Author Topic: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened  (Read 11287 times)

Offline sdsds

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Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« on: 07/29/2014 11:03 pm »
I'm hoping to compile a list of "Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened." As examples to get discussion started:

- Falcon 5
- Falcon 1e
- Falcon 9 Block II
- First FH from Vandenberg

Are there others?

[EDIT to add suggestions from below:
- Falcon Air
- Merlin 1B
- Magic Dragon
- Merlin 2
- Hydrolox Raptor
]
« Last Edit: 08/06/2014 03:11 am by sdsds »
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Offline mhlas7

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Offline GregA

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #2 on: 07/29/2014 11:32 pm »
Falcon 9 Air

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_Air
Yes that would have been a cool project. I imagine the larger Falcon 9 1.1 nixed that.
The concept of "what alternative 'first stages' are possible while the rocket is still in the atmosphere" is a good one.

Offline Lars_J

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #3 on: 07/30/2014 12:10 am »
Falcon 9 Air

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_Air

A more accurate name would have been Falcon 4 Air or Falcon 5 Air.

Offline sdsds

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #4 on: 07/30/2014 12:14 am »
Yes, definitely "Falcon Air" (whatever number). How about Merlin 1B? Is that generally acknowledged to be "cool but never happened"?
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Offline Owlon

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #5 on: 07/30/2014 12:23 am »
Yes, definitely "Falcon Air" (whatever number). How about Merlin 1B? Is that generally acknowledged to be "cool but never happened"?

I'm pretty sure the Merlin 1B "happened" in that it was developed, but it was definitely never flown.

Offline QuantumG

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #6 on: 07/30/2014 12:30 am »
Revolutionizing the smallsat market with the Falcon 1e.
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Offline king1999

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #7 on: 07/30/2014 01:05 am »
Revolutionizing the smallsat market with the Falcon 1e.

Now FireFly picked up the torch with their Alpha.

Offline wannamoonbase

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #8 on: 07/30/2014 01:10 am »
Revolutionizing the smallsat market with the Falcon 1e.


I think Elon quickly learned there isn't much of a market for small and that it's highly competitive and a larger vehicle can just toss it overboard as a secondary cargo.  The smaller market is likelY never going to materialize. 

I think the Falcon 5 on Stratolaunch would be my pick for bmost interesting aborted project. 
Wildly optimistic prediction, Superheavy recovery on IFT-4 or IFT-5

Offline Lars_J

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #9 on: 07/30/2014 01:12 am »
Revolutionizing the smallsat market with the Falcon 1e.

Now FireFly picked up the torch with their Alpha.

And we'll see how much smallsat market there truly is to revolutionize.

Offline Llian Rhydderch

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #10 on: 07/30/2014 04:18 am »
I think Wikipedia has had that list compiled for a while now, for the Falcon rockets anyway, try this: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_%28rocket_family%29
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Offline neilh

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #11 on: 07/30/2014 04:56 am »
I suppose there's also Mars Oasis, which essentially started it all.
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Offline sdsds

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #12 on: 07/30/2014 06:03 am »
I suppose there's also Mars Oasis, which essentially started it all.

Ah, indeed! But didn't that predate SpaceX, i.e. wasn't SpaceX founded because Mars Oasis couldn't find a launch vehicle?

I've added Falcon Air and Merlin 1B to the list in the first post. (Falcon 1e was already there.)

What about parachute recovery of a Falcon first stage? It would have been cool, and it almost happened. So... yes?
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Offline Lars_J

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #13 on: 07/30/2014 06:11 am »
Yes, definitely "Falcon Air" (whatever number). How about Merlin 1B? Is that generally acknowledged to be "cool but never happened"?

I'm pretty sure the Merlin 1B "happened" in that it was developed, but it was definitely never flown.

Exactly... And given that it was immediately replaced by the much superior M1C, I'm not sure it qualifies for the "cool" part of the "cool but never happened" criteria.

Offline DJPledger

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #14 on: 07/30/2014 07:34 am »
The Merlin 2 was planned for Falcon X/XX and got to a fairly high level of design before being cancelled in favour of Raptor for BFR. Merlin 2 would have been more powerful than the F-1 engine.

Offline Dudely

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #15 on: 07/30/2014 02:38 pm »
I suppose there's also Mars Oasis, which essentially started it all.

Ah, indeed! But didn't that predate SpaceX, i.e. wasn't SpaceX founded because Mars Oasis couldn't find a launch vehicle?

I've added Falcon Air and Merlin 1B to the list in the first post. (Falcon 1e was already there.)

What about parachute recovery of a Falcon first stage? It would have been cool, and it almost happened. So... yes?

I thought parachutes were attempted and then cancelled after it failed?

Also, SpaceX was, basically, Mars Oasis renamed and with a different objective.

Offline solartear

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #16 on: 07/30/2014 03:41 pm »
Hydrogen fuel upper stage cancelled for methane fuel Raptor.

Offline anonymousgerbil

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Offline Sesquipedalian

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #18 on: 07/31/2014 04:57 am »
- Falcon 9 Block II

Isn't this the Falcon 9 v1.1?

Offline sdsds

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #19 on: 07/31/2014 05:07 am »
- Falcon 9 Block II

Isn't this the Falcon 9 v1.1?

I'll leave it to others to provide details (or not ;) ) but in short Falcon 9 Block II was planned before the full performance gains of Merlin 1D were understood. Once SpaceX took those gains into account they decided to cancel Block II and do a rather more complete upgrade of the F9 vehicle, and thus v1.1 was born.

[P.S.: I added Magic Dragon to the list in the first post.]
« Last Edit: 07/31/2014 05:13 am by sdsds »
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Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #20 on: 07/31/2014 05:28 am »
- Falcon 9 Block II

Isn't this the Falcon 9 v1.1?

No. It was cancel in favor of the F9 V1.1. It was a more capable version of the Falcon V1.0 AKA Falcon 9 Block I with upgraded Merlin 1C engines.

Offline baldusi

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #21 on: 07/31/2014 02:02 pm »
- Falcon 9 Block II

Isn't this the Falcon 9 v1.1?
The original Merlin 1C was an 85klbf engine (at sea level) for the Falcon 1. When they win the COTS contract they propose to increase the thrust to 125klbf and use 9 instead of the 5 they had proposed for the Falcon 5. This was supposed to be the definitive Falcon 9 (i.e. Block II). But they could only push the Merlin 1C to 95klbf at first. And that's the version of F9 that was retroactively renamed to v1.0. If you look at the 2009 Payload User's Guide, you'll not that they talk about Block I and Block II.
Incidentally, they had planed fro Block II to be reusable by means of parachute deployment. They discovered after the first launch of v1.0 that the cores were burning on atmosphere reentry, and thus they would need a retro burn. Then they arrived at the conclusion that the optimum was to do fully retropropulsive return. And they learned a lot about mass manufacturing. The aileron and tringer construction of the Falcon 1's tanks was fine for such a small rocket, but once implemented at the F9 scale it was very manual labor intensive. The Merlin 1C construction had similar issues. And a long list of etc.
So, while the original idea was to uprate the engines and may be extend the tanks a bit mutated to a completely new engine that shared nothing but inspiration with the first incarnation. I'm talking about the v1.1, of course.

Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #22 on: 07/31/2014 02:50 pm »
They discovered after the first launch of v1.0 that the cores were burning on atmosphere reentry
I thought they were just torn apart during the uncontrolled and way to fast reentry. I never heard that they were actually burning. That would be rather odd given the speeds involved.

Offline baldusi

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #23 on: 07/31/2014 03:57 pm »
They discovered after the first launch of v1.0 that the cores were burning on atmosphere reentry
I thought they were just torn apart during the uncontrolled and way to fast reentry. I never heard that they were actually burning. That would be rather odd given the speeds involved.
I might be misremembering. I think Elon stated about a "sort of bellyflop" and then the stage was destroyed.

Offline Dudely

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #24 on: 07/31/2014 04:26 pm »
The original intention was to bellyflop the cores with the aid of parachutes. They tried, and it didn't work- it was destroyed. Then they took the parachutes off and waited for 1.1 for powered landing.

I have also heard that eventually going to powered landing was decided upon before the parachutes failed.

Offline sdsds

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #25 on: 08/02/2014 10:20 pm »
Merlin 2 [...] got to a fairly high level of design before being cancelled in favour of Raptor

I'm on the edge about this one. Is there a public source of information on how close to "almost happening" this came?

Hydrogen fuel upper stage cancelled for methane fuel Raptor.

I never heard of a serious LH2 plan at SpaceX. Details?
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Offline go4mars

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #26 on: 08/05/2014 10:49 pm »
I never heard of a serious LH2 plan at SpaceX. Details?
There were diagrams and specifications, I believe in the "Markusic presentation".  IIRC, the engine nozzle > 11 meters diameter. 

Also, Merlin 2 was going to be >3.6 million pounds thrust per engine at one point.  Noteworthy IMO.
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Offline baldusi

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #27 on: 08/06/2014 12:42 am »
The Markusic presentation had a render and a point diagram of each hydrolox Raptor (150klbf) and Merlin 2 (1.7Mlbf at Sea Level, 1.92Mlbf vac). Point diagram means that they had temperature and flow mass at every interesting point. IIRC hydrolox Raptor nozzle wasn't 11m. It had a big expansion ration, but only because it had SSME like Pc.

Offline sdsds

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #28 on: 08/06/2014 03:12 am »
OK, based on those summaries of the Markusic source I've added both hydrolox Raptor and Merlin 2 to the list. Thanks!
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Offline anonymousgerbil

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Re: Cool SpaceX Projects That Almost Happened
« Reply #29 on: 08/06/2014 09:20 pm »
How long before we can add Dragonlab to this list?

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