OMG it's the SpaceX Party Thread!

[Mongo62]

So, you're comparing the Titanic to the 400:1 model?

No, I am not asking about passenger liners, or models of them.  I am asking about how what SpeceX has done and is planning to do compares with what NASA did in the 1960s.

[dragon44]

After watching John Couluris' appearances on NASA TV so far, I have to say I like what I'm seeing. Even though he's obviously not completely relaxed in front of the camera, he's concise and to the point, sounds confident in his team and the vehicle, but is still cautious and maintains a down-to-earth attitude. One does get the impression they assembled a capable team over there and are not just a bunch of rocket hobbyists as some would have you believe.

From his GSAW 2012 Bio:

John Couluris is the Director of Launch and Mission Operations at SpaceX. He joined the company in 2007 and plays a key role in SpaceX's launch, on-orbit and recovery operations. Mr. Couluris interfaces with NASA Johnson, Goddard, Kennedy and Marshall space flight centers for all operational matters, including on-orbit/ISS operations, range coordination, tracking and data relay satellite system (TDRSS), and ground station operations including establishing SpaceX's growing network of high data rate ground stations. As the Mission Director for SpaceX's Dragon C1 flight, he was responsible for the entire mission of the world's first commercial launch and recovery of a spacecraft. Prior to joining SpaceX, Mr. Couluris was a Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy, where he served for nine years. He went on to JetBlue Airways, where he worked as the Manager of Flight Operations Planning and before becoming the Director of Crew Operations. Mr. Couluris has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a master's degree in aeronautical engineering, both from New York's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Mr. Couluris has authored multiple professional papers. He is the recipient of two Air Medals for his service in Bosnia and Kosovo and is an honors graduate of the Aircraft Accident Investigation and Safety School.

[JBF]

Guys you are not framing the question properly. The question should be what would an "Evil Genius"  send up. The answer is obvious, a doomsday weapon of course. What I want to know is what type of doomsday weapon. Has anyone spotted anything on the factory tours?

[kevin-rf]

Guys you are not framing the question properly. The question should be what would an "Evil Genius"  send up. The answer is obvious, a doomsday weapon of course. What I want to know is what type of doomsday weapon. Has anyone spotted anything on the factory tours?

Evil Genius like blocking out the sun, look for a very, very large tarp during the factory tour!

It might be disguised as a large solar sail

[Lar]

Guys you are not framing the question properly. The question should be what would an "Evil Genius"  send up. The answer is obvious, a doomsday weapon of course. What I want to know is what type of doomsday weapon. Has anyone spotted anything on the factory tours?

Speaking of factory tours, anyone see the SpaceX / Tesla comparo that was posted somewhere (cheering crowds inside the factory because of the launch of  F9+D(COTS 2/3) | Model S respectively...)

I was struck by how CLEAN the Tesla factory was. At the resolution on offer I couldn't spot anything. Old style car factories were much dirtier... even though all of them are now getting cleaner it really was a contrast.

At least to me. YMMV...

[oiorionsbelt]

Their projected timelines are similar but which will launch first, EFT 1 or FH?

[93143]

So, you're comparing the Titanic to the 400:1 model?

No, I am not asking about passenger liners, or models of them.  I am asking about how what SpeceX has done and is planning to do compares with what NASA did in the 1960s.

Well, for starters, NASA has already done it, and has given SpaceX a substantial amount of help...

From one perspective, that's what NASA is for.  Where would aircraft design be if it weren't for NACA?  And aircraft design has much lower entry barriers than space vehicle design...

[peter-b]

Guys you are not framing the question properly. The question should be what would an "Evil Genius"  send up. The answer is obvious, a doomsday weapon of course. What I want to know is what type of doomsday weapon. Has anyone spotted anything on the factory tours?

Speaking of factory tours, anyone see the SpaceX / Tesla comparo that was posted somewhere (cheering crowds inside the factory because of the launch of  F9+D(COTS 2/3) | Model S respectively...)

Got a link? I'm curious.

[david1971]

This might get me ridiculed as a SpaceX person, but it's a serious question.  How would you say what SpaceX has done to date, plus what we know (or have had hinted to us) about their future plans, compares to the 1960s NASA HSF program, including Mercury, Gemini and Apollo?

...

Designed, built and flown a reusable cargo carrier (Dragon Cargo) and working to make it human-rated.

Included in the idea of a cargo carrier is the demonstration of rendezvous capability.

[Lar]

Speaking of factory tours, anyone see the SpaceX / Tesla comparo that was posted somewhere (cheering crowds inside the factory because of the launch of  F9+D(COTS 2/3) | Model S respectively...)

Got a link? I'm curious.

I can't remember where I saw it. I thought maybe here on NSF somewhere?

Here's a pic from last year I found on flickr with a quick search

(http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=tesla%20factory )

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/6220891466/

Sorry I can't be more specific.

Interesting factory tour article:

http://blog.caranddriver.com/we-visit-the-tesla-factory-and-it-looks-a-lot-like-a-real-car-company%E2%80%99s/

Their plant used to be part of the NUMMI plant so maybe that's why it was clean??? Note that they are vertically integrated... they make a lot of their subassemblies that other companies might farm out... hmm, who do we know like that?

[Idiomatic]

How would you say what SpaceX has done to date, plus what we know (or have had hinted to us) about their future plans, compares to the 1960s NASA HSF program, including Mercury, Gemini and Apollo?

One engine of 5 on the Saturn V in it's first of 3 stages has double the thrust of a whole Falcon 9.

[darkenfast]

This might get me ridiculed as a SpaceX person, but it's a serious question.  How would you say what SpaceX has done to date, plus what we know (or have had hinted to us) about their future plans, compares to the 1960s NASA HSF program, including Mercury, Gemini and Apollo?

It's a very hard comparison to make because (as noted above), SpaceX is benefitting from decades of other's experiences, especially NASA's, as they have repeatedly acknowledged. What impresses me the most is that they have done this list of accomplishments with under 2,000 employees, which includes operations in Texas, Florida, and sometimes other locations. The big hurdle will be transitioning to higher rate flight ops without losing the characteristics (culture?) that have made it work so far.

[Mongo62]

How would you say what SpaceX has done to date, plus what we know (or have had hinted to us) about their future plans, compares to the 1960s NASA HSF program, including Mercury, Gemini and Apollo?

One engine of 5 on the Saturn V in it's first of 3 stages has double the thrust of a whole Falcon 9.

Let me quote from my own post a couple days ago:

I still vividly recall watching the live TV images from Eagle as it landed on the Moon. Later my father and I stepped outside and stared up at the Moon, and I still remember thinking, "there are living human beings on its surface right now!" At that moment I was sure that by the year 2000 the human colonization of the Solar System would be well underway. Sadly, that did not happen, but the Apollo landings still rank as the supreme accomplishment in space to date, in my opinion.  Decades later, my father told me that he considered the Apollo 11 landing and first moonwalk to be the most memorable moments in his life -- as an avid SF reader, he had been waiting his whole life for that moment.  I myself might have been a little too young to properly appreciate it (lacking the proper perspective at the time), but it still ranks right up there as well.

And evidently, since there was more to NASA HSF in the 1960s than just Apollo, the total achievement was even greater.  I am not knocking what NASA did in the 1960s, I think it surpasses any other HSF decade or project in history (including the Shuttle).

But what SpaceX has done and intends to do in the coming years is not chickenfeed either.  They have gone from literally nothing to producing a heavy-lift launcher in ten years, along with a cargo-rated (and in a few years human-rated) spacecraft, numerous rocket engines -- and yes, none are as huge as the Saturn V main engines but not for lack of ability, the Merlin 2 would have been in that size range, but there are very good reasons not to produce an engine that large -- and a superheavy likely to be unveiled next year that Elon describes as having a substantially greater payload to LEO than Saturn V.  And if SpaceX is successful with reusability, they will have initiated a revolution in HSF that will be as significant as ANYTHING that has been done to date.

Admittedly, a lot of this has not been done yet.  But they are not just Powerpoints either, engineering teams are no doubt hard at work trying to make these projects into working hardware.  And keep in mind that all of this is being done with a budget that is a fraction of what the rest of the industry demands.

[punder]

Just for the record... not that I imagine anyone cares... but I'm aware of Jim's qualifications, and respect him for it.  Just thought it was weird to be slapped down for stating my *personal* feelings on what was supposed to be this big happy party thread.

The importance of SpaceX isn't that NASA, or Boeing, or Lockheed, or ULA did this stuff years or decades before.  It's the hope (not certainty--I didn't say certainty) that SpaceX will cause a change in the way the aerospace business works.  We all want to see prices come down and flight rates go up and cool missions being flown, right?  And COTS 2+ is an indicator that it just might happen.

Now I compared my excitement at this launch, to my excitement at STS-1, which Jim took offense to, and seems to have derived from that single statement that I'm some kind of rocket flower child or something.  But when STS-1 launched, it was the beginning of a revolution--a new manned spacecraft after several years of nothing, the first winged orbital spacecraft, the first reusable spacecraft, that was going to fly many times a year, bring costs down and open up space in a big way.  Why not be excited by that?  But then it didn't happen--there were only a few launches every year, the famous Get-Away Specials turned out to be bust, teachers in space was a bust, our overlord Congressmen got free rides, costs only increased and new entrants were swatted down with extreme prejudice.   NASA, rightly perhaps from their view, wanted nothing to do with space tourists--i.e., ordinary people--and I distinctly remember how the space station crew members warmly hugged all the arriving astronauts, except for Dennis Tito, who got a lukewarm handshake and turned backs.

SpaceX launched a medium-size rocket with a capsule, something the other guys did in the 1960s, no big deal.  But SpaceX is headed by an honest-to-goodness space fanatic who by all accounts wants to open space to the rest of us, and that is exciting after 30 years of status quo.  I don't understand why that sort of idea would make me a witless fan b**.  Don't we all want (mostly) the same thing here?

Okay, we now return you to your regularly scheduled partying.

[neilh]

NASA, rightly perhaps from their view, wanted nothing to do with space tourists--i.e., ordinary people--and I distinctly remember how the space station crew members warmly hugged all the arriving astronauts, except for Dennis Tito, who got a lukewarm handshake and turned backs.

Slightly OT, but is there video of this?

[majormajor42]

Just catching up after a long weekend away.

 
Look at all the books from the 70's and 80's, they were full of space settlements, lunar bases, etc using the shuttle. 
Look at all the books from the 60's too.  Gatland and Bono's books.  Everybody had grandiose plans. 

There is no guarantee that it will still happen or that Spacex will even lead the way.

Those prior failures are precisely why many people here are very excited over this. This time might have a different outcome.

Some might say that since those grandiose plans failed to succeed before, that that is it. Game over. Just look at the comments section of a space article in the Wall Street Journal.  "It is a waste, destined to fail. Tried before with no sustainable result." They see anything beyond commercial communication and imaging satellites as a great folly.

But here we go again. Space settlement attempt #3.

There is something about our psychology about celebrating something before it happens, sometimes more so than after it happens.  Tom Wolfe mentions this about all the irrational attention given to the Mercury 7 before they flew.

It is time for the "sons" (or maybe grandsons it's been so long) of Gatland and Bono to re-write & re-draw those books so young people can once again get excited about the promise of today's technology, including architecture which is hopefully right around the corner.

But sometimes I see Jim's point of view. With two failed programs (not missions mind you, the missions were great successes) I can see how some folks may be jaded. "fool me once (or twice)..."

This is a cost revolution,

That has yet to be seen

I guess my point is if you are waiting to see something to celebrate it, you'll be late to the party. And by the time everyone else catches up, Elon will already be talking about the next "yet to be seen" goal.

And Spacex is also going to fix the Euro and US debt.
Jeesh.
come on, let's get real. 

They may fail. They may fail not so much with their rockets at this point but maybe with lowering the cost of space access and opening the frontier. Failure is certainly a possibility. That is why I am here I think, rooting for my chosen team, or quarterback, and the "team" is this new push that includes several players. But forgive me, I feel that sports analogies are beneath rocket science. Although it does make me wish I was with some other like minded folks a week ago to "high five" and the such, when Dragon made it to orbit.

[DavidH]

Just for the record... not that I imagine anyone cares... but I'm aware of Jim's qualifications, and respect him for it.  Just thought it was weird to be slapped down for stating my *personal* feelings on what was supposed to be this big happy party thread.

Yeah, I've felt that slap-down too, as have many others, and with all due respect to someone's credentials, the "old curmudgeon show" is a little old.

[Robotbeat]

You are quite right that what SpaceX and the other new space folks (and I'll throw some of the dinospace folks in there... Raptorspace:)) are attempting is NOT a zero sum game. They are trying to grow the market, make new markets. That is why you'll see competitors like Orbital cheering SpaceX on, and probably SpaceX cheering others like Blue Origin and XCOR on as they get closer to their goals. Coopetition, as ridiculous as the word sounds, is the key term here.

Orbital has a lot to gain, for instance, from a cheap medium class launch vehicle since they make more money on spacecraft manufacture and need a modern domestic alternative to the likes of delta 2.

[Robotbeat]

Heck, even ULA used Falcon 9 (as a cheap refueling tanker) in their depot study. This isn't (and shouldn't be) a tribalistic zero sum game.

[JNobles]

Quote from: punder on Today at 03:47 PM

    Just for the record... not that I imagine anyone cares... but I'm aware of Jim's qualifications, and respect him for it.  Just thought it was weird to be slapped down for stating my *personal* feelings on what was supposed to be this big happy party thread.


Yeah, I've felt that slap-down too, as have many others, and with all due respect to someone's credentials, the "old curmudgeon show" is a little old.

Never stop cheering about something you feel like cheering about.  If other people don't like your cheering, no matter who they are, they can learn to deal with it.  It probably represents personal issues they have that you most likely wouldn't be able to help them work through anyway.  Maybe you are cheering for something they don't really like or maybe they don't have anything themselves to cheer about and it bothers them that other people do.

Or maybe they are just grumps.  Never stop cheering about something you feel like cheering about.