Autothrust Blue
"Well, on the Brasilia..."
"Yipee, you're building a rocket."Um....er.....Whach you talking about Willis???
(Why are you wasting propellant, and therefore payload, to land the booster again?)
"Yipee, you're building a rocket."Um....er.....Whach you talking about Willis???
I don't remember the exact stats but this is accurate - the shuttle was amazing but was one of the most dangerous means of conveyance ever built.
To make sure it is clear, the 1 in 60 death statistic goes for ALL manned space flight.
"Yipee, you're building a rocket."
(Why are you wasting propellant, and therefore payload, to land the booster again?)View attachment 38098
Bro! Do you even Rocket Surgery? How about comparing your posted states to anything else out there instead of just showing SpaceX numbers. Here i'll do it for you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_orbital_launch_systems
On a purely financial view SpaceX is cheaper by orders of magnitude than anyone else out there.
The company tech is light years ahead of anyone else. Everyone else is LEO. SpaceX equipment is interplanetary. And return to launch site reusable. Who else has that capability?
And finally this is a technology marathon. If we used your logic the wright brothers should have never gotten past kitty hawk because of the useful load on the wright flyer. It takes steps to make this work. Sure they are not moving colony ships today but SpaceX is drinking milk. And while today round trip UL is only a max of 9600, the next iteration will be able to handle even more.
Eventually we'll be at this
To make sure it is clear, the 1 in 60 death statistic goes for ALL manned space flight.
I missed it, SpaceX went to another planet?
Also NASA had return to launch site reusability from 1984 to 2011, in hindsight it wasn't really worth it.
I missed it, SpaceX went to another planet?
Also NASA had return to launch site reusability from 1984 to 2011, in hindsight it wasn't really worth it.
No but they plan to with existing tech.
And where is the NASA return to launch site now? Yep we retired the shuttle before we had a replacement. but what is your basis for the program not being worth it?
No but they plan to with existing tech.
And where is the NASA return to launch site now? Yep we retired the shuttle before we had a replacement. but what is your basis for the program not being worth it?
My basis for it not being worth it is that it takes almost as many hours to refurbish a re-usable vehicle as it does to just build one, you have new risks that pop up from a vehicle being re-usable in the first place ( See video of STS-93's wild ride into orbit below), and I'm skeptical as to how much worth there is in returning it to the launch site, weight, risk, and cost-wise, versus just parachuting it into the ocean and going to get it. As we've seen, it's payload is halved when you want to return it, meaning half of what it carries is fuel to get it back home.
The other thing that bothers me is that SpaceX, and any other private space venture launches rockets on science and engineering knowledge funded by your tax dollars and released into the public domain by NASA, an agency under public control, once the knowledge goes private, new stuff is learned, but it's all proprietary. Musk has, in the past, open-sourced stuff so that's heartening, but private industry, in general, doesn't give away stuff for free that it could sell.
its a badass piece of machinery, but I feel that it was engineered by committee. As a result, I feel like it was able to do "a lot" but none of it very cheaply. I wonder how much more robust and reliable it would have been if the air force didn't demand the down range maneuverability capability...
Part of that was the desire, and likely the need, to sell the program to the DoD for funding purposes. The payload bay size was dictated primarily by DoD needs, and the actual size/shape of the wings could also be attributed to DoD requirements……i.e. 1000 NM cross range travel on re-entry. Not to mention that the entire propulsion configuration was designed to allow for a launch from Vandenberg into polar orbit, and potentially as little as one revolution prior to landing (i.e. the 1000 NM cross range requirement) for the proposed ISR and/or satellite grab missions they had on the table at the time. Obviously that would never occur, but DoD's design needs had pretty disproportionate second and third order effects on the utility and efficiency of the shuttle, which likely would otherwise been much smaller and probably more cost effective.
There was also an "Air Force Space Plane" program at the time. Those requirements were all merged into the SST. The ability to bring a payload back should not be underestimated.
Agreed. Does SpaceX plan on doing only supply, or are they planning doing not only Astronaut returns but other equipment as well?That is one really cool thing Shuttle could do, bring a satellite back.
That is one really cool thing Shuttle could do, bring a satellite back.
...It didn't even have to be our satellite.
sponsored by...Two people? I nominate @Seggy and @A Life Aloft so they can finally work through all the sexual tension
...It didn't even have to be our satellite.