Remember when the Obama administration wanted NASA to become (revert back to) a renewed cutting edge R&D role in rocket propulsion and those same congressional folks pooh poohed all over it... I find it hard to suppress my laughter sometimes if it wasn't so sad...
Quote from: Rocket Science on 04/24/2018 12:53 amRemember when the Obama administration wanted NASA to become (revert back to) a renewed cutting edge R&D role in rocket propulsion and those same congressional folks pooh poohed all over it... I find it hard to suppress my laughter sometimes if it wasn't so sad...The Obama administration recognized that it made no sense for NASA to be in the rocket building business. Unfortunately, the folks in US Congress lacked that insight. That has led directly to the mess called SLS & Orion.
Quote from: PhotoEngineer on 04/23/2018 11:53 pmAs someone who has seen many of today's rockets which are in development up close, and also spent a lot of time at MSFC, they are definitely holding their own in the advanced tech dept. A lot of the things they work on get percolated out to industry - and perhaps the first time you hear about them is in a SpaceX press release. Being able to try new ideas without worrying about return on investment is incredibly freeing, and the industry needs that to keep pushing forward (in combination with a strong commercial sector). Just my 2 cents.Can you give some examples?
As someone who has seen many of today's rockets which are in development up close, and also spent a lot of time at MSFC, they are definitely holding their own in the advanced tech dept. A lot of the things they work on get percolated out to industry - and perhaps the first time you hear about them is in a SpaceX press release. Being able to try new ideas without worrying about return on investment is incredibly freeing, and the industry needs that to keep pushing forward (in combination with a strong commercial sector). Just my 2 cents.
Quote from: ChrisWilson68 on 04/24/2018 12:22 amQuote from: PhotoEngineer on 04/23/2018 11:53 pmAs someone who has seen many of today's rockets which are in development up close, and also spent a lot of time at MSFC, they are definitely holding their own in the advanced tech dept. A lot of the things they work on get percolated out to industry - and perhaps the first time you hear about them is in a SpaceX press release. Being able to try new ideas without worrying about return on investment is incredibly freeing, and the industry needs that to keep pushing forward (in combination with a strong commercial sector). Just my 2 cents.Can you give some examples?The work being done to improve GRCop AM for example. A lot of the work for alloy development was done at Glenn and then the build / hot fire testing at MSFC. This work led directly to the RL10 copper chamber, notice the press release never mentioned the foundation of NASA work that helped out. http://www.rocket.com/article/aerojet-rocketdyne-achieves-3-d-printing-milestone-successful-testing-full-scale-rl10-copper
Quote from: PhotoEngineer on 04/28/2018 09:43 pmQuote from: ChrisWilson68 on 04/24/2018 12:22 amQuote from: PhotoEngineer on 04/23/2018 11:53 pmAs someone who has seen many of today's rockets which are in development up close, and also spent a lot of time at MSFC, they are definitely holding their own in the advanced tech dept. A lot of the things they work on get percolated out to industry - and perhaps the first time you hear about them is in a SpaceX press release. Being able to try new ideas without worrying about return on investment is incredibly freeing, and the industry needs that to keep pushing forward (in combination with a strong commercial sector). Just my 2 cents.Can you give some examples?The work being done to improve GRCop AM for example. A lot of the work for alloy development was done at Glenn and then the build / hot fire testing at MSFC. This work led directly to the RL10 copper chamber, notice the press release never mentioned the foundation of NASA work that helped out. http://www.rocket.com/article/aerojet-rocketdyne-achieves-3-d-printing-milestone-successful-testing-full-scale-rl10-copperThanks. Of course, in your original comment you said a SpaceX press release, but this is an Aerojet-Rocketdyne press release. I wonder if the kind of work MSFC does these days is more relevant to AR than to SpaceX.Of course, SpaceX is based on a foundation of basic research done by NASA and many other organizations. I'm just wondering how relevant what MSFC does today is to what SpaceX does today. My sense is that they've diverged and that they are following very different paths at this point, for the most part.
I was talking this past week with an industry professional who was railing against SpaceX for not giving credit to those people who helped it out. So it's still very applicable.
An example for SpaceX is the Merlin engines, the first generation of them was basically the NASA Fastrac engine developed by MSFC. It definitely helps your R&D if your baseline is an engine that has already been successfully tested.
Remember the original question was how do places like NASA MSFC add value to companies like SpaceX, so very glad to see a lot of people aware of some of the contributions.
Regarding NASA talking about SpaceX iterating and improving on the base technology, aside from their spinoff reports I have never seen NASA talk about improvements another company made - doing so seems like a good way to get into legal trouble.
Regarding MSFC work into rockets without refurb, yes definitely. Air starts and supersonic retro propulsion definitely benefited from NASA groundwork - involving a number of the centers (Glenn, Ames, Armstrong, etc). Lot's of papers around on this subject.
Marshall should go look at BFR/BFS and decide what technology they can develop to get out ahead of that beast.
Now we have a discussion! SpaceX is doing amazing work, I love it and love seeing where they are pushing the limits of technology. Remember the original question was how do places like NASA MSFC add value to companies like SpaceX, so very glad to see a lot of people aware of some of the contributions.
Politicians trying to get out in front and 'lead':QuoteThe “American Leadership in Space Technology and Advanced Rocketry Act” would designate NASA MSFC as providing “rocket propulsion leadership” for the US. The “Commercial Space Support Vehicle Act” covers licensing of vehicles that support comm’l launches. http://bit.ly/2ICVLGj https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/975897395794935808QuoteThe legislation designates Marshall Space Flight Center as NASA’s lead center for rocket propulsion and establishes it as essential to sustaining and promoting U.S. leadership in rocket propulsion and developing the next generation of rocket propulsion capabilities. And it's not April 1st yet.
The “American Leadership in Space Technology and Advanced Rocketry Act” would designate NASA MSFC as providing “rocket propulsion leadership” for the US. The “Commercial Space Support Vehicle Act” covers licensing of vehicles that support comm’l launches. http://bit.ly/2ICVLGj
The legislation designates Marshall Space Flight Center as NASA’s lead center for rocket propulsion and establishes it as essential to sustaining and promoting U.S. leadership in rocket propulsion and developing the next generation of rocket propulsion capabilities.
Regarding NASA talking about SpaceX iterating and improving on the base technology, aside from their spinoff reports I have never seen NASA talk about improvements another company made - doing so seems like a good way to get into legal trouble. Regarding MSFC work into rockets without refurb, yes definitely. Air starts and supersonic retro propulsion definitely benefited from NASA groundwork - involving a number of the centers (Glenn, Ames, Armstrong, etc). Lot's of papers around on this subject. If you want to see all the nitty gritty details of the exciting work being done, come to the JANNAF/AIAA conferences if you can!
SpaceX took the FASTRAC design as a starting point for Merlin 1A. However, FASTRAC had a few shortcomings. Tom Mueller and his team got rid of those and applied several dozen other improvements. The result was Merlin 1A, which was FASTRAC in cycle only. Just about everything else had been changed, modified and improved.
Quote from: woods170 on 04/29/2018 05:31 pmSpaceX took the FASTRAC design as a starting point for Merlin 1A. However, FASTRAC had a few shortcomings. Tom Mueller and his team got rid of those and applied several dozen other improvements. The result was Merlin 1A, which was FASTRAC in cycle only. Just about everything else had been changed, modified and improved.On that basis the Merlin is a "development" of the F1 on the Saturn.
Quote from: john smith 19 on 05/01/2018 06:47 amQuote from: woods170 on 04/29/2018 05:31 pmSpaceX took the FASTRAC design as a starting point for Merlin 1A. However, FASTRAC had a few shortcomings. Tom Mueller and his team got rid of those and applied several dozen other improvements. The result was Merlin 1A, which was FASTRAC in cycle only. Just about everything else had been changed, modified and improved.On that basis the Merlin is a "development" of the F1 on the Saturn. Yes, in that Merlin 1A uses a gas-generator cycle, like F1.No, in that Merlin 1A has several design features that very much set it apart from F1. For example: pintle injector.It is also this that sets Merlin 1A apart from FASTRAC. Merlin 1A uses the same design-choices as FASTRAC, but not the same design.
Quote from: woods170 on 05/01/2018 11:27 amQuote from: john smith 19 on 05/01/2018 06:47 amQuote from: woods170 on 04/29/2018 05:31 pmSpaceX took the FASTRAC design as a starting point for Merlin 1A. However, FASTRAC had a few shortcomings. Tom Mueller and his team got rid of those and applied several dozen other improvements. The result was Merlin 1A, which was FASTRAC in cycle only. Just about everything else had been changed, modified and improved.On that basis the Merlin is a "development" of the F1 on the Saturn. Yes, in that Merlin 1A uses a gas-generator cycle, like F1.No, in that Merlin 1A has several design features that very much set it apart from F1. For example: pintle injector.It is also this that sets Merlin 1A apart from FASTRAC. Merlin 1A uses the same design-choices as FASTRAC, but not the same design.Merlin 1A is ancient history. How about Merlin 1D technology -- mass, thrust, T/W ratio, cost, 3D fab parts, regen nozzle, face shutoff, ... -- how similar to FASTRAC is that? What has MSFC done with FASTRAC since 2000?
Quote from: PhotoEngineer on 04/23/2018 11:53 pmAs someone who has seen many of today's rockets which are in development up close, and also spent a lot of time at MSFC, they are definitely holding their own in the advanced tech dept. A lot of the things they work on get percolated out to industry - and perhaps the first time you hear about them is in a SpaceX press release. Being able to try new ideas without worrying about return on investment is incredibly freeing, and the industry needs that to keep pushing forward (in combination with a strong commercial sector). Just my 2 cents. Not really. Most of MSFC is not research but bodies supporting SLS.