The Falcon 9 Heavy is not the requirement for SpaceX, simply their Falcon 9 is. It can serve in the launching of propellant, namely LOX, to the orbital depot.
"Capitalism works better than socialism, history have shown that much."History has shown no such thing, and that's just fantasy propaganda by subsets of some US political parties. What history has shown is, rich mismanaged democratic republics are better than poor mismanaged autocratic states. Yamamoto understood this, when he made his famous remark about sleeping dragons. The disadvantage of autocratic states is, bad decisions go unchallangers. Democratic republics are harder to screw up because so many politicians are struggling for control, but, as events of the past decade show, it can be done.
Quote from: gospacex on 03/03/2009 02:03 pmQuote from: William Barton on 03/03/2009 11:14 am"Capitalism works better than socialism, history have shown that much."History has shown no such thing, and that's just fantasy propaganda by subsets of some US political parties.What you don't know is, I personally came from a former socialistic country. I was living there. I saw its failure by my own eyes. I KNOW how it fails, and WHY: because when only government produces socks and soap, get ready for socks and soap shortages.I don't know whose propaganda you allude to, but I definitely wasn't subjected to it.QuoteWhat history has shown is, rich mismanaged democratic republics are better than poor mismanaged autocratic states.How interesting that only "mismanaged democratic republics" consistently are becoming richer in the long run? Why is it so?So? I grew up in a so-called capitalistic country. When only business produces socks and soap, get ready for a thousand competing brands of socks and soap, subjected to upward price pressure and downward quality pressure, until all thousand brands are identical low-quality products and all the producers of high-quality products have been driven out of business. I already explained why mismanaged democratic republics do better than mismanaged autocratic states. An autocratic state will fail based on one big bad decision. It takes a bunch of little bad decisions to make a democratic republic fail. This has nothing to do with economic systems, and a democratic socialist republic can be rich and successful. Sweden, for example. By the same token, a good example of an autocratic capitalist state might be Congo. The best example of both types of failure in modern history is Germany, where a bunch of little mistakes added up to the democratic election of the Nazis, who then committed one big bad autocratic mistake, leading to their destruction. Final point: In all cases we're comparing mismanaged states. I'm not sure history has provided an example of a well-managed state so far.
Quote from: William Barton on 03/03/2009 11:14 am"Capitalism works better than socialism, history have shown that much."History has shown no such thing, and that's just fantasy propaganda by subsets of some US political parties.What you don't know is, I personally came from a former socialistic country. I was living there. I saw its failure by my own eyes. I KNOW how it fails, and WHY: because when only government produces socks and soap, get ready for socks and soap shortages.I don't know whose propaganda you allude to, but I definitely wasn't subjected to it.QuoteWhat history has shown is, rich mismanaged democratic republics are better than poor mismanaged autocratic states.How interesting that only "mismanaged democratic republics" consistently are becoming richer in the long run? Why is it so?
"Capitalism works better than socialism, history have shown that much."History has shown no such thing, and that's just fantasy propaganda by subsets of some US political parties.
What history has shown is, rich mismanaged democratic republics are better than poor mismanaged autocratic states.
The ultimate problem with ours or any other democratic republic, or other form of partimentary democracy, is sooner or later, you get a majority of people taking rather than contributing. Western Europe's already there, and we're getting very close if not there right now. "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury."Not sure who originally coined that (there's some doubt about the actual person who first said it), but that's where democracy's eventually head to.
But at the end of the day, I have to agree with Winston Churchill, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those others that have been tried." ;-)
Quote from: edkyle99 on 03/03/2009 02:47 pmIt seems to me that requiring NASA to "support" the "commercial" U.S. launch industry This should be done by NASA issuing an RFP*, specifying payload mass, orbit parameters, spacecraft services, GSE requirements, etc, just like it does for unmanned launches. * safety requirements would be added.MFSC should not be designing Ares
It seems to me that requiring NASA to "support" the "commercial" U.S. launch industry
Quote from: Jim on 03/03/2009 02:56 pmQuote from: edkyle99 on 03/03/2009 02:47 pmIt seems to me that requiring NASA to "support" the "commercial" U.S. launch industry This should be done by NASA issuing an RFP*, specifying payload mass, orbit parameters, spacecraft services, GSE requirements, etc, just like it does for unmanned launches. * safety requirements would be added.MFSC should not be designing AresThen who should? PLEASE tell me where the Chief Designer is sir!
Quote from: Lobo on 03/04/2009 11:52 pmThe ultimate problem with ours or any other democratic republic, or other form of partimentary democracy, is sooner or later, you get a majority of people taking rather than contributing. Western Europe's already there, and we're getting very close if not there right now. "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury."Not sure who originally coined that (there's some doubt about the actual person who first said it), but that's where democracy's eventually head to.Eventually? How long UK is a de-facto democracy? Do you see signs of it becoming something else? Like what?QuoteIt'll still look like a democracy on the outside. It'd still have it parlementary system. Just like we'd still have our White House and Congress. But you develop a permanent majority, which then can strip down the powers of the minority. Historically, the majority in power is reluctant to do that because they may be the minority part again some time. But once you have a permanent majority, you can pretty much cut the minority out entirely of having any influence.And what do you need to have a permanent majority party? Just work it so that a majority of the population doesn't pay taxes, and are dependant in some manner on the government. The tax paying minority never has the votes to gain any say again, and the majority keeps the politicians in power to will maintain that status quo. We're almost there already, and with the current policies being pushed, we'll likely be there before long.Once you get that, do you really have a democracy any more?Technically yes. But you really have more of an oligarchy.Technically, Nazi Germany was still a democracy. But once the Nazi's got not only into power, but worked themselves a permanent majority, then the Reichstag was little more than window dressing, like the British Monarchy is today.Of course today in Western Europe and here in the US it woudn't be with the bloodshed of the Nazi's, I don't mean to draw any such comparisons, but it's be a dependant nanny-state, where the majority won't vote out the hand that feeds them, and eventually the minority will tire of footing the entire bill and having no say in how all their tax money is spent. "Taxation without representation". And they'll stop trying or move away...which is why true Socialism never works anywhere it's been tried, and socialist style democracies like you see in Western Europe only function minimally.There's a saying that goes, "Socialism only works until you run out of other people's money".But yea, this is really a side topic. Sorry to get off on the tangent!:-)Now, to the main topic of the US government operating a HLV, I do think they should. But even the HLV's they operate are already consctructed by private contractors. So in essence, what you advocate is already being done. Just that NASA takes ownership of the finished vehicle and operates it. For unmanned cargo it's probably not such an issue to ship your payload to a separate company so they can launch it for you, but when it's -your- astronauts, I think it's best to have more control over the vehicle.Just my 2 cents.
It'll still look like a democracy on the outside. It'd still have it parlementary system. Just like we'd still have our White House and Congress. But you develop a permanent majority, which then can strip down the powers of the minority. Historically, the majority in power is reluctant to do that because they may be the minority part again some time. But once you have a permanent majority, you can pretty much cut the minority out entirely of having any influence.And what do you need to have a permanent majority party? Just work it so that a majority of the population doesn't pay taxes, and are dependant in some manner on the government. The tax paying minority never has the votes to gain any say again, and the majority keeps the politicians in power to will maintain that status quo. We're almost there already, and with the current policies being pushed, we'll likely be there before long.Once you get that, do you really have a democracy any more?Technically yes. But you really have more of an oligarchy.Technically, Nazi Germany was still a democracy. But once the Nazi's got not only into power, but worked themselves a permanent majority, then the Reichstag was little more than window dressing, like the British Monarchy is today.Of course today in Western Europe and here in the US it woudn't be with the bloodshed of the Nazi's, I don't mean to draw any such comparisons, but it's be a dependant nanny-state, where the majority won't vote out the hand that feeds them, and eventually the minority will tire of footing the entire bill and having no say in how all their tax money is spent. "Taxation without representation". And they'll stop trying or move away...which is why true Socialism never works anywhere it's been tried, and socialist style democracies like you see in Western Europe only function minimally.There's a saying that goes, "Socialism only works until you run out of other people's money".But yea, this is really a side topic. Sorry to get off on the tangent!:-)Now, to the main topic of the US government operating a HLV, I do think they should. But even the HLV's they operate are already consctructed by private contractors. So in essence, what you advocate is already being done. Just that NASA takes ownership of the finished vehicle and operates it. For unmanned cargo it's probably not such an issue to ship your payload to a separate company so they can launch it for you, but when it's -your- astronauts, I think it's best to have more control over the vehicle.Just my 2 cents.
Quote from: Integrator on 03/05/2009 11:25 amQuote from: Jim on 03/03/2009 02:56 pmQuote from: edkyle99 on 03/03/2009 02:47 pmIt seems to me that requiring NASA to "support" the "commercial" U.S. launch industry This should be done by NASA issuing an RFP*, specifying payload mass, orbit parameters, spacecraft services, GSE requirements, etc, just like it does for unmanned launches. * safety requirements would be added.MFSC should not be designing AresThen who should? PLEASE tell me where the Chief Designer is sir!There is no such thing. Developing an architecture and putting it into requirements does not need a chief designer. Neither does taking the requirements and turning them into a rocket. Chief Designer is a misnomer. Von Braun was never one for the US
Werner Von Braun was most assuredly the Chief Designer. He had a staff, and consulted them carefully and often. He asked for and took their advise, but in the end all the major design decisions were his and his alone. He was the Chief Designer.
TrueGrit, I agree completely.Though there is nothing preventing NASA from specifying certain conditions in that process too. For example, they could define the contract bid process in such a way as, perhaps:-"The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 requires the next generation vehicle to be based on as much of the Shuttle infrastructure and workforce as possible, so contractors are instructed to bear this requirement in mind".That would still have allowed the contractors to leverage their own expertise, while also allowing NASA to stick to the requirements imposed upon them from above too.But no, the new Administrator had a pre-potted plan in mind, refused to listen to anyone else, and here we are today trying to work out how best to fix the mess we find ourselves in now.Ross.
Even if Falcon 9 Heavy were available and reliable, at the prices listed on the web site (which are a couple years old now I think), it would still cost $800 million or more just to launch one mission into LEO. The payload and TLI stage would probably cost a billion or two on top of that. This doesn't include the infrastructure to process and launch a bunch of Heavies in a hurry. SpaceX has been puttering around at SLC 40 for the better part of a year now without an operational launch site to show for it to date. How long would it take the company to get three or four pads - or processing hangers and extra transporter erectors - into service, and at what cost? It would take 224 Merlin 1C engines to put up one lunar mission. How long to build and test all of those engines? - Ed Kyle
Quote from: ChuckC on 03/06/2009 02:26 pmSo given that experience what is really needed to get costs down to say S20 / lb and is that even possible.Higher flight rates. But there isn't the payloads for higher flight rates. It is the chicken or the egg question
So given that experience what is really needed to get costs down to say S20 / lb and is that even possible.
Maybe force CxP to use RLVs and EELVs for all parts that can be broken down into sections smaller then 30T vs HLLVs and you'll get a high flight rate to boot strap the system.
Quote from: edkyle99 on 03/04/2009 04:58 amEven if Falcon 9 Heavy were available and reliable, at the prices listed on the web site (which are a couple years old now I think), it would still cost $800 million or more just to launch one mission into LEO. The payload and TLI stage would probably cost a billion or two on top of that. This doesn't include the infrastructure to process and launch a bunch of Heavies in a hurry. SpaceX has been puttering around at SLC 40 for the better part of a year now without an operational launch site to show for it to date. How long would it take the company to get three or four pads - or processing hangers and extra transporter erectors - into service, and at what cost? It would take 224 Merlin 1C engines to put up one lunar mission. How long to build and test all of those engines? - Ed KyleDon't know - put the order in (say 12 missions over 3 years, 2,500 engines, and you might find out).How long does it take Mercedes to build 224 trucks, each with more moving parts than a Merlin 1c?
Next question - what limits pad use? How long does a pad take to cool, then how long to place an empty rocket on stand and fuel it (if you're doing this on a frequent basis)?
It used to take months to retool a car plant for a different model. Now, every car coming down the line is personalised.Point is, you can't take the current business and technical models for EELVs and extrapolate to a requirement of 100 tons per year on the lunar surface.
Rocket engines aren't trucks. The limiting factor for their delivery would be qualification testing, which means static testing on a test stand. Sufficient test stands would have to be constructed to test all of those engines. More than one engine test would have to be performed, successfully, every day, on average, to support even two lunar missions per year. Rocketdyne, at its busiest during the Atlas/Thor/Jupiter buildup, probably never had to deliver much more than one engine per day - at least not at sustained rates. Even Glushko probably never had to deliver engines at a substantially faster rate than that. But four lunar missions per year would require 4-5 Merlin engines to be delivered (fully qualified) every *day*. - Ed Kyle
Regarding qualification, does anyone have a guess at what point one would decide to trust the manufacturing process? Say you flew a thousand engines, and only two or three of them failed. Is that a rate you could live with? Type of failure? Two or three explosions, no; two or three flame-outs, yes?