draw pensions from after they retire. These people are not innocent, they expect you to think of them as innocent pawns while hiding behind the veneer of NASA. They actively lobby and influence their local congressman and senators to lock up and continue the status quo megaprojects and corporate pork and be hostile to alternatives to that status quo. Boeing is the worst. NASA manned space center culture is the root of the problem now. When you blame DC, you're blaming politicos who are only acting on their behalf. It's a Space Center-Congressional-Corporate Industrial Complex, and it is the root of all evil that has fucked up NASA for the past decades and the next.

[Anonymous No.6410582]

>>6409397

Constellation was shit. It was going nowhere and never would have landed men on the moon, but would have spent tens of billions doing make work on Earth. Anyone who had clue knew that.

Ares 1 was shit and Constellation was entirely the Ares 1 dev program at that point and for the next decade. A dragon launching atop a falcon 9 is superior. Falcon Heavy blows the Ares 1 away in both price and capability. The EELVs were already better than the Ares 1. Fucking dumbass constellation toadies, you're dumber than shit.

You're a partisan idiot who is still dragging up that Bolden interview nonsense when it meant fucking nothing and was Bolden trying to be PR representative for the US in a foreign tv interview.

You're a simpleton who repeats the most banal of talking points you read on some far right blog. Go fuck yourself with a rake.

[None !!1GqpaQGMIn5 No.6410591]

uiuiuiuiuiuiui

[Anonymous No.6410590]

>>6409513

>Which he proceeded to ignore because he's a bastard.

No you dipshit, Augustine wasn't realistic because they were given a fantasy 3 billion a year plus up so they wouldn't have to be the ones making the hard decisions.

Obama's budget had to live within the real budget and so made harder decisions, but was still influenced by Augustine and tried to pursue their better themes like responsible exploration mission appropriate tech dev that would have made exploration more possible on realistic budgets. It was one of the Augustine tranches executed under a realistic budget.

The worst you can say about it is that its was Mars focused when a Moon faction wanted a moon focused initiative, but that's a judgement call because there is a Mars enthused faction as well that didn't want to see their Mars dreams fade away while NASA got mired in a 40 year long Moon boondoggle and Obama sided with them, since the unexecutable Constellation program occupied and claimed the Moon path.

[Anonymous No.6410606]

>>6410582
>Constellation was shit.
Be that true or not, the political interference and delays certainly didn't help matters at all.

If Constellation's cancellation was legitimate, then why did Obama revive the program almost immediately after under a completely different name?

Both Presidents want(ed) to pull a Kennedy. They both wanted going back to the Moon to be part of THEIR legacy, so badly that they were willing to meddle with NASA's efforts to do it.

>Falcon Heavy blows the Ares 1 away in both price and capability.
No disagreement here. SpaceX has a lot more operational freedom than NASA does, so naturally they're a lot more efficient at developing launch systems.

>You're a partisan idiot
Wrong. It's the partisan idiots in office who keep fucking up our space program.
>who is still dragging up that Bolden interview nonsense when it meant fucking nothing and was Bolden trying to be PR representative for the US in a foreign tv interview.
If Obama ever said any such thing to Bolden at all (and frankly, I don't understand why Bolden would lie and name-drop if he HADN'T), it was an incredibly stupid thing to do. Foreign relations are none of NASA's business.

[Anonymous No.6410621]

>>6410606

>If Constellation's cancellation was legitimate, then why did Obama revive the program almost immediately after under a completely different name?

He didn't. Special interests in congress wrote the wording of the space legislation for NASA and rammed it through. Obama had no choice in the matter.

[Anonymous No.6410630]

>>6410606

>Foreign relations are none of NASA's business.

That's not how NASA is oft perceived in Washington, as tool of soft power. Even the Apollo moon program had its root of using NASA as an instrument of foreign relations. ISS is another example. It's part of the picture of what NASA is.

[Anonymous No.6411305]

>>6410606
>SpaceX has a lot more operational freedom than NASA does, so naturally they're a lot more efficient at developing launch systems.

Oh thats it, its just freedom. If we had gavin NASA $300m and told them to do whatever they wanted with it they would have falcon 9. WRONG, NASA is broken broken to the core. Some of their science missions are barely excusable but they couldn't even keep curiosity or james webb in budgets that were quite generous.

WISE was an example of money well spent, it ended up twice the original cost but was still a good value.

NASA needs to enact a moratorium on virtually all cost plus contracts. No one in any real industry gets a blank check. Companies should bid and if they win the bid then they should have to put up bonds as collateral if they fail to meet contractual obligations. This is standard practice everywhere else in the world. I seriously think there must be millions of dollars flowing under the table for shit like this to get so bad.

Boldens a bastard constellation was his pet design he pushed through all critical reviews past superior designs. I think his goal was to build the most expensive thing he could in hopes congress would get used to wasting money at NASA.

Yes congress is perpetually meddling in shit they don't know about but NASA is a bunch of fuckups who need it congress meddling sucks but its better than letting a bunch of kids run around with our credit card buying xboxes for all their friends god nasa you could have at least spent the money on playstations.

[Anonymous No.6411405]

>>6410621
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System
>The Space Launch System (SLS) is a United States Space Shuttle-derived heavy launch vehicle being designed by NASA. It follows the cancellation of the Constellation Program, and is to replace the retired Space Shuttle. The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 envisions the transformation of the Ares I and Ares V vehicle designs into a single launch vehicle usable for both crew and cargo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Authorization_Act_of_2010
>The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 is a U.S. law which authorizes NASA appropriations for fiscal years 2011–2013 with the same top-line budget values as requested by President of the United States Barack Obama.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_policy_of_the_Barack_Obama_administration#Destinations
>"Early in the next decade, a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low Earth orbit. And by 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the Moon into deep space. So we’ll start – we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history."
>"By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it."
But fine, go ahead and keep on thinking Obama didn't have a hand in this bullshit.

[Anonymous No.6411831]

>>6411405

1. 2010 NASA Authorization Act was written by the Senate subcomittee that handles that process, which is stacked with corrupt space state Senators and their apparatchiks, influenced by the self-entitled graft culture at NASA, and they abused their power of writing the wording of the legislation to force SLS in. Obama's policy was never voted on, it got co-opted by that thing instead. The rest of Congress rubber stamps NASA's legislation. The Senate subcomitteee created SLS/Orion, and got it included into law, and forced the President to follow that law and build it, and not do the things Obama wanted to do instead.

2. The same budget level does not mean the same content. Obama's content was largely wiped out to force SLS/Orion in.

3. Obama set that as the destination, but SLS/Orion were not the means he had in mind. His speech took place months before SLS was revealed when the wording of the 2010 Authorization Act was made apparent.


Obama is largely innocent in this, and even if you hate him in other arenas he had a pretty decent space policy, it just was more Mars focused, and a realistic responsible means of achieveing Mars aims. He can only be faulted for being outmaneuvered by the corrupt graft culture centered around NASA, and for then moving on to other areas of the presidency after being outmaneuvered. For what it's worth, SLS/Orion have completely laid fowl to his asteroid trip/mars orbit plans. NASA still talks about them but they wont happen.

[Anonymous No.6411847]

>>6411305
> its better than letting a bunch of kids run around with our credit card buying xboxes for all their friends god nasa you could have at least spent the money on playstations.
DoD bought a messload of PS3's to build a supercomputer

[Anonymous No.6411858]

>>6411831
Yeah, I always had the impression that Obama was inclined to let private rocket builders duke out the orbital launch game, and have NASA spend its efforts and budget on missions they could accomplish *after* taking a ride to space they bought on the free market.

But I never followed it too closely.

[Anonymous No.6411866]

>>6411847
Letting sony subsidise a supercomputer for the DoD, sounds like a smart move to me.

Lets not forget that at the time a cell chip sold for over $1000 a piece.

[Anonymous No.6411888]

aaaaaand its scrubbed!

delayed to April 30 for "Dragon contamination issues"

probably these guys >>6406525 having a romp when the camera was turned off.

[Anonymous No.6411897]

>>6411888
That's March 30.

Shitnuggets.

[and keep bumping No.6411940]

>>6411897
for another two weeks

[Anonymous No.6412546]

meanwhile in soviet america

[Anonymous No.6412587]

>>6411940
Whatever happened to Bigelow?

Their modules seemed to hold a lot of promise. Shame the idea of berthing one to the ISS fell through.

[Anonymous No.6413310]

>>6412587
They are still around. With a couple space stations in orbit too (pressurized but not human rated). Kind of a quiet company. Really would do better at getting nasa to buy some if they kept the hype up.

Last I heard they were going to put a tiny test module on the ISS.

[Anonymous No.6413339]

>>6411940
what am I looking at, here? It looks neat.

[Anonymous No.6413704]

>>6413339

It's a little cost effective project congress passed a law banning NASA from working on. So they gave it to a billionaire who has been doing it on his own. He has two in orbit already.

An entire one would cost less than one module of the space station. He has several new ones built and ready to fly but dragon is not ready to take people yet.

Also they are bulletproof, and can be used on planetary surfaces.

[Anonymous No.6414878]

bamp with Mars Colonial Transporter
>i think i hate Elon Musk, spacex is cool though-
>maybe im just jealous
>who is with me?

[Anonymous No.6415058]

>>6414878
fuck yea science!

[Anonymous No.6415061]

>>6414878
That looks absurdly big for a rocket. Why don't they just do in-orbit assembly?

[Anonymous No.6415076]

>>6413704
>So they gave it to a billionaire who has been doing it on his own. He has two in orbit already.

So? There aren't any people in them. This "testing" stuff is out of control, and it shows that nobody in the business is willing to do real space stuff.

A real space effort would have people living in habitats in orbit since we've put habitats in orbit since the early 1970s. Guys, this isn't "rocket science" anymore. It's supposed to be well-documented, mature technology.

I must note with great joy that all these Bigelow units are scheduled to be de-orbited and destroyed anyway. It's IMPOSSIBLE to establish a permanent Human presence in space if you keep destroying the very decking beneath your feet.

The conclusion is obvious: It's all a SCAM promoted by military-industrialists who are feeding off of easy money (i.e. our taxes).

[Anonymous No.6415106]

>>6415061
pic is from nasaspaceflight l2. suposedly fanart but most of the time they are well informed

[Anonymous No.6415117]

>>6405096
>make the rocket 50% bigger
>not realizing a 50% bigger rocket would need way more than just 50% more propellant to get anywhere
>talks about economics of scale

okay.

[Anonymous No.6415140]

I sent my design for a nuclear transport system (for safety, the nuclear engine is put into orbit separately from the manned capsule) to NASA but have yet to hear anything back. Despite extensive simulations and having a delta V of 8800m/s from LKO with a 100t payload they don't seem interested.

[Anonymous No.6415139]

>>6415061
There's a minimum cost for any large rocket launch which is going to apply whether your payload is ten tons or a thousand tons. You need ground crew to organize the launch, you need to get approval to launch, you need to clear all use of a large area downrange of the rocket in case it crashes, etc.

Until there's a dramatic change in the regulatory climate, this will all cost at least a million dollars per launch. If you're making an efficiently reusable launch vehicle which lets you amortize the vehicle construction cost to a negligible part of the cost of each launch, you want to launch enough mass to make that million dollars a small expense relative to the amount of payload.

Anyway, it's not all that big. You can see it's quite comparable to the Saturn V. A "Saturn V Heavy" is a very good idea for a Mars rocket.

Orbital assembly complicates things. If you're going to Mars, it's better to just go to Mars if you can.

[Anonymous No.6415144]

>>6415117
>a 50% bigger rocket would need way more than just 50% more propellant to get anywhere
You fail physics forever.

[Anonymous No.6415148]

>>6415140
>extensive simulations
>KSP

Okay, that made me laugh.

[Anonymous No.6415158]

>>6415140
everyone any your mum can do a nuclear rocket. there are intnational treaties against it so it wont be built.

[Anonymous No.6415159]

>>6415148
You know there's something wrong when putting nose cones on your rockets is pointless.

[Anonymous No.6415161]

>>6415148
2edgy4me

[Anonymous No.6415163]

>>6415148
Just wait till we get proper gravity simulation, nigger, not just the SOI bullshit. Some smart fuckers are already working on that as a mod.

[Anonymous No.6415162]

>>6415158
I remember that one of the designers of Project Orion wanted to put a classic barber's chair in his craft to show how hilariously nuclear pulse propulsion slaps weight limitations in the face.

[Anonymous No.6415167]

>>6415144
Ever heard of diminishing returns, faget? More mass = more fuel needed to get to orbit = more mass = more fuel needed to get to orbit = your mum is a whore.

[Anonymous No.6415169]

>>6415159
Not with FAR it isn't.

[Anonymous No.6415171]

>>6415163
There will always be inconsistencies built into the game, though. You can cheat and do crazy things in the base game, like getting free movement by shifting weight alone, and mods complicate matters further.

[Anonymous No.6415175]

>>6415171
Warp stopping rotation is very useful when trying to dock with a dead craft.

[Anonymous No.6415179]

>>6415171
Well, of course. And thank God the simulation is very simplified, I don't relish the thought of having to spend a month on calculations just to get a bucket of green crap into orbit. And mods actually help with getting the most obvious kinks out. The game is enough as an intro to the concepts. Plus, its fun as fuck. Brb, I need to harvest antimatter from Jool magnetosphere for my Alcubierre drive

[Anonymous No.6415181]

>>6415179
Yeah, but it's not a rigorous simulation. It's a good tool to learn, but not to build hypothetical rockets.

[Anonymous No.6415198]

>>6415181
NASA just hasn't got the stones to build an asparagus rocket.

[Anonymous No.6415225]

>>6411940
>mfw this is bigelows Aerospace's logo

fun fact, the FAA redirects "UFO" reports to Bigelow Aerospace.

[Anonymous No.6415241]

>>6415167
Yeah, this is failing physics forever.

If you take two rockets which work and can barely go to orbit, and you attach them side-by-side, doubling the mass of the combined vehicle, what do you think happens that will stop the two of them together from going to orbit, when they could have gone to orbit separately?

There is a limit on the tallness of a rocket, but there's not really a practical limit on the thickness of a rocket. As your rocket gets bigger, there's an increasing weight saving from the mass of the insulation on the cryogenic fuel tanks, since the tank volume is growing faster than its surface area.

[Anonymous No.6415294]

>>6415225
Wow you weren't kidding:
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/ATpubs/ATC/atc0908.html

I guess the whole space hotel thing makes sense if they have customers who are already in space

[Anonymous No.6415302]

>>6415241
>there's not really a practical limit on the thickness of a rocket
I should say there's not really a theoretical limit which comes into play within the practical limits.

A pancake rocket that's 200 meters tall and 1000 meters in diameter would have some special difficulties with air resistance, but some ridiculous Bullet Bill rocket 200 meters tall and 100 meters wide obviously won't be built due to the sheer size of it, but there's no reason it couldn't work if it was built.

[Anonymous No.6415803]

>>6415076
>The conclusion is obvious: It's all a SCAM promoted by military-industrialists who are feeding off of easy money (i.e. our taxes).
He did it using personal funds. Just who is he scamming. He plans on sending habitable version just as soon as there is cost effective transportation for it. He is planning on renting it out to tourists and businesses and its not government funded. If governments want what he is selling he is also willing to sell them.

[Anonymous No.6415805]

>>6415106
You have l2 access?
Please download it all and torrent it.
wft its 5.5tb

[Anonymous No.6415816]

>>6415140
I sent them a design for an organic liquid/solid rocket, even provided some solid fuel samples. But I don't think they were impressed.

[Anonymous No.6416492]

>>6411305
What the fuck happened to that hand?

[Anonymous No.6416637]

>>6415181
Would you consider Orbiter a "rigorous simulation?"
>It's a good tool to learn, but not to build hypothetical rockets.
Well, yeah. The performance of the stock components isn't even close to realistic, nor is the Kerbol system itself. That's not the point of KSP.
>>6415179
>>6415163
Seriously, try Orbiter. It's got all kinds of sophisticated perturbation physics and such. Unless you're attempting WSB transfers and/or Lagrange orbits, you won't notice a damned difference between KSP's patched conic approximation and Orbiter's more sophisticated physics. KSP isn't THAT far off in that regard.

I personally wish someone would create a rocket-creator type plugin for Orbiter, perhaps along the lines of X-plane's Plane Maker. It'd still be a "garbage-in, garbage-out" kind of deal, but at least it'd have the POTENTIAL for easily modeling a realistic rocket.

[Anonymous No.6418066]

>>6416492
He fed nasa, can't you read?

[Anonymous No.6418070]

>>6416637
GMAT, its used by NASA.

[Anonymous No.6418681]

I think SpaceX is going to start using vespene gas on there next rocket. I think this planet is depleted of crystals, I can't find them anywhere.

[Anonymous No.6418691]

>>6403896
copying a cellular phone is cheaper than developing it you turd

[Anonymous No.6418697]

>>6418691
LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

SpaceX developed a new rocket NASA is reusing old designs and just putting them in new configurations. NASA rocket still costs 200 times more than a SpaceX rocket when normalized for up mass.

Your argument red herring and totally false it is amazing someone with the reasoning ability to formulate it had the necessary skills to complete a captcha.

[Anonymous No.6418713]

>>6418691
[>>6418697] has a point. Although it's REALLY fucking irritating that people keep throwing the term "red herring" around in this thread without knowing what it fucking means.

[Anonymous No.6418726]

>>6418713
>*throws red herring at your post*<

[Anonymous No.6418893]

>>6418070
You can't build hypothetical or even fictional rockets in GMAT. All you can do is design trajectories.

[Anonymous No.6418928]

>>6418893
nya

Systems Tool Kit

nya nya
prrrr

[Anonymous No.6418939]

>>6418928
How have I not heard of this before?

[Anonymous No.6419984]

>>6418939
>Systems Tool Kit
also
http://propulsion-analysis.com/

even the free versions are quite useful

>How have I not heard of this before?
because your too busy playing childrens video games and delusionally thinking its rocket science

[Anonymous No.6421081]

This thread is still alive?