LIVE: SpaceX Falcon 9 (Flight 2) - COTS-1 - Launch Updates - December 8, 2010

[Robotbeat]

The worst kind of issue - one that doesn't immediately show itself.

Better than the kind that don't show up until they make your rocket go BOOM!

[kevin-rf]

Also, the big secret is cheese. I don't get it.

To go with the whine?

Well, Cheese is a live bacterial culture so they have sent into space and retrieved a living organism without angering People for Eating Tasty Animals.

[ugordan]

The worst kind of issue - one that doesn't immediately show itself.

Better than the kind that don't show up until they make your rocket go BOOM!

Same thing. Only difference is this one was caught beforehand.

[mmeijeri]

The worst kind of issue - one that doesn't immediately show itself.

That's not the worst kind. Heisenbugs are worse. From the jargon file:

heisenbug /hi:'zen-buhg/ /n./ [from Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics] A bug that disappears or alters its behavior when one attempts to probe or isolate it. (This usage is not even particularly fanciful; the use of a debugger sometimes alters a program's operating environment significantly enough that buggy code, such as that which relies on the values of uninitialized memory, behaves quite differently.) Antonym of Bohr bug; see also mandelbug, schroedinbug. In C, nine out of ten heisenbugs result from uninitialized auto variables, fandango on core phenomena (esp. lossage related to corruption of the malloc arena) or errors that smash the stack.

[go4mars]

To go with the whine?

Well, Cheese is a live bacterial culture so they have sent into space and retrieved a living organism without angering People for Eating Tasty Animals.

If so, a crafty double entendre.  Maybe a small slice will get sent to Shelby.  A fairly innocuous gesture/statement.  But at the same time, a gift.  Who wouldn't want to have some framed space cheese on their wall with a bite out of it!? 

Or maybe he'll cut it up into 1200 little pieces and distribute them to the SpaceX employees.

[mmeijeri]

Hmm, if they'd sent up a cake they could have given Shelby a piece of space cake. How's that for a double entendre?

[go4mars]

Hmm, if they'd sent up a cake they could have given Shelby a piece of space cake. How's that for a double entendre?

I think the headlines would be much less kind to Elon if he sent a cake to space. 

[go4mars]

Val Kilmer's "Top Secret" movie was one of my favourites growing up!  It's fun that they used that label to seal the cheese compartment on dragon.

[Cog_in_the_machine]

Who wouldn't want to have some framed space cheese on their wall with a bite out of it!? 

I would like that, so long as I'm the one who bit the cheese. Otherwise, I'd feel cheated every time I look at the gaping hole.

[go4mars]

Well, Cheese is a live bacterial culture so they have sent into space and retrieved a living organism

They could use that bacteria to start a whole line of space cheese based on the decendents.

[Skylab]

Cheese... 'A Grand Day Out' (Wallace and Gromit). The Monty Python would be lost there, though.

[kch]

Well, Cheese is a live bacterial culture so they have sent into space and retrieved a living organism

"Cultural outreach"?

[Chandonn]

Great!  Now I have to make grilled cheese to go with my Kool-Aid

[kch]

Hmm, if they'd sent up a cake they could have given Shelby a piece of space cake. How's that for a double entendre?

I suspect they'll send a cake along on the first Dragon to be berthed to the station (so the crew can celebrate that day) -- can't have a "berth-day party" without cake!

[vt_hokie]

It's great that they were able to do that, and do it quickly, but in the future such fixes may not always be possible and that should not be looked at as if they "lost" something or the "man is keeping them down".   

Yes, and when they get to crewed Dragon flights, and human lives are on the line, there are going to be more eyeballs on every decision. So such sporting displays as we just saw are going to take a little more time and look a little less sporting to outside observers.

That was my thought as well.  Unmanned test flights afford the opportunity to take more risks, obviously.

[jongoff]

What was truly incredible was Elon Musk saying that a future Dragon is being planned to do a full powered landing and land on a helipad similar to landing a helicopter.

It's kind of funny.  When I interviewed at SpaceX back in 2007, I remember one of the propulsion guys asking me "why are you Masten guys doing powered landing?  Parachutes would be so much simpler."  It's nice to see that attitudes do change over time.  :-)

I'm a big fan of powered landing.  There are risks in such an approach, but there are risks in dead-stick low L/D glide landings and with parachute landings too (if I had to guess I'd say that reliability-wise, powered landing can be made to fall inbetween parachutes and glide landing, and maybe even compete with glide landing).

You would launch on the Falcon 9 achieve orbit and have a powered reentry to a pinpoint landing with parachutes as a backup. That's truly incredible and it totally negates the need for flyback plane type vehicles using runways. Sorry Sierra Nevada, you have just been outsmarted and outclassed. Why have runways when you can land on a pad? By the time Dreamchaser is developed it will have already been ruled unnecessary.

I wouldn't quite go that far.  Right now both are in the idea phase, and while I'm and unabashed powered landing proponent, I'm not cocky enough to claim that I know for sure my approach is the best.  I hope that a wide range of ideas get to be tried, so we can learn from data and experience what really works, not just conjecture.

That said, if Elon and co want some help with a low-cost, powered-landing demonstrator.  I know a few companies with relevant experience (one in CO, one in CA, and one in TX) who would probably be really interested in helping him out...  :-)

~Jon

[vt_hokie]

It's kind of funny.  When I interviewed at SpaceX back in 2007, I remember one of the propulsion guys asking me "why are you Masten guys doing powered landing?  Parachutes would be so much simpler."  It's nice to see that attitudes do change over time.  :-)

I'm a big fan of powered landing.  There are risks in such an approach, but there are risks in dead-stick low L/D glide landings and with parachute landings too (if I had to guess I'd say that reliability-wise, powered landing can be made to fall inbetween parachutes and glide landing, and maybe even compete with glide landing).

How feasible do you think it is?  I'd be curious about the mass penalty, especially with a parachute backup.  And even if feasible, I wonder how costly it would be to implement.  On the other hand, I have to think that it would help with reusability.  It was clear from Musk's post-flight comments (not to mention the first stage recovery efforts, which hopefully will pay off eventually) that he is a believer in reusability as a key to making spaceflight more routine and affordable.

[jongoff]

It's kind of funny.  When I interviewed at SpaceX back in 2007, I remember one of the propulsion guys asking me "why are you Masten guys doing powered landing?  Parachutes would be so much simpler."  It's nice to see that attitudes do change over time.  :-)

I'm a big fan of powered landing.  There are risks in such an approach, but there are risks in dead-stick low L/D glide landings and with parachute landings too (if I had to guess I'd say that reliability-wise, powered landing can be made to fall inbetween parachutes and glide landing, and maybe even compete with glide landing).

How feasible do you think it is?  I'd be curious about the mass penalty, especially with a parachute backup.  And even if feasible, I wonder how costly it would be to implement.  On the other hand, I have to think that it would help with reusability.  It was clear from Musk's post-flight comments (not to mention the first stage recovery efforts, which hopefully will pay off eventually) that he is a believer in reusability as a key to making spaceflight more routine and affordable.

Conservative case for a flight-rated system (ie not just a proof of concept--Altius or Masten or AA could probably do a proof of concept for $1-5M depending on how complicated they want to make it) would probably be around $50M.  DC-X cost $60M (probably $100M in modern dollars), but was using LOX/LH2, was tons bigger, and was using nowhere near as modern of tools as we have today.  I think that a lean team like SpaceX could do something in that price range, possibly even as low as $20M.  The challenge will be handling all the different abort cases.  Now, if they have a ballistic parachute as a backup, some of the fault tolerance might be relaxed a bit (at least that's how you would deal with a total system failure), but you'd still want the parachutes to be something you never end up needing to use...

I really think this is completely doable.  Remember, at Masten (and AA, and TGV, and all the other VTVL groups like RVT, DC-X, etc) the goal was to land every single time on rocket propulsion.  It could just be that every single one of these groups is crazy, but remember--parachutes aren't 100% infallible either.  You want the solution to be a lot better than the alternatives, but parachutes set a pretty low bar for competition, reliability-wise.

~Jon

[Lee Jay]

You want the solution to be a lot better than the alternatives, but parachutes set a pretty low bar for competition, reliability-wise.

~Jon

Yeah...but they kick butt ISP-wise.

[A_M_Swallow]

What was truly incredible was Elon Musk saying that a future Dragon is being planned to do a full powered landing and land on a helipad similar to landing a helicopter. You would launch on the Falcon 9 achieve orbit and have a powered reentry to a pinpoint landing with parachutes as a backup. That's truly incredible and it totally negates the need for flyback plane type vehicles using runways. {snip}

Hmm.  Any change that reusable power landing hardware would allow the Dragon to land on and take off from the Moon?  For that much delta-V the capsule is likely to need inspace refuelling.