SpaceX's Grasshopper VTVL takes a 40 meter hop

Firefox11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecLdz1p-_Rw

I like the way they turned off the volume just before the explosion.

Maximus Alexander

Firefox11 wrote: »

<Landing Vid>

Oh man, that's super annoying.

Capt'n Midnight

Wibbs wrote: »

Looks great and all and a fantastic effort, but IMH FWIW(not a lot), the use of rocket fuel to have a controlled landing is pretty wasteful and more about the "show". The same type vehicle using aerodynamically "free" parachutes to slow down and land, maybe with a last minute rocket assist a la the Russian crew module landings to bleed off the last bit of energy, makes far more sense on all sorts of levels. THe K.I.S.S. principle.

KISS means you don't add extra complexity and it's not easy to steer a parachute.

Using rockets means you already have all the bits you need, apart from updates to the software and legs which you'd need anyway as a splashdown would mean lots of refurb work.

Extra fuel is cheap, and you have the option of keeping going if you have to shutdown an engine. That happened on several Saturn V launches.

Firefox11

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Oh man, that's super annoying.

I know. Looked like a good landing and almost made it only for the leg getting damaged on touchdown. They will do this in time!

josip

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

KISS means you don't add extra complexity and it's not easy to steer a parachute.

Using rockets means you already have all the bits you need, apart from updates to the software and legs which you'd need anyway as a splashdown would mean lots of refurb work.

Extra fuel is cheap, and you have the option of keeping going if you have to shutdown an engine. That happened on several Saturn V launches.

I agree completely but I think when Wibbs said that the extra fuel was expensive, I don't think he/she was referring to the actual cost of the fuel, but the cost of carrying that fuel all the way in order to burn it on the way back down?

Capt'n Midnight

josip wrote: »

I agree completely but I think when Wibbs said that the extra fuel was expensive, I don't think he/she was referring to the actual cost of the fuel, but the cost of carrying that fuel all the way in order to burn it on the way back down?

I used to worry about fuel used to test the engines in the few seconds before lift off. But tanks are light. The end plates and engines and pumps are heavy and already there, all you have to do is provide the extra stretch in the cylinder.

It just means more gravity drag at the start because of more dead weight. But you can make stage one bigger to compensate for the slight loss in efficiency.

_Tombstone_

Wibbs wrote: »

Looks great and all and a fantastic effort, but IMH FWIW(not a lot), the use of rocket fuel to have a controlled landing is pretty wasteful and more about the "show". The same type vehicle using aerodynamically "free" parachutes to slow down and land, maybe with a last minute rocket assist a la the Russian crew module landings to bleed off the last bit of energy, makes far more sense on all sorts of levels. THe K.I.S.S. principle.

Why would SpaceX not use parachutes for the final descent of the first stage?

http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/7718/why-would-spacex-not-use-parachutes-for-the-final-descent-of-the-first-stage


Covers alot of why no chutes^^^ but missing the biggie much talked about this Week of landing, refueling and relaunching from the moon using resources from the poles up there.

_Tombstone_

3 Barge landings blowing side by side, Ice blamed as probable cause for leg malfunction - fog/condensation at launch site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA7RzJckvQ4

postitnote

Sorry if this has been asked before:

How are these hull losses budgeted for?

Is the assumption made that the rocket won't be reusable and this is factored into the cost of the launch?

They really did get pretty close with that last landing. It reminded me of a game of jenga. That split second when you think you've nailed it and then carnage as it falls over, ruining a perfectly good scotch you left sitting on the table.

postitnote

Sorry if this has been asked before:

How are these hull losses budgeted for?

Is the assumption made that the rocket won't be reusable and this is factored into the cost of the launch?

They really did get pretty close with that last landing. It reminded me of a game of jenga. That split second when you think you've nailed it and then carnage as it falls over, ruining a perfectly good scotch you left sitting on the table.

nokia69

postitnote wrote: »

Sorry if this has been asked before:

How are these hull losses budgeted for?

Is the assumption made that the rocket won't be reusable and this is factored into the cost of the launch?

They really did get pretty close with that last landing. It reminded me of a game of jenga. That split second when you think you've nailed it and then carnage as it falls over, ruining a perfectly good scotch you left sitting on the table.

Its just a normal launch they got paid as usual, it cost something like 60million for a Falcon 9, if they can reuse it they may be able to get launch costs under 10million

nokia69

Wibbs

Nice test. The licking flames worried me a bit… Just checked out their launch escape system for the same capsule. Well at least there were parachutes involved there. Man does it shift though. You'd be fairly wrecked if you were in it I'd imagine. Alive though.

It's a well tried idea. The Soviets had/have similar and it saved lives. As did Apollo, but they never had to use it in anger(luckily. The Saturn V was something like a half kiloton atom bomb in potential banginess). Here's their similar system from way back in the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqeJzItldSQ

Amalgam

Wibbs, I was under the impression the Russians still use an, 'explosive nudge' towards the ground, with the parachute descent of a Soyuz capsule, to dampen the last few feet, is that not the case?

Anyone else love the blunted edges and fairings on the Dragon 2, lovely.

Are there any SpaceX models.. (goes off to Google)

Wibbs

Yeah the Soyuz fires retro rockets at the very last instant before it hits the ground alright.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyvIw_yO60w

They've had plenty of time to work out the tech since they went for ground rather than sea landings from the get go(though the very first cosmonauts got out and parachuted separately from their capsules).

AMKC

http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/23/blue-origin-launches-and-lands-recovered-rocket/

Blue Origin done it again a little higher this time but the also used the same rocket twice. Good to see progress being made even if its only small.

Capt'n Midnight

AMKC wrote: »

Blue Origin done it again a little higher this time but the also used the same rocket twice. Good to see progress being made even if its only small.

It's a side show. As it doesn't need to go to orbit it doesn't need to be as light and they could save a lot of cost by engineering to aircraft specs rather than spacecraft ones and just using more fuel to offset the extra weight.

Remember the V2 could get as high. And it used separate and low energy alcohol fuel and then that had 20% water added and had drag inducing vanes in the exhaust.

Anyone remember the Delta Clipper ?
Rocket that could do all sort of fancy tricks like tilt sideways and still manage to land. Even at the time people were dismissing it as cheap tricks which offered nothing new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/dcx.htm

nokia69

Musk has said he will reveal details of his BFR and MCT plans in September, first flights to Mars in 2025

_Tombstone_

SpaceX Successfully Tests Crew Dragon Landing Parachutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PG438XSarg

_Tombstone_

nokia69 wrote: »

Musk has said he will reveal details of his BFR and MCT plans in September, first flights to Mars in 2025

Who will go and whats it gonna cost to get them to go is nearly most interesting part.

nokia69

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Who will go and whats it gonna cost to get them to go is nearly most interesting part.

A team of NASA astronauts would be my guess since I suspect they will be paying part of the cost

_Tombstone_

nokia69 wrote: »

A team of NASA astronauts would be my guess since I suspect they will be paying part of the cost

Will they want to go? It's years away on a desert prison (kinda) with bad food, crap conditions, very real possibility you won't come back (something go wrong).

Most a $65,000 a year Astronaut expects to do on sign up is maybe a little trip up to the ISS, Christ I'd do this myself.

I know they've studies going - 6 people in a simulated Mars for a year looking to see what kind of personality could do it - similar studies have failed for lots of reasons - mostly they hated been around each other.

I on phone so no links.

I must look and see what else is going on in how to choose people.

I don't think the attributes they've been looking for in current Astronauts will cut it.

nokia69

I don't see any problem finding people willing to go, I agree that they need to be careful in what type of person they select, but there will be no shortage of applicants

_Tombstone_

nokia69 wrote: »

Musk has said he will reveal details of his BFR and MCT plans in September, first flights to Mars in 2025

Elon Musk set to unveil Mars spacecraft later this year




I see NASA is looking for "anyone" with a reusable rocket to sign up here so that they can start sending up Stuff and landing it to see what effect it has.

Not gonna get to many responses.

nokia69

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Elon Musk set to unveil Mars spacecraft later this year




I see NASA is looking for "anyone" with a reusable rocket to sign up here so that they can start sending up Stuff and landing it to see what effect it has.

Not gonna get to many responses.

Reduced gravity with space environment - Requirement is to rapidly ascend from 0 km AGL to high altitude (typically 100km above ground level [AGL] or greater) and expose the payload to the low temperature and near vacuum of space while simultaneously exposing the payload to very low values of gravity under stable gravitational conditions. This is typically accomplished by use of a sounding rocket or spacecraft.

That sounds perfect for Blue Origin, who knows if they have any interest of course, its looks like they have other plans

_Tombstone_

nokia69 wrote: »

Musk has said he will reveal details of his BFR and MCT plans in September, first flights to Mars in 2025

Can you see it happen in 9 years? His Rocket will/should be ready but that's just his part.

Still a helluva lot of work to be done by NASA/Universities/everyone else.

It's curious where the push to take this on is coming from aswell...

nokia69

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Can you see it happen in 9 years? His Rocket will/should be ready but that's just his part.

I think 9 or 10 years is enough, work on the engine has started and thats the hardest part, the rest is easy enough

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Still a helluva lot of work to be done by NASA/Universities/everyone else.

Not really most of the tech needed already exists and the bigger the BFR is, the easier everything else is

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

It's curious where the push to take this on is coming from aswell...

Its coming from Musk and everyone at SpaceX, their goal is to put people on Mars and it looks like they will have the rocket and the money to do it

Wibbs

nokia69 wrote: »

I think 9 or 10 years is enough, work on the engine has started and thats the hardest part, the rest is easy enough.

It's really not. As John Young noted when the Chinese first got into orbit and mentioned moon ambitions, getting into earth orbit is "easy enough"(especially when they basically did what China does best and copied the Soviet tech) getting to the moon and back is a magnitude greater task. He wished them well, but... Getting to Mars and back multiplies that task by many times.

The Apollo programme got to the moon and back by building the largest most complex flying machine built so far and what actually made it to the moon was about the size of a couple of SUVs and what came back was down to one. And they did it by the skin of their teeth. And that was with the full financial clout of the US of A at its peak, with the equivalent of a small country working on the project 24/7, 364 days of the year for nearly a decade. Could an independent operation get to the moon? Land a probe yes, that would be relatively "easy", but a manned mission? A mission to Mars? Sure technology has moved on, mostly in IT, but in manufacturing and materials too, but the heavy iron lifting stuff can't be ignored or easily overcome even with all the subsequent advances.

So far the independents have demonstrated launches and landings, some failed, some worked well. No manned flights so far. No docking in space, no heavy lifting, no assembly in space, no test firing of big arse engines needed for a trans lunar injection, never mind a Martian one. I think folks are getting excited, especially by Musk's personal reality distortion field. I think of him as the (far)nicer Steve Jobs of tech. I love that he's thinking big and I'd love for it to be true, but I'll believe it when I see it TBH.

nokia69

Wibbs wrote: »

It's really not. As John Young noted when the Chinese first got into orbit and mentioned moon ambitions, getting into earth orbit is "easy enough"(especially when they basically did what China does best and copied the Soviet tech) getting to the moon and back is a magnitude greater task. He wished them well, but... Getting to Mars and back multiplies that task by many times.

The Apollo programme got to the moon and back by building the largest most complex flying machine built so far and what actually made it to the moon was about the size of a couple of SUVs and what came back was down to one. And they did it by the skin of their teeth. And that was with the full financial clout of the US of A at its peak, with the equivalent of a small country working on the project 24/7, 364 days of the year for nearly a decade. Could an independent operation get to the moon? Land a probe yes, that would be relatively "easy", but a manned mission? A mission to Mars? Sure technology has moved on, mostly in IT, but in manufacturing and materials too, but the heavy iron lifting stuff can't be ignored or easily overcome even with all the subsequent advances.

So far the independents have demonstrated launches and landings, some failed, some worked well. No manned flights so far. No docking in space, no heavy lifting, no assembly in space, no test firing of big arse engines needed for a trans lunar injection, never mind a Martian one. I think folks are getting excited, especially by Musk's personal reality distortion field. I think of him as the (far)nicer Steve Jobs of tech. I love that he's thinking big and I'd love for it to be true, but I'll believe it when I see it TBH.

Manned flights in about two years, they could do a manned flight in the Dragon now if they really wanted, all the other stuff is being worked on and its not that far away

They are working on the big engine now, I don't really see why it would take any longer to develop than the Merlin engine took

I don't really see how Musk has a reality distortion field, he generally delivers and does what he said he would, true things do get delayed but he gets there in the end

Wibbs

nokia69 wrote: »

Manned flights in about two years, they could do a manned flight in the Dragon now if they really wanted, all the other stuff is being worked on and its not that far away

Manned flight to low earth orbit. We've been doing that for nearly sixty years. We know the engineering of it all pretty well at this stage. He(and others) are aiming to make the process cheaper and more repeatable and more power to his elbow, but he ain't reinventing the wheel here.

They are working on the big engine now, I don't really see why it would take any longer to develop than the Merlin engine took

Quite simply bigger is more difficult, it's not a case of doubling the size of the plans on the printer. Look at the differences between earth orbit Mercury and Gemini missions and the Lunar Apollo stuff. There was a huge gulf between them(which makes it all the more remarkable).

"Not that far away"? That's before the suite of engineering and practical space skill sets required for a Mars mission. Many of which will not be a case of polishing up old tech and expertise it will require completely new thinking and engineering and practices. He, they will be working on completely new ground. Consider that the big boys have lost nigh on half their missions to Mars and the fantastic successes were one way trips for machines no bigger than an old style Mini car. And that stuff is fantastic because of the real scary level difficulties of doing it.

Essentially and very basically what SpaceX have done so far is to launch a yacht into Dublin bay and got it back to the harbour. And they did it in the equivalent of a shed, so fair play and cool beans. Back in the 60's the Americans got from Dublin bay to Cardiff in Wales and back in a much bigger yacht with engines and sails(and hookers and blackjack). Going to Mars is like building an ocean going vessel and getting to Newfoundland, bringing your own house with you, staying there and then getting back.

I don't really see how Musk has a reality distortion field, he generally delivers and does what he said he would, true things do get delayed but he gets there in the end

The claim for landing on Mars by 2025. That right there is a reality distortion field. I will bet you now, It Will Not Happen. I'll further bet they won't get humans to Mars by 2040(and back of course. That's the trick). Certainly not on their own. I could get into other areas of Musk's biz and point out the old time razzamatazz flimflam, but that's for another day in another place.

Don't get me wrong I do admire the chap and I fully endorse his idea that we need to get the fcuk off this rock and in numbers, because even one colony increases our chances exponentially. Indeed relevant to this very topic; the language of the only men to walk on the moon was English. Not because the English themselves did it, but because they and others had colonies apart from home base in bigger places with wider fields of vision and endeavour and more resources.

Don't get me wrong Part Two; I also admire the daftness of "youthful" thinking. Ah sure we can do it, we just need to apply ourselves. That thinking will get us out there, to Mars and beyond. Sooner or later, though in the case of Musk et al and Mars I'm seeing later, likely much later. I want to be proven wrong.