Author Topic: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)  (Read 387873 times)

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #880 on: 07/25/2017 01:45 pm »
Long way off?

Well either way, SpaceX is going to be massively investing in it as soon as Falcon 9 block 5 is completed, i.e. In a couple months. And once FH and Dragon crew also are flying, it will be pretty much their sole focus (not counting the constellation division) aside from operations. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people will be working on it by this time next year.
« Last Edit: 07/25/2017 01:56 pm by Robotbeat »
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Online jabe

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #881 on: 07/25/2017 01:59 pm »
Long way off?

Well either way, SpaceX is going to be massively investing in it as soon as Falcon 9 block 5 is completed, i.e. In a couple months. And once FH and Dragon crew also are flying, it will be pretty much their sole focus (not counting the constellation division) aside from operations. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people will be working on it by this time next year.
Do you think they will down size staff at all once they get the other projects completed to free up cash for the Mars development projects?
jb

Offline philw1776

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #882 on: 07/25/2017 02:00 pm »
Long way off?

Well either way, SpaceX is going to be massively investing in it as soon as Falcon 9 block 5 is completed, i.e. In a few months. And once FH and Dragon crew also are flying, it will be pretty much their sole focus (not counting the constellation division). Hundreds, maybe even thousand of people will be working on it by this time next year.
[/b]

Agreed.

Just to elaborate, by this time next year...

F9 Block 5 Design Complete & Released to Production  FLYING

FH  Design Complete & Released to Production   FLYING

Crew Dragon Design Complete & Released to Production   FLYING

Yes, on occasion members of the design teams may get pulled into the factory to address issues.  This is normal with any released products.  tHe majority of new product designers should be available for ITSy.  I believe that the propulsion team is already full bore on Raptor.

Some other things that a few potential ITSy designers might be addressing might be...

Fairing Recovery  (I expect this to be solved or abandoned by next year)

Falcon Class  2nd stage recovery (quite possible some might be working on this, or not)

As always, $ will be the constraint on ITSy development.  Tooling, prototypes, etc. are expensive.
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #883 on: 07/25/2017 02:05 pm »
Long way off?

Well either way, SpaceX is going to be massively investing in it as soon as Falcon 9 block 5 is completed, i.e. In a couple months. And once FH and Dragon crew also are flying, it will be pretty much their sole focus (not counting the constellation division) aside from operations. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people will be working on it by this time next year.
Do you think they will down size staff at all once they get the other projects completed to free up cash for the Mars development projects?
jb
No. They will need all the staff they can get to make ITS work on the super aggressive timescale they have planned (they still want to use the 2020 window...). Plus they'll be launching 20 to 40 times per year and preparing the megaconstellation, which is also on a very ambitious timescale, and unlike other projects has a hard timeline in that it must be operational within a few years to maintain their prospective spectrum rights. (And they might need ITSy to help launch the fully operational constellation, i.e. With coverage in northern Alaska.)

SpaceX expects their revenue to grow dramatically.
« Last Edit: 07/25/2017 02:07 pm by Robotbeat »
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Online jabe

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #884 on: 07/25/2017 02:12 pm »
SpaceX expects their revenue to grow dramatically.
that answered my implied question/concern.. :)
jb

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #885 on: 07/25/2017 02:42 pm »
Do you think they will down size staff at all once they get the other projects completed to free up cash for the Mars development projects?
jb

Paying that staff like they do now and upkeep of McGregor and Hawthorne is already a very big share of their ITS development cost. They can pay them now, so they will be able to pursue ITS as long as their revenue remains stable or increases.

Offline RDMM2081

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #886 on: 07/25/2017 05:57 pm »
Do you think they will down size staff at all once they get the other projects completed to free up cash for the Mars development projects?
jb

Paying that staff like they do now and upkeep of McGregor and Hawthorne is already a very big share of their ITS development cost. They can pay them now, so they will be able to pursue ITS as long as their revenue remains stable or increases.

Does anyone have any guesses what the SpaceX workforce breakdown might actually look like?  I assume the estimate of ~6,000 employees is still pretty close, and obviously they all aren't "bending metal" on rockets, would we assume ~1,000 custodial, accounting, IT, receptionist, chef, etc type "non-rocket" jobs? More? Less?  If we take the remainder and split it evenly between production(including test) and design (is this halfway reasonable?) then we have 2,500 engineers to assign between the Four main projects:  F9 block 5, FH, Crew Dragon, ITS(including Raptor).  Even if we assume an uneven skew to the assignments right now (I agree that F9, FH, and Crew Dragon are their absolute priorities right now) that split could still easily put 500+ people working on ITS, with 2,000 finishing the F9/FH and Crew Dragon projects.

Disclaimer, all numbers 100% made up and not based in reality, just random guesses based on my mood at the time,

Offline philw1776

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #887 on: 07/25/2017 07:22 pm »
You left out launch operations and staff for one.  Not really possible for us to divine the #s of design engineers.
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Offline JasonAW3

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #888 on: 07/25/2017 07:49 pm »
Long way off?

Well either way, SpaceX is going to be massively investing in it as soon as Falcon 9 block 5 is completed, i.e. In a couple months. And once FH and Dragon crew also are flying, it will be pretty much their sole focus (not counting the constellation division) aside from operations. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people will be working on it by this time next year.
Do you think they will down size staff at all once they get the other projects completed to free up cash for the Mars development projects?
jb
No. They will need all the staff they can get to make ITS work on the super aggressive timescale they have planned (they still want to use the 2020 window...). Plus they'll be launching 20 to 40 times per year and preparing the megaconstellation, which is also on a very ambitious timescale, and unlike other projects has a hard timeline in that it must be operational within a few years to maintain their prospective spectrum rights. (And they might need ITSy to help launch the fully operational constellation, i.e. With coverage in northern Alaska.)

SpaceX expects their revenue to grow dramatically.

ITSy would also get PLENTY of testing for flight characteristics and ironing the bugs out, while helping to launch the megaconstellation of sats.  Assuming that they can build a flight worthy beast by the end of next year, fly it about 10 or 20 times before 2020, they have a pretty good shot at the 2020 launch window.

      It also occurs to me that a smaller ITS, (the 9 meter diameter bird) could be a lot easier to launch from Texas, that the 12 meter version would have been.
« Last Edit: 07/25/2017 07:51 pm by JasonAW3 »
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Offline Blackstar

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #889 on: 07/26/2017 01:51 am »
Assuming that they can build a flight worthy beast by the end of next year, fly it about 10 or 20 times before 2020, they have a pretty good shot at the 2020 launch window.

So, "end of next year" is approximately December 2018. This means that your assumption is that they could launch their new rocket 10-20 times by the 2020 launch window, which is July-Sept 2020. Let's pick the middle and say August 2020. So that is 10-20 launches in 20 months.

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Offline JamesH65

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #890 on: 07/26/2017 11:05 am »
I think people need to read "The Mythical Man Month"

I don't believe throwing people at ITSy isn't going to speed up development as much as people seem to think.

It took over 10 years to get F9 where it is now.

It takes a YEAR to make one F9 1st stage. And that from a known set of plans and a production line that has been making them for years.

I cannot see them being able to even build a first ITSy in less than 3-4 years, assuming they have a design, which they probably have, but in its early stages. It does depend on Al vs CF, but even so, they are going to need new tooling for this new one. And just that is going to take month and months to make.

There is just too much to do to get the timescales down, and simply throwing people at the problem is not going to help that much. People need training, people need time to understand the job. And you REALLY want you people to understand the job.

Offline high road

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #891 on: 07/26/2017 01:56 pm »
I think people need to read "The Mythical Man Month"

I don't believe throwing people at ITSy isn't going to speed up development as much as people seem to think.

It took over 10 years to get F9 where it is now.

It takes a YEAR to make one F9 1st stage. And that from a known set of plans and a production line that has been making them for years.

I cannot see them being able to even build a first ITSy in less than 3-4 years, assuming they have a design, which they probably have, but in its early stages. It does depend on Al vs CF, but even so, they are going to need new tooling for this new one. And just that is going to take month and months to make.

There is just too much to do to get the timescales down, and simply throwing people at the problem is not going to help that much. People need training, people need time to understand the job. And you REALLY want you people to understand the job.

And the more people there are, the more people you need to get organized to solve unforeseeable problems. Especially when one guys solution is another guy (or gal)'s problem. Some problems and tests have to be done sequentially, and can't be sped up by having more people on the job. The more people you add, the more time they spend waiting for each other.

There's quite a few around here that are quite aware of all this. But most of us don't bother anymore pointing out that SpaceX, for all the fantastic work they do, can't do actual magic. The people who listen already know, and vice verça.

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #892 on: 07/26/2017 05:02 pm »
And the more people there are, the more people you need to get organized to solve unforeseeable problems. Especially when one guys solution is another guy (or gal)'s problem. Some problems and tests have to be done sequentially, and can't be sped up by having more people on the job. The more people you add, the more time they spend waiting for each other.

Also known as "systems engineering."

Offline llanitedave

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #893 on: 08/02/2017 11:04 pm »
Easy.  Just put one person on it.  It'll be finished next week.
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Offline yg1968

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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #895 on: 08/18/2017 11:48 pm »
Not sure the headline is accurate.
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Offline Coastal Ron

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #896 on: 08/19/2017 12:56 am »
I think people need to read "The Mythical Man Month"

I don't believe throwing people at ITSy isn't going to speed up development as much as people seem to think.

I understand what you are saying, but they first need to reach a saturation point where adding one more person doesn't end up with one person of work accomplished. As of today they are far from that point since according to Musk and Shotwell most of their engineers are working on Commercial Crew and Falcon Heavy.
 
Quote
It took over 10 years to get F9 where it is now.

Which quite honestly is a meaningless statistic. Not only do they have 10X more employees now, but also something like 10X more capabilities and 100X more knowledge.

Quote
It takes a YEAR to make one F9 1st stage. And that from a known set of plans and a production line that has been making them for years.

What they run their production line at is not an indication of how fast they can actually build a Falcon 9. Since my area of expertise is factory scheduling I've been monitoring what they've been doing for a number of years, and they can build a Falcon 9 from scratch far faster than one year. For instance, their 1st stage production line was designed to support 40 cores per year, so realistically that is one per week, and they obviously don't take a year to assemble a Merlin engine.

Quote
I cannot see them being able to even build a first ITSy in less than 3-4 years, assuming they have a design, which they probably have, but in its early stages. It does depend on Al vs CF, but even so, they are going to need new tooling for this new one. And just that is going to take month and months to make.

The first unit of anything usually takes the most amount of time and money, so 3-4 years for the first ITSy could be right. It's certainly going to be REALLY big, which usually indicates complexity - and complexity=time.

Quote
There is just too much to do to get the timescales down, and simply throwing people at the problem is not going to help that much. People need training, people need time to understand the job. And you REALLY want you people to understand the job.

Um, we went to the Moon with a workforce that had never built a Moon rocket, and that workforce averaged being less than 30 years old. So if anything I think that shows you that if you hire the right people that you CAN do things quickly if need be.

I don't know what the pace will be for developing the ITSy, but we've seen SpaceX progress far faster than what most people would expect, so it's possible they will exceed our expectations on the ITSy too. But if they won't I will still cheer for their progress because I'm not paying taxes to support what they are doing, so it's all entertainment for me. Perspective, we have to have perspective on this...   ;)
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Offline Arch Admiral

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #897 on: 08/21/2017 08:48 pm »
I'd like to speculate on why NASA rejected the powered land landing concept for Dragon, which is the reason (excuse) for delaying (canceling) Red Dragon.

Performance: the weight of landing propellant, tanks, pipes, engines, and legs is bigger than that of parachutes and their deployment hardware. Any thruster failure has to be compensated by throttling back other thrusters (or cutting one al al N-1). So full thrust cannot be used in the nominal landing profile. All this extra weight is subtracted at 1 for 1 from the return payload.

Reliability: Each thruster and landing leg is an individual failure point, but you can survive failure of one drogue and one main parachute in the Apollo/Orion system.

Safety: You need to open doors in the heat shield for the thrusters and legs. The five doors on the belly of the Shuttle were a source of obsessive worry throughout that program. Recall that when COLUMBIA's wing started to heat up, the mission controllers assumed immediately that a main gear door had failed. Shuttle ops veterans now occupy high management positions in the manned space program; they probably regard any head shield penetration as unacceptable.

I've never understood the obsession with vertical powered landings on Earth. Since we have thick air and soft warm oceans here, it seems silly not to use them as free shock absorbers. Musk would probably argue that the time involved with bringing the spacecraft back to the launch site would prevent the high flight rates he fantasizes about, but obviously this is not a factor in ISS crew exchange operations.




Offline whitelancer64

Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #898 on: 08/21/2017 09:01 pm »
You forgot accuracy, which I suspect is one of the primary reasons Dragon v2 landing was abandoned. Chaotic aerodynamic forces during reentry alter the post-reentry trajectory and this will vary the landing point quite dramatically (for example, Soyuz landings are often kilometers away from their targeted landing site), and Dragon doesn't have any aerodynamic control features to direct the capsule to a precise landing point like the Falcon 9 does. They could use thruster firings, but my suspicion is that they realized they couldn't reserve enough fuel for both worst-case scenario trajectory corrections and the landing burn.
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Offline Ictogan

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Re: Red Dragon Discussion Thread (2)
« Reply #899 on: 08/21/2017 09:05 pm »
You forgot accuracy, which I suspect is one of the primary reasons Dragon v2 landing was abandoned. Chaotic aerodynamic forces during reentry alter the post-reentry trajectory and this will vary the landing point quite dramatically (for example, Soyuz landings are often kilometers away from their targeted landing site), and Dragon doesn't have any aerodynamic control features to direct the capsule to a precise landing point like the Falcon 9 does. They could use thruster firings, but my suspicion is that they realized they couldn't reserve enough fuel for both worst-case scenario trajectory corrections and the landing burn.
Dragon 2 will have a ballast sled that lets them control the AOA during descent. So they do indeed have aerodynamic control features.

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