Author Topic: Will SpaceX will begin to name the hulls? ... and should they?  (Read 29063 times)

Online CraigLieb

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I would like mission stripes on the stage narrow for ones and fat for 5s or 10s paint after mission complete,
maybe a 20 launch chevron or something to keep it from getting too cluttered.
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Offline Zed_Noir

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I would like mission stripes on the stage narrow for ones and fat for 5s or 10s paint after mission complete,
maybe a 20 launch chevron or something to keep it from getting too cluttered.

Simpler just to applied a disposable number sticker/panel indicating the number of missions flown. Musk did make that remark about minor refurbishments for about every 100 flights or so. ;)

Offline starhawk92

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Let's go college football helmet on these things and put on a red star for each RTLS landing and a blue star for each ASDS landing.

And a dart board when Elon wins drone ship landing bingo.

On the other side, start a row of the mission logos running vertically.

The NASCAR drivers will be sooooo jealous!!

Offline sevenperforce

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They should start selling advertising space to offset launch costs.

After all, a Falcon 9 would make a VERY convincing Viagra ad....

Offline Davp99

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Not many people remember the Bomber or Flight# , but mention Enola Gay...( Boeings B29 Superfortress ) Just saying....
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Online meekGee

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SpaceX should name the cores after senior executives of competing aerospace firms.  It'll make for good fun.
« Last Edit: 04/11/2016 08:41 pm by meekGee »
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Offline Zed_Noir

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Space should name the cores after senior executives of competing aerospace firms.  It'll make for good fun.

Nah. There are a lot Culture series ship names to choose from. Just saying.

Online meekGee

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Space should name the cores after senior executives of competing aerospace firms.  It'll make for good fun.

Nah. There are a lot Culture series ship names to choose from. Just saying.

That was a one time gag...   Time to up the ante...

I always thought Bezos should call his first rocket "Eve", just to pis$ Branson off ...

So by the same token...

(Jokes you can play when you're a billionaire and are building your own spaceships)
« Last Edit: 04/11/2016 08:08 pm by meekGee »
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Offline mvpel

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Space should name the cores after senior executives of competing aerospace firms.  It'll make for good fun.

Or better yet, EX senior executives.  :D

(Too soon?)
« Last Edit: 04/11/2016 08:17 pm by mvpel »
"Ugly programs are like ugly suspension bridges: they're much more liable to collapse than pretty ones, because the way humans (especially engineer-humans) perceive beauty is intimately related to our ability to process and understand complexity. A language that makes it hard to write elegant code makes it hard to write good code." - Eric S. Raymond

Offline GregA

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I like craigLieb's idea of a new stripe for every landing. It really gives a good status to reuse. People will see a rocket with 6 stripes, or 15 stripes... And they'll get recognised to some degree.

Other than that I still like name+number based on Star Wars ... with "Red 5" (etc) for the BFRs and "Blue 2" (etc) for the Falcons.

Offline Lar

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No delete yet (although I'm a big softie, other mods would)  but how about we stay serious... or at least serious-er???
"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 llanitedave

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Thing is, Elon Musk's own naming conventions have never been completely serious either, so a bit of whimsy doesn't seem too out of place.


That said, other than nearly one-off vehicles, such as Curiosity, Spirit, and Opportunity, unmanned contrivances rarely have names.  I think we're more likely to have names for Dragon capsules than for boosters, but even there, it would bee more likely if the capsule had a regular crew that interacted with it.


Although I can see also that it might be a good time to start a new tradition, or extend the old one.
"I've just abducted an alien -- now what?"

Offline sanman

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Maybe just to pull in the wider masses, SpaceX should hold a contest to allow people to submit names, which would then be filtered down to a list of suitable ones, which could then be picked by raffle or something.

But yeah, I agree that the whole NASCAR-style sponsorship idea would be pretty cool, and could end up being a substantial revenue stream for SpaceX -- at least until launches & landings get boring, and then nobody will bother to care anymore.

Offline chalz

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I think management should back off on this one and let things progress naturally. If padrats and rocket watchers learn to distinguish the stages then they will acquire names over the course of time ('lefty', 'big ass'). If the stages all work the same way and don't have any personality to them nobody will care what they are called. Similar with flight markings - planes got them because pilots were assigned craft and wanted some connection to a vehicle that their lives depended on. Most likely that will only start happening with Dragon's, but I hope to be surprised.

Offline Jet Black

If they do, I hope they pick some good ones. The ASDS names lack gravitas.
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. -- Richard Feynman

Offline rocx

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If padrats and rocket watchers learn to distinguish the stages then they will acquire names over the course of time ('lefty', 'big ass').

This is already happening in a way, most of the people in this forum refer to landed stages not by their serial number but by the mission or location of their first landing: "the first landed core", "the OG-2 first stage", "the barge landed stage", "the CRS-8 core" etc...
Any day with a rocket landing is a fantastic day.

Offline AncientU

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I would like mission stripes on the stage narrow for ones and fat for 5s or 10s paint after mission complete,
maybe a 20 launch chevron or something to keep it from getting too cluttered.

Simpler just to applied a disposable number sticker/panel indicating the number of missions flown. Musk did make that remark about minor refurbishments for about every 100 flights or so. ;)

EM said refurbishment after 10-20 flights and 100 total is core design life.

But no stages will get anywhere near those numbers until landings approach perfection.

At 50% recovery, stages will fly 2-3 times max.
At 75%, a few will exceed 5 flights.
Only when success rate is well over 90% does refurbishment at 10-20 flights even enter the picture.

At 99%, we might have cores to retire.  And name.
« Last Edit: 04/16/2016 12:33 pm by AncientU »
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Offline Lar

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If they do, I hope they pick some good ones. The ASDS names lack gravitas.
I think they're awesome. (Did you think Snoopy and Gumdrop lacked gravitas?) They're named after some of the biggest ships in science fiction, after all. So I guess that proves that naming is very much a matter of taste.  Personally I think a 747 named "City of Los Angeles" is kind of lame...
"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

Online mme

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If they do, I hope they pick some good ones. The ASDS names lack gravitas.
I'm not falling for this reference a second time. :)

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/11/iainbanks-science-fiction
Space is not Highlander.  There can, and will, be more than one.

Offline kch

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If they do, I hope they pick some good ones. The ASDS names lack gravitas.

Helps keep 'em afloat ... ;D

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