Author Topic: SpaceX's Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship Updates and Discussion Thread 3  (Read 1424382 times)

Online meekGee

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Jim has a point here. But I think the reason is different than he views it. Many people are very interested in SpaceX for its disruptive nature. The progress of SpaceX is fast in terms of rocket companies. But it's very slow in terms of people's daily media consumption and hunger for information. In the limbo between true progress and perceived snail crawl, people start occupying themselves with minute and inconsequential details. Nothing bad about it, and nothing worth criticising. As is the other way around. Overexcited people should accept Jims concentration on the important stuff. It might reduce the clatter in this forum.

Cheers, Semmel.

PS: can we move these last posts to some more appropriate place? I prefer them not to be deleted. ;-)
Forgetting the elevator shaft for a minute, let's talk barge.

A small detail? Maybe.  Like the first aircraft carrier was a small detail in the world of aviation.

It doesn't fly.  It just enables a whole set of otherwise impossible missions, is a fascinating engineering topic all by itself, and carrier ops are doubly interesting.

So if an airplane buff finds carriers less interesting, he should simply stay away from the aircraft carrier threads...  What's the harm about people talking about carriers?
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Offline woods170

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So if an airplane buff finds carriers less interesting, he should simply stay away from the aircraft carrier threads...  What's the harm about people talking about carriers?
None. As long as you don't do it here. Off-topic.

Offline dglow

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So if an airplane buff finds carriers less interesting, he should simply stay away from the aircraft carrier threads...  What's the harm about people talking about carriers?
None. As long as you don't do it here. Off-topic.

Completely on-topic by way of analogy. The 'carrier' is the subject of this thread.

Re: ASDS, will SpaceX need a third to service Boca Chica? Some have speculated JRTI OCISLY could sail into the Gulf when required, but I don't see how that works with the flight rate across three pads. What's the transit time between the space coast and southern tip of Texas?

EDIT: wrong ASDS
« Last Edit: 01/25/2017 06:18 pm by dglow »

Offline Kansan52

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Memory says it take months to transfer JRtI through the canal. It's width is too great for the passage and was transited with the parts on the deck and attached when berthed on the west coast.

Offline old_sellsword

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Memory says it take months to transfer JRtI through the canal. It's width is too great for the passage and was transited with the parts on the deck and attached when berthed on the west coast.

Going around the tip of Florida and over to Texas doesn't require the Panama canal, so everything would presumably stay attached.

Offline envy887

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Re: ASDS, will SpaceX need a third to service Boca Chica? Some have speculated JRTI could sail into the Gulf when required, but I don't see how that works with the flight rate across three pads. What's the transit time between the space coast and southern tip of Texas?

JRTI is in the Pacific, it would take at least 1 week to get it to the Gulf (IIRC it can transit the recently widened canal intact). OCISLY could probably get to Brownsville in 2 or 3 days.

Offline Lar

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So if an airplane buff finds carriers less interesting, he should simply stay away from the aircraft carrier threads...  What's the harm about people talking about carriers?
None. As long as you don't do it here. Off-topic.

It's an analogy. On topic for the purpose of explaining why talking about soil wicking is on topic.

But off topic for here, in the sense that the meta discussion of what is on and off topic is getting out of hand. We mods DO appreciate self moderation when it doesn't dominate the whole thread... that would not be at present though. Many more posts on this than needful.

Further, let's not cast aspersions on each others motivations, call each other fan bois[1] , argue about who is more devoted to space exploration, and etc... because it's just no fun.

1 - please look up the difference between boi and boy, it's not a nice thing to call anyone unless you know them really well in a context that is not appropriate here at all.
« Last Edit: 01/25/2017 06:25 pm by Lar »
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline JamesH65

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I regard the whole area of space as an opportunity to learn stuff - I'm too old to take part. And that includes soil wicks etc.  The average person can learn a lot in related side discussions. I work for an education charity (well, the trading arm anyway) and I am very much in favour of a holistic approach to learning - children and adults learn a lot from these side excursions which others might find stupid or unnecessary.

Never 'dis' an opportunity to learn. You are getting less and less education from schools, you have to make it up somewhere.


Offline acsawdey

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Re: ASDS, will SpaceX need a third to service Boca Chica? Some have speculated JRTI could sail into the Gulf when required, but I don't see how that works with the flight rate across three pads. What's the transit time between the space coast and southern tip of Texas?

JRTI is in the Pacific, it would take at least 1 week to get it to the Gulf (IIRC it can transit the recently widened canal intact). OCISLY could probably get to Brownsville in 2 or 3 days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamax

Seems like the ASDS is in a gray area. The "New Panamax" dimensions say maximum beam is 49 meters or ~161 feet. I thought the ASDS was about 170' wide. However the actual lock dimensions are 55 meters or 180'. So it might be a case of a special permit or some such. One would think if they used the onboard thrusters it could be maneuvered a whole lot more precisely than the average vessel that transits the locks.

Offline MarekCyzio

Poor OCISLY - it has a huge hole:

Offline Coastal Ron

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Poor OCISLY - it has a huge hole:

Maybe I'm missing it, but all I see if material stacked on the deck.  Where do you see the hole?
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline Johnnyhinbos

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Poor OCISLY - it has a huge hole:
I _think_ what you're seeing as a hole is actually some kind of ribbed stringer laid out on the deck, though it fully does look like a hole! For me the tell is there would be all kinds of OSHA mandated barricades around such a hole, yet there's nothing.
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Offline topo334

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I agree. I opened up the image (runs off a 21" monitor)! I see an I beam with tabs welded to the riser and the ears. Until I enlarged the pic. it sort of resembled a gash in the deck.

Online meekGee

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Agreed that it looks like a hole but probably isn't.

But if it isn't - wth is it?
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Offline cro-magnon gramps

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hope this helps, I have a 42 in monitor, and all I see is equipment on the deck...
Looks like some kind of wall waiting to be put up and some iron mongering :)
no holes or suspicious objects...
Gramps "Earthling by Birth, Martian by the grace of The Elon." ~ "Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but it has not solved one yet." Maya Angelou ~ Tony Benn: "Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself."

Online matthewkantar

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The object on the deck is the blast wall that has been taken down to allow work on the shipping container that was behind it. I do not think there is a hole.

Matthew

Online meekGee

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If you compare to the picture here:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39766.msg1630719#msg1630719

(reverse angle, two weeks ago) you'll see some of the elements on the deck - the wooden platforms, the smaller welded beams, etc.

There is a new staircase leading to the raised container, so it's probably not temporary, and this again begs the question - what is going to fit underneath?

The reverse angle picture also shows that the new mystery welded structure is not the missing blast wall, since A) that blast wall is missing in the older picture too, and B) you can see the cross section, and it's not similar to what we're seeing in the new picture.


« Last Edit: 01/29/2017 02:03 am by meekGee »
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Online matthewkantar

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They may install a door in the blast wall to allow access to the newly free space under the raised container. Seems like a lot of work to create a small amount of deck level storage, but they did have a little Spider lift destroyed by a hard landing. Maybe they need a secure little garage?

Matthew

Online CameronD

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Agreed that it looks like a hole but probably isn't.

But if it isn't - wth is it?

Those cut sections really do look like deck beams to me.  We don't have much to go on, but one possible explanation is in order to elevate that container, they decided they needed to strengthen the deck beneath and around the support 'legs' to distribute the load.  Given there are no access hatches into that area, they'd need to cut out and replace some of the substructure in the process.
« Last Edit: 01/29/2017 09:43 pm by CameronD »
With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine - however, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are
going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.

Online CameronD

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They may install a door in the blast wall to allow access to the newly free space under the raised container. Seems like a lot of work to create a small amount of deck level storage, but they did have a little Spider lift destroyed by a hard landing. Maybe they need a secure little garage?

Noting the position of the EWP parked under there (to test fit?), you could be right.  Under the container would make a very secure little 'garage' for protected storage of work platforms when not in use.  Perhaps, to speed things up dockside, they plan to so a lot more 'pre-processing' aboard the ASDS on the tow back to shore.

It will be interesting to see if they do the same thing to JRtI. 
« Last Edit: 01/29/2017 09:50 pm by CameronD »
With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine - however, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are
going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.

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