Gwynne Shotwell Interview - June 22, 2017 on The Space Show

[su27k]

I had reasoned that the Falcon Heavy sending Red Dragons to Mars would be the subscale, proof of concept for a larger system to come later. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the monstrous, mega-sized ITS system that Elon did announce last year - a system that would need veritable small oceans of propellants transferred in space and manufactured on Mars. I fully expected some kind of intermediate step between Falcon Heavy/Red Dragon and ITS... 

The rumors before IAC is pretty much spot on except the size. Single core, upper stage as lander, orbital refueling, these are all known before hand. But the expected size before the announcement is 100t to Mars surface, so the announced size of the ITS is a surprise. It looks like they may have intentionally increased the size just before the announcement. I wonder if it's a trial balloon of a sort, because the IAC ITS is truly a space program worthy of a great nation. But the reaction from politicians are disappointing, so my guess is they're now back to the original planned size.

[john smith 19]

In as much as Falcon Heavy is years late - made so presumably because of the numerous changes to the Falcon 9 series. I don't expect to see Red Dragon to Mars before the next launch window in 2022.

Fair point. But this time they might actually launch make the first FH launch date.

If so (and it all goes well) the question then becomes how much actual work has been done on the first Red Dragon.

Musk is an optimist and I'm guessing SX will have had a (small) team continuing to work on RD since it was announced. I'd guess they'd try to leverage the work on the cargo Dragon and Dragon II programmes AFAP, but have plans to ramp up assuming staff and tasks when FH finally launches.

I doubt anyone outside SX knows if that means they've been doing detailed mission sims and design or if they've actually assigned a capsule for the project and started provisioning it with hardware. 

[Robotbeat]

One thing that's striking about the last few months of SpaceX ITS info/rumors is the degree to which these two things are happening simultaneously:
1) accelerating in timescale, with lots of actual work being done and
2) significantly in flux. All sorts of things which we thought or were told were true are now up in the air.

It really seems to me we're much closer to SpaceX being able to land people on Mars, including the hardware needed to do so, while also having much LESS of a firm plan than we did in September.

Grand plans are over-rated. Execution and dynamic flexibility are much better.

It is nicest spin I've seen ever for "Damn, it is harder than we thought, more costly than we anticipated and way, way too ambitious. Time to scale it down! A lot. ITS is no more.".

This isn't spin, it's an acknowledgment their plans have realigned with what's actually feasible in the very near term. That's a positive development.

If you actually remember the announcement, they didn't really have any good plan to actually fund ITS. Also, it was way too big for the launch site they picked (and probably too big for Boca Chica as well).

Additionally, who said ITS (the rocket, not the acronym) is no more?

[woods170]

"Looking at the utility of it [Raptor] on Falcon"

If old space "common sense" had prevailed at SpaceX there would be no Falcon 9 but a Falcon 3 at best. There would not have been any Grasshopper, let alone a reusable first stage. And there most decidedly would not have been ITS. And Dragon probably would not exist either given the old space mantra that launch service providers provide launches, not spacecraft.

It's undeniably a good thing that SpaceX is around. They are shaking things up. Disruptive. An industry that has been stuck in the same old patterns for the better part of 4 decades is finally beginning to move into a new direction.

It is "old school" NASA that financed CRS resulting in F9 and Dragon. Without which SpaceX may never have built F9.

Not quite. "Old school" NASA only paid for part of the development cost of Dragon. SpaceX paid the development of Falcon 9, and part of the development of Dragon, entirely out of it's own pockets. Elon stated himself that NASA funding sped things up, but did not enable them.

Falcon 9 most definitely would have come into existence, even without SpaceX landing the COTS contract. The key that enabled it was not NASA, but Falcon 1, missions 4.


The true value of NASA for SpaceX is the expertise NASA brought along. In quite a few areas NASA expertise enabled Spacex to "make a flying start". For example, the PICA heatshield for Dragon.

Also, NASA isn't part of the industry. With "industry"I was referring to such companies as Boeing, LockMart, ULA, Aerojet, ATK, etc. Bar a few exceptions (such as Pegasus) they were mostly stuck in doing the same old boring things including relying entirely on government funding for new projects.

[gongora]

Not quite. "Old school" NASA only paid for part of the development cost of Dragon. SpaceX paid the development of Falcon 9, and part of the development of Dragon, entirely out of it's own pockets. Elon stated himself that NASA funding sped things up, but did not enable them.

Falcon 9 most definitely would have come into existence, even without SpaceX landing the COTS contract. The key that enabled it was not NASA, but Falcon 1, missions 4.

I don't think SpaceX spent much of their own money on Dragon, and the NASA money allowed them to massively increase their number of employees, which enabled all of their programs.  (Someone posted an old video in another thread recently where Elon was giving an early tour of the factory, and the Falcon 9 test articles were already under construction at the time of F1 mission 4.  I hadn't realized that.)

[Robotbeat]

Old school engineering managers didn't pay for Dragon, what the heck? US citizens did, for part of it.

[gospacex]

This means that in principle, F9 could survive an engine out immediately after liftoff, even if it needed to shut down the opposite engine completely. (assuming no other damage).

As it does not need to shut down the opposite engine completely, but can take the opposite couple of engines to ~85% thrust, and the rest to ~118, with modest gimballing, it would seem there is moderate margin there.

Or it can just gimbal without shutting down any engines. There is no evidence CRS-1 engine failure was followed by any reduction of thrust of remaining engines.

[speedevil]

This means that in principle, F9 could survive an engine out immediately after liftoff, even if it needed to shut down the opposite engine completely. (assuming no other damage).

As it does not need to shut down the opposite engine completely, but can take the opposite couple of engines to ~85% thrust, and the rest to ~118, with modest gimballing, it would seem there is moderate margin there.

Or it can just gimbal without shutting down any engines. There is no evidence CRS-1 engine failure was followed by any reduction of thrust of remaining engines.

Indeed - I was just saying that as a side-comment - the main point was that a failure very near launch could be nominal even under pessimistic assumptions. If you assume no throttling down at all, and just gimballing, the margin is lots higher - even for a failure at launch, with the required thrust being 12% over nominal max thrust, and 12% below test-stand max.

Also - I had meant to delete the post, and repost in its own thread, but did the repost first, and ... Hmm.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43212.0

[Nomadd]

 I'm almost ready to start my first poll over this endless debate about SpaceX plans and results. Something like... If Jack Kennedy had said "We're going to orbit a box of paperclips by the end of the decade" and Apollo 11 had landed on the moon, or he'd said "We're going to establish colonies on Ganymede and Titan by the end of the decade" and Apollo 11 had landed on the moon, which would have been the greater accomplishment?
 It's getting as annoying as the claims that the Shuttle was a boondoggle because it didn't do what somebody predicted when it was designed and cost too much. Aiming for the stars doesn't make getting to the moon a failure.

[punder]

Additionally, who said ITS (the rocket, not the acronym) is no more?

Shotwell said something like "by the way I think we are moving away from the ITS acronym, back to BFS/BFR." I never heard anything to indicate the actual rocket is going away.

[Robotbeat]

Additionally, who said ITS (the rocket, not the acronym) is no more?

Shotwell said something like "by the way I think we are moving away from the ITS acronym, back to BFS/BFR." I never heard anything to indicate the actual rocket is going away.

precisely.

[Mader Levap]

This isn't spin, it's an acknowledgment their plans have realigned with what's actually feasible in the very near term. That's a positive development.

Oh, of course it is good thing. It just makes all those spacex amazing peoples gushing about ITS amusing. I mean, more amusing than before. I always considered ITS as something completely abstract and unbelievable, wishful fantasy. And indeed, backtracking and downscoping already started.

Guess who wins when grand plans encounter so-called reality?

Additionally, who said ITS (the rocket, not the acronym) is no more?

If "ITS" actually will be ever built, it will be so different from vision presented on that conference, it may be as well different rocket altogether. No wonder SpaceX wants to change name.

[intrepidpursuit]

In as much as Falcon Heavy is years late - made so presumably because of the numerous changes to the Falcon 9 series. I don't expect to see Red Dragon to Mars before the next launch window in 2022.

This has been rehashed a million times, but it isn't fair to say that FH is years late. It didn't have an urgent customer so they didn't build it until they needed to. If I recall they lost one customer due to a FH delay (Europasat), and they were able to take many of the customers up on the uprated F9. Yes, it is a change in schedule, but a mostly purposeful one. Based on what is known they haven't been scrambling this whole time to make FH work, it was just deprioritized. Saying "FH is years late" is not that different than saying "Falcon 5 failed to get off the ground".

[meekGee]

This isn't spin, it's an acknowledgment their plans have realigned with what's actually feasible in the very near term. That's a positive development.

Oh, of course it is good thing. It just makes all those spacex amazing peoples gushing about ITS amusing. I mean, more amusing than before. I always considered ITS as something completely abstract and unbelievable, wishful fantasy. And indeed, backtracking and downscoping already started.

Guess who wins when grand plans encounter so-called reality?

Additionally, who said ITS (the rocket, not the acronym) is no more?

If "ITS" actually will be ever built, it will be so different from vision presented on that conference, it may be as well different rocket altogether. No wonder SpaceX wants to change name.

It's ok, I remember when you considered landings and reuse to be amazing people fantasies, back in GH days.

It's almost a predicate for feasibility...

EDIT *** Wasn't him...  My very bad bad.  ***

[gospacex]

This isn't spin, it's an acknowledgment their plans have realigned with what's actually feasible in the very near term. That's a positive development.

Oh, of course it is good thing. It just makes all those spacex amazing peoples gushing about ITS amusing. I mean, more amusing than before. I always considered ITS as something completely abstract and unbelievable, wishful fantasy. And indeed, backtracking and downscoping already started.

Guess who wins when grand plans encounter so-called reality?

Additionally, who said ITS (the rocket, not the acronym) is no more?

If "ITS" actually will be ever built, it will be so different from vision presented on that conference, it may be as well different rocket altogether. No wonder SpaceX wants to change name.

It's ok, I remember when you considered landings and reuse to be amazing people fantasies, back in GH days.

It's almost a predicate for feasibility...

I reviewed Mader's past posts quite a way back and actually his predictions were quite accurate. For example, he correctly predicted the number of F9 launches in both 2012 and 2013, as well as the year when the first reused booster flew. Also, he was sounding a bit SpaceX amazing peopleish himself at times.

[gongora]

In as much as Falcon Heavy is years late - made so presumably because of the numerous changes to the Falcon 9 series. I don't expect to see Red Dragon to Mars before the next launch window in 2022.

This has been rehashed a million times, but it isn't fair to say that FH is years late. It didn't have an urgent customer so they didn't build it until they needed to. If I recall they lost one customer due to a FH delay (Europasat), and they were able to take many of the customers up on the uprated F9. Yes, it is a change in schedule, but a mostly purposeful one. Based on what is known they haven't been scrambling this whole time to make FH work, it was just deprioritized. Saying "FH is years late" is not that different than saying "Falcon 5 failed to get off the ground".

They lost two or three payloads because of the FH delays (Europasat, ViaSat 2, maybe an Intelsat payload).

[meekGee]

This isn't spin, it's an acknowledgment their plans have realigned with what's actually feasible in the very near term. That's a positive development.

Oh, of course it is good thing. It just makes all those spacex amazing peoples gushing about ITS amusing. I mean, more amusing than before. I always considered ITS as something completely abstract and unbelievable, wishful fantasy. And indeed, backtracking and downscoping already started.

Guess who wins when grand plans encounter so-called reality?

Additionally, who said ITS (the rocket, not the acronym) is no more?

If "ITS" actually will be ever built, it will be so different from vision presented on that conference, it may be as well different rocket altogether. No wonder SpaceX wants to change name.

It's ok, I remember when you considered landings and reuse to be amazing people fantasies, back in GH days.

It's almost a predicate for feasibility...

I reviewed Mader's past posts quite a way back and actually his predictions were quite accurate. For example, he correctly predicted the number of F9 launches in both 2012 and 2013, as well as the year when the first reused booster flew. Also, he was sounding a bit SpaceX amazing peopleish himself at times.

Hey - Even amazing peoples can get things wrong sometimes...

What I'm saying is - if a company like SpaceX puts forward a plan, then Joe B. on a space BBS can credibly doubt their schedule, for example, or their cost estimate.   But to go from there and call it an unattainable fantasy speaks more about the person posting than about the plan itself.

This proposal was put forward by a group that has spent a lot more time and money on doing the work the underlies it, than said amazing people spent on hand-waving it away, and so, amazing people or not, it's worth a chuckle.

[su27k]

This isn't spin, it's an acknowledgment their plans have realigned with what's actually feasible in the very near term. That's a positive development.

Oh, of course it is good thing. It just makes all those spacex amazing peoples gushing about ITS amusing. I mean, more amusing than before. I always considered ITS as something completely abstract and unbelievable, wishful fantasy. And indeed, backtracking and downscoping already started.

Guess who wins when grand plans encounter so-called reality?

If you are not getting pushbacks from reality, it means you're not trying hard enough. Trying to push into unbelievable fantasy land is the only way to know where the boundary of reality is.

[Nomadd]

 Shouldn't reality posts be in "Advanced concepts"? I mean, it's an interesting concept and all, but nothing to waste a lot of time on.

[Mader Levap]

It's ok, I remember when you considered landings and reuse to be amazing people fantasies, back in GH days.

[citaiton needed], because I can't remember when I said that "landings and reuse to be amazing people fantasies". I don't think I ever said something like that. I view and vieved reusability efforts achievable with current technology.

You probably mixed it up with my opinion about SpaceX's Mars ambitions. THAT one indeed I consider quite unrealistic.

I reviewed Mader's past posts quite a way back and actually his predictions were quite accurate. For example, he correctly predicted the number of F9 launches in both 2012 and 2013, as well as the year when the first reused booster flew.

I am very happy to see SpaceX is on way to launch way more in 2017 than I predicted.

If you are not getting pushbacks from reality, it means you're not trying hard enough. Trying to push into unbelievable fantasy land is the only way to know where the boundary of reality is.

It is nicest way possible to frame that problem.