SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)

[Robotbeat]

...
(The slashes indicate the end-points of my personal range of reactions to Musk's claims :-) )

[oiorionsbelt]

Elon, "Mars is great. It's a bit of a fixer upper"

[Karloss12]

Hadn't seen this posted before. BBC interview with Elon. Of particular interest is the 20-minute audio interview. Elon gives some more details on the "move-to-mars" plan/fantasy, and the interviewer does a pretty good job of not getting blown over by Elon's vision/bluster.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17439490

paraphrased quote: "we'll reveal more details about that plan later this year"

That'll be fascinating/amusing.

-Jeff

(The slashes indicate the end-points of my personal range of reactions to Musk's claims :-) )

He says the first return trip to the surface of mars will be within 10 to 15 years.  And 10 years later a return ticket would cost $500k.

He stresses that it absolutely depends on the hardware being completely and rapidly reusable for thousands of times.  And that the mars lander is refueled on the surface of mars.

When it comes down to it the only load the capsule takes is internal pressure.  Passenger aircraft are far more complex structures.  Even jet engines are far more complex then rockets when in service.

He has basically calculated how much it costs to get the weight of a person, food and mars landing fuel to leave earths orbit.  Add a 5% profit margin and there you are.  Doesn't take rocket scientist to make that calculation.

His solution to shielding the space craft from solar storms is to point a column of water at the sun....damn, I wish I thought of that one. :-)

[grdja]

Water shields have been suggested often, but the one he suggests only shields from the sun, and there is a lot of talk that cosmic rays are also a significant risk.

[Robotbeat]

Water shields have been suggested often, but the one he suggests only shields from the sun, and there is a lot of talk that cosmic rays are also a significant risk.

No, it's really not that much of a risk, not if you're staying on Mars and only need the 6 month trip to get there... That's about the same radiation dose as a year on ISS (several Russian astronauts and even American astronauts have spent that much time in space). We're talking about a couple percent increase in cancer risk, not that great and not even over the (somewhat arbitrary) astronaut limit. The rest of the risks on the trip is a far greater risk to life than the slight cancer risk from GCRs.

[QuantumG]

That's the best case scenario, yes.

The annual GCR dose equivalent in free space during solar minimum is estimated to be 120 cSv.

Free space GCR dose estimate: 3284 uSv/day (solar minimum)  1095 uSv/day (solar maximum)
LEO average: 500 uSv/day which includes 300 uSv/day from GCR
LEO during solar minimum:  650 uSv/day

I don't think it would have any effect on an exploration mission, but I expect fertility rates will be lower on Mars

[manboy]

So do we know who SpaceX plans to contract for the pressure suits (David Clark, ILC Dover, Orbital Outfitters...)?

[Robotbeat]

So do we know who SpaceX plans to contract for the pressure suits (David Clark, ILC Dover, Orbital Outfitters...)?

Good question, I think this provides something of an answer:

One of the NASA CCDev PDF's showed SpaceX's partners but they were  blacked out. Later a ppt by NASA's Maria Collura let all 9 cats out of the bag.

ILC Dover, Oceaneering International and Orbital Outfitters are three of SpaceX's partners. ILC Dover and Oceaneering are partnered in creating a suit for MPCV and Orbital Outfitters is working with XCOR on suits for Lynx II.

[Comga]

VASIMR?

SAGE III-ISS? OCO-3? PRELSE II? EuTEF-2?

Yes, SAGE-III-ISS.  It is public knowledge, as can be seen in this Facebook image.  "Launch and Installation - Manifest: August 2014 (SpaceX Falcon 9 Dragon Trunk)"

[Maciej Olesinski]

Not THAT official but said by NASA. In august there will be another Falcon 9 start.
Starts 7:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=16rfcTbU_D4#t=452s

Also he seems to belive strongly in SpaceX if i understand correctly.

[go4mars]

That's the best case scenario, yes.

The annual GCR dose equivalent in free space during solar minimum is estimated to be 120 cSv.

Free space GCR dose estimate: 3284 uSv/day (solar minimum)  1095 uSv/day (solar maximum)
LEO average: 500 uSv/day which includes 300 uSv/day from GCR
LEO during solar minimum:  650 uSv/day

I don't think it would have any effect on an exploration mission, but I expect fertility rates will be lower on Mars

So about 2-4 BED's per day (before shielding)?   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose

[manboy]

Talks about Super Draco. The stand they fired from recently is temporary and they're in the final stages of building a true test stand for it. "Physically, they've done a couple of iterations of their Super Draco design, optimized its performance and its five operating limits", and "now in the future its about to get even more interesting as they are actually going to start manufacturing flight-like components for their Super Draco engines". The next crew trial test will involve suit simulators and a slightly higher fidelity mock-up.

[dcporter]

"flight-like?"

[Robotbeat]

"flight-like?"

When you first develop a new rocket engine and are just examining performance and efficiency and combustion stability, etc, you don't bother spending the money and time to make it lightweight and machine out every last bit of metal that isn't necessary, etc. You use COTS valves and other components.

Flight-like means you spend effort making it lightweight and use aerospace-grade, flightweight components which are generally a lot more expensive.

It's much better to avoid wasting time on flight-like components when you're doing the earliest iterations of a rocket engine and haven't pinned everything down, yet. That's why they were already able to do several versions of SuperDraco already (and why the first tests of Merlin could occur within a year of SpaceX's founding).

[mr. mark]

Ok, so say I win the Mega Millions lotto and get the 500 million dollar prize. Wonder what SpaceX could accomplish with a 100 million dollar donation to manned Dragon?

[dcporter]

Ok, so say I win the Mega Millions lotto and get the 500 million dollar prize. Wonder what SpaceX could accomplish with a 100 million dollar donation to manned Dragon?

I wonder this too. There are lots of rich nerds that don't want to own their own rocket company; would Musk take megakickstart donations?

[Lurker Steve]

Ok, so say I win the Mega Millions lotto and get the 500 million dollar prize. Wonder what SpaceX could accomplish with a 100 million dollar donation to manned Dragon?

I'm convinced that no amount of money can bring the schedule to the left. They might be ready for certification in 2017. No earlier.

If there is something that more money can buy to move the schedule to the left, speak up. Congress was willing to add more money to the original COTS funding for risk reduction activities. If there are specific tasks that should be funded, and it can be justified as something that definately removes risk from the schedule slipping even farther to the right, list them out. Put the list in front of the appropriations committee's now. Otherwise, we are just asking for more money with no plan on where it gets spent. 

[Dalhousie]

The annual GCR dose equivalent in free space during solar minimum is estimated to be 120 cSv.

Free space GCR dose estimate: 3284 uSv/day (solar minimum)  1095 uSv/day (solar maximum)
LEO average: 500 uSv/day which includes 300 uSv/day from GCR
LEO during solar minimum:  650 uSv/day

Where are these numbers from?

I assume all values are unshielded?

Do you have average free space values that combines solar and galactic sources?

[david1971]

Ok, so say I win the Mega Millions lotto and get the 500 million dollar prize. Wonder what SpaceX could accomplish with a 100 million dollar donation to manned Dragon?

I'd be more interested with what Bigelow would do with a spare $100M. 

OK, maybe it would end up as nothing more than mess of really cool scale models, but isn't the thinking that we already have too many LV/spacecraft candidates, but not enough places to go?

[Geron]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahelliott/2012/03/26/at-home-with-elon-musk-the-soon-to-be-bachelor-billionaire/

A little bit in there on SpaceX. I hope that the launch goes well on April 30th. Seems like there is a lot of press interest in the venture.

I wonder if a paying customer would be able to take Dragon for a spin around the earth without a launch escape system?