Author Topic: Dragon Mars flyby for the first FH flight  (Read 30496 times)

Offline baddux

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Re: Dragon Mars flyby for the first FH flight
« Reply #60 on: 09/10/2011 11:58 am »
Ok you have convinced me that the first FH payload won't leave earth's orbit.

But do you think SpaceX could send Dragon to fly by Mars and return in some later launch with their own money? They could prove the capability of Dragon and FH and advance Elon's personal Mars agenda and probably also convice NASA to use SpaceX hardware for future Mars missions.

Offline Phillip Clark

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Re: Dragon Mars flyby for the first FH flight
« Reply #61 on: 09/10/2011 06:14 pm »
If you have a ~53 tonnes payload capability, why not launch all of the paper studies since ~1980 concerning manned return to the Moon, manned Mars missions, etc?

Release the papers in LEO and they will burn up in he atmosphere, so no space debris problems.

Simples!!!!!!!!!

(Yes, that is an attempt at humour.)
I've always been crazy but it's kept me from going insane - WJ.

Offline krytek

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Re: Dragon Mars flyby for the first FH flight
« Reply #62 on: 09/10/2011 07:07 pm »
They won't fit on a single FH. Maybe you could do it on the inaugural launch of the FXXXX Heavy, with tight margins.

Offline kch

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Re: Dragon Mars flyby for the first FH flight
« Reply #63 on: 09/10/2011 07:32 pm »
They won't fit on a single FH. Maybe you could do it on the inaugural launch of the FXXXX Heavy, with tight margins.

Can you imagine the heat pulse from all that paper hitting the atmosphere at once!  Not a pleasant thought ... ;)

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: Dragon Mars flyby for the first FH flight
« Reply #64 on: 09/10/2011 08:44 pm »
The  heat pulse will be short lived, can you imagine CO2 emissions, it may just trigger a Venus style runaway greenhouse!
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Offline kch

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Re: Dragon Mars flyby for the first FH flight
« Reply #65 on: 09/10/2011 09:18 pm »
The  heat pulse will be short lived, can you imagine CO2 emissions, it may just trigger a Venus style runaway greenhouse!

It might at that!  :)

Offline simonbp

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Re: Dragon Mars flyby for the first FH flight
« Reply #66 on: 09/11/2011 02:36 am »
My point was that they can be and it is not that big of deal and precedence had been set.  Nobody would be fire and there would be no incompetence.

Well, sorta. The first Atlas V and the first Delta IV both had paying commercial payloads (Hot Bird 6 and Eutelsat W5). Falcon 1 never had a dummy payload; the closest was Demosat on the second flight, which still had some actual experiments on it. Delta III only flew the dummy on the third flight because the first two flights (with commercial payloads) failed.

Delta IV Heavy was the only recent rocket that I'm aware of that flew first with a dummy payload (and good thing too, considering it failed to reach orbit).

So, it's it's possible they could fly a dummy payload, but I'd say the precedent is more for an actual payload, even if it's just an engineering test article.

Offline ugordan

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Re: Dragon Mars flyby for the first FH flight
« Reply #67 on: 09/11/2011 11:50 am »
Falcon 1 never had a dummy payload; the closest was Demosat on the second flight

"Ratsat" on flight 4.

Quote
Delta IV Heavy was the only recent rocket that I'm aware of that flew first with a dummy payload (and good thing too, considering it failed to reach orbit).

It reached an orbit, just lower than the planned one. You just answered yourself why a mass simulator makes the most sense on the first flight - the risk is substantial.
« Last Edit: 09/11/2011 11:54 am by ugordan »

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