OMG it's the SpaceX Party Thread!

[david1971]

Meanwhile, Tesla announces that they will be shipping their Model S cars a month early:

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-tesla-model-s-20120522,0,3950552.story

[jimvela]

Less engines is more reliable? The competition that want to keep making those claims will be silenced soon enough.

System reliability is NOT parts reliability.

IF F9 could launch with an engine out (it can't), it would be a highly AVAILABLE launch vehicle, not necessarily a highly reliable vehicle (great performance in its first 3 launches notwithstanding).  A highly available launch vehicle has certain desirable characteristics, but isn't necessarily the best trade for a launcher that doesn't need to be highly responsive.

The fact that after launch, at some point it can fly on with a core engine out is a reliability benefit.  It still doesn't mean that is necessarily more reliable than an equivalent single engine launch vehicle.  If an F9 has an engine failure before that 1-out point, then it is a loss of mission, same as with a single engine launcher.

It remains to be seen if there are failure modes that would take out additional engines or propellant delivery- ending the mission.  (Does anyone know if this F9 had as much engine protection as the first one, or has that been removed along with recovery hardware?). 

If there aren't any hidden surprises, then it may turn out that the F9 proves itself to be highly reliable.  I'll be rooting for them to do that, but not without a healthy dose of perspective.

It will be interesting to see if they can seamlessly transition from F9 v1 to F9 v1.1.  If they do, that is also a really good sign of a good, reliable overall system design.

[spectre9]

Big engines aren't easy or cheap.

I know there's more risk with more engines but not so much as for it to be something the competitors can claim is a major advantage in their favour.

This commercial space race is still on.

Obviously SpaceX hasn't dominated yet and is unlikely to get a huge market share any time soon but signs look good for them.

Thanks for your post Jim please join the party.

GO FALCON 9, GO DRAGON, GO SPACEX 

[Chris Bergin]

Chris, Sounds like all you need now is another launch or two, hope they don't decide to bring the X-37 home before you get some sleep

I'm so tired I can't sleep. Rather annoying to say the least!

I was hoping for a record smash, but probably 3:44AM prevented that.

The time didn't help, but the record was for Atlantis, a world famous (by name and by history) crewed Space Shuttle on her last mission with around a million people attending, covered by a site that was born shuttle specific.

I remember looking at the Apache screen (showing server demand) and we were getting hit by so many people. Any split second snapshot, and there were hundreds and hundreds of IP addresses 'requesting'. Goodness knows how the servers held, but it was like out of the Matrix where they look at that rainfail of green code.

I always turned into a wreck coming out of the T-9 minute hold too. Something very unique about Shuttle, compared to other launches, including Soyuz. Those big ladies had a danger angle that made events like MECO and that first comms coming out of the entry plasma that much sweeter.

I digress. Someone moderate me

[dcporter]

Cool story! We'll get back to a million some day.

Chris this is the party thread! It is... immoderate.

[friendly3]

Two pieces of advice:

#1. Don't argue with Jim. Just don't.

#2. When blind squirrels run amok, he gets irritable.

I don't care, everybody knows that his bias against Spacex is not due to his technical knowledge. Once again not a nice word about what SpaceX accomplished yesterday, only bashing as soon as he can.
ULALA's lobbying will allow them to keep a certain advantage only with the US governmental payloads, and even that won't last forever. One thing is sure when we know the list of ULALA's non governmental clients: they will NEVER going to dominate the space launch business, that much is certain !
Will remind him his quote "Spacex is NOT going to dominate the space launch business" in a few years "to prove him how right he was" !

[jongoff]

Two pieces of advice:

#1. Don't argue with Jim. Just don't.

#2. When blind squirrels run amok, he gets irritable.

I don't care, everybody knows that his bias against Spacex is not due to his technical knowledge. Once again not a nice word about what SpaceX accomplished yesterday, only bashing as soon as he can.
ULALA's lobbying will allow them to keep a certain advantage only with the US governmental payloads, and even that won't last forever. One thing is sure when we know the list of ULALA's non governmental clients: they will NEVER going to dominate the space launch business, that much is certain !
Will remind him his quote "Spacex is NOT going to dominate the space launch business" in a few years "to prove him how right he was" !

Actually, Jim has had several nice words to say about SpaceX. He just has this thing called "nuance" that can sometimes come across wrong.

~Jon

[Jim]

Less engines is more reliable? The competition that want to keep making those claims will be silenced soon enough.

Once again you are wrong.

1.  Less engines ARE more reliable.

2.  That is Spacex's exact words
T
3.  Spacex is NOT going to dominate the space launch business

if you need all the engines to take off then yeah, having more engines works against you in many ways (but not all).

3) isn't a given

The Falcon9 does need all 9 engines to take off. It has engine out capability ~30seconds into the flight.

And for less 1/3 of the flight

[Chris Bergin]

Chris while you're here, why can we post partial quotes about this launch from certain websites and others we cannot. It gets very frustrating to see certain posts getting eliminated while others are left alone.

Looking at the report to mod reports (remember, I don't moderate all that much....I think I'd have a nervous breakdown if I did ):

1) Some people were posting updates into the general discussion and party threads (how ironic is that, given the party thread is to keep the update thread tidy!)
2) Some of the above were duplicates as a result.
3) Some were full quotes, not our content, we can't do that.
4) Some are duplicate posts.

Example, I see Carl did some modding for a SFN update. One person threw in the entire update. One person posted it in the party thread (actually I think I modded that one). One person posted it in the general thread. Two posted the same thing in different forms (one with no link) in the update thread.

Carl's tidied by leaving one post, with a line and a link, in the update thread (launch day/FD1 updates).

So it's now as it should be, it'd tidy, it's where it should be, so all is well. If some people lost their posts, it's not personal, it's all about housekeeping and keeping the whole community happy.

[mr. mark]

In this industry things can swing rapidly. SpaceX is looking good right now and let's hope it continues. Sea Launch was also a great upstart until it was beset with problems. Now it's trying to get back on it's feet. The list goes on and on. Before you get on Jim, Jim's been associated with the launch business for sometime and has a wealth of knowledge that you and anyone else could benefit from.

[Jim]

Once again you are wrong.

1.  Less engines ARE more reliable.

2.  That is Spacex's exact words

3.  Spacex is NOT going to dominate the space launch business

Jim, maybe their goal isn't to dominate the space launch business. Musk seems to be most interested in Mars, and in selling vehicles to anyone who wants to go to space.

Furthermore, they seem to be evolving their designs (Falcon Heavy, Raptor, RLV, v1.1, merlins, etc) faster than anyone else, and that seems be in their favor.

I wonder if SpaceX's latest success will now put pressure on their competitors to show some results?

Why?  They don't need to.

Also, there is no raptor, RLV, etc.  V 1.1 exists because 1.0 failed to meet performance goals.

[friendly3]

Actually, Jim has had several nice words to say about SpaceX. He just has this thing called "nuance" that can sometimes come across wrong.

~Jon

Can you paste here these "several nice words", I would be very glad to read them !

[jimvela]

Will remind him his quote "Spacex is NOT going to dominate the space launch business" in a few years "to prove him how right he was" !

The orbital space launch business is comprised of

US launch vehicles
Russian launch vehicles
Chinese launch vehicles
European launch vehicles [edit: how'd I leave them out...]
Japanese launch vehicles
Indian launch vehicles

These fly commercial as well as national payloads.

SpaceX will not displace the state launch vehicles outside of the US for national payloads.  Will not.

That leaves them to carve out a niche in the commercial market.

I hope they succeed wildly in that niche, along with supplying US government launches.  Even if they completely dominate, it will be less than half and more like a third of all worldwide launches.

Jim's point is that blind amazing peoplem is just blindness.  Ignorance is bliss, but it isn't good for prescience.

[Paul Howard]

Actually, Jim has had several nice words to say about SpaceX. He just has this thing called "nuance" that can sometimes come across wrong.

~Jon

Can you paste here these "several nice words", I would be very glad to read them !

Click on his profile and go through his posts. He doesn't have to prove anything to you. No offense (as much as you've jumped in feet first about someone you don't know and seem to be upset about SpaceX not likely to dominate. Of course they won't dominate. Do some research! )

[Antares]

It has engine out capability ~30seconds into the flight.

Uuugghhhhh!  Physics is way more complicated than that.  Any loss of engine is going to degrade the mission - on any vehicle, Shuttle included.  It depends on what the launch provider and customer agree to in requirements.

This isn't targeted at Idiomatic.  There are people with 500 posts or more who don't understand this.

[friendly3]

Will remind him his quote "Spacex is NOT going to dominate the space launch business" in a few years "to prove him how right he was" !

The orbital space launch business is comprised of

US launch vehicles
Russian launch vehicles
Chinese launch vehicles
European launch vehicles [edit: how'd I leave them out...]
Japanese launch vehicles
Indian launch vehicles

These fly commercial as well as national payloads.

SpaceX will not displace the state launch vehicles outside of the US for national payloads.  Will not.

That leaves them to carve out a niche in the commercial market.

I hope they succeed wildly in that niche, along with supplying US government launches.  Even if they completely dominate, it will be less than half and more like a third of all worldwide launches.

Jim's point is that blind amazing peoplem is just blindness.  Ignorance is bliss, but it isn't good for prescience.

And what about unfairness, subjectivity and bias?
By the way, it seems that you admit that SpaceX can dominate, Mr Jim won't like it !

[Antares]

Honestly, SpaceX could conceivably dominate at least commercial launches.  If SpaceX undercuts prices below Ariane, Long March and the Russians, SpaceX could easily pull in tons of market share.  Plus, SpaceX could launch payloads on commercial sats that are subject to eye-tar.  That would bring premium prices.

If SpaceX were to assume some sort of stasis, this would never happen.  However, SpaceX clearly learns from its mistakes, and faster than others IMO.  If SpaceX can achieve repeatability with its configuration and processes, government customers whose payloads are unique unlike commercial satellites will be attracted as well.

[Chris Bergin]

Party thread or not, I won't be having people acting like Billy Big Bollocks from behind a PC screen.

Lighten the mood from this point onwards.

[Jason1701]

Actually, Jim has had several nice words to say about SpaceX. He just has this thing called "nuance" that can sometimes come across wrong.

~Jon

Can you paste here these "several nice words", I would be very glad to read them !

"GO BABY GO" during F9 flight 1. (Later deleted. )

[friendly3]

Actually, Jim has had several nice words to say about SpaceX. He just has this thing called "nuance" that can sometimes come across wrong.

~Jon

Can you paste here these "several nice words", I would be very glad to read them !

Click on his profile and go through his posts. He doesn't have to prove anything to you. No offense (as much as you've jumped in feet first about someone you don't know and seem to be upset about SpaceX not likely to dominate. Of course they won't dominate. Do some research! )

I know exactly who he is, I will never question his technical expertise and I will never argue with him about anything related to technology.
I was talking about something else, something that is not related to the brain, and you know that I'm not the first to tell him that.

Billy B.B.