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| Spacex Starship IFT-2 launch today |
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| coppice:
--- Quote from: Psi on November 20, 2023, 10:05:01 am --- --- Quote from: wraper on November 19, 2023, 01:37:33 pm --- --- Quote from: AndyBeez on November 19, 2023, 01:17:08 pm ---On a side note, I recently heard the Nasa versus SpaceX dynamic being described as, "it's rocket scientists versus space cowboys." Yee har... --- End quote --- This year "space cowboys" put 4x more mass to the orbit (1000 tons) than the rest of the world combined. Also they are the only US launch provider that can currently deliver astronauts to ISS (for NASA you just mentioned). --- End quote --- I more prefer the NASA vs SpaceX analogy of Scientists vs Engineers. A scientist takes their time to do lots of theoretical testing and report writing until everything is proved to be perfect before building anything. The engineer just tries shit until it works. It's an over simplification, but is mostly accurate. --- End quote --- Its mostly BS. Science is mostly stumbling around until you hit on something new and interesting. Good engineering is mostly using the understanding that comes from science, and applying it in a methodical way, with a lot of testing to demonstrate your thinking didn't go wrong. NASA started life with scientists, and a LOT of stuff blowing up on the launch pad or soon after. The engineering people in the air force used to mock the NASA people's lack of faith in their own work with famous comments like "When a rocket goes up, the NASA people cheer". The big problem with NASA has been that bureaucracy inhibited progress. A real engineering organisation would never have let the Challenger disaster happen, as the seeds of that disaster were well know. The design would have been improved to avoid a warranty claims disaster. NASA just flew the poor design until people died. |
| tom66:
--- Quote from: wraper on November 20, 2023, 03:48:02 pm --- --- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on November 20, 2023, 03:38:10 pm ---What is novel about SpaceX is their vision that the application volume will be large enough to justify enormous spending on trial and error. It worked on Falcon9. The jury is still out on Starship, but from my point of view it looks like they might well end up making much more than they spend. --- End quote --- The thing is that SpaceX's trial and error is cheaper than current "traditional" rocket development which in the last decades was more like industry rotting from inside due to complacency and government bailouts. Look no further than obscene spending on SLS with all old tech, including 40 years old engines. https://www.space.com/nasa-sls-rocket-artemis-moon-plans-unaffordable-gao-report --- Quote ---In late 2021, a report by NASA's Office of Inspector General showed that NASA will likely spend a total of $93 billion on the Artemis program between 2012 and 2025, and that each SLS launch will cost about $4.1 billion. A large chunk of the budget was attributed to hiring contractors in every U.S. state and more than 20 similar partners across Europe. --- End quote --- --- End quote --- ULA is still using rocket engines dating back to the days of the USSR, the RD-180. A major headache is being able to re-engineer that product so that it can be built in the west, given the, err... somewhat less cordial relationship the US and Russia now have following their actions in Ukraine. Apparently they have under 20 engines left. Given they throw away the rocket every time, that's not much cargo. Meanwhile SpaceX is reusing Falcon 9 at least 10 times over and trying to discover what the limit actually is. Pork barrel politics is very toxic in the US, which is why NASA finds companies like SpaceX so compelling to work with. It's up to them how they spend the billions they get, and once the contract is signed the fed is on the hook for the funds either way. Privatisation in government contracting often has negative effects but SpaceX shows great exceptions happen. |
| wraper:
--- Quote from: tom66 on November 20, 2023, 04:31:07 pm ---ULA is still using rocket engines dating back to the days of the USSR, the RD-180. A major headache is being able to re-engineer that product so that it can be built in the west, given the, err... somewhat less cordial relationship the US and Russia now have following their actions in Ukraine. Apparently they have under 20 engines left. Given they throw away the rocket every time, that's not much cargo. Meanwhile SpaceX is reusing Falcon 9 at least 10 times over and trying to discover what the limit actually is. Pork barrel politics is very toxic in the US, which is why NASA finds companies like SpaceX so compelling to work with. It's up to them how they spend the billions they get, and once the contract is signed the fed is on the hook for the funds either way. Privatisation in government contracting often has negative effects but SpaceX shows great exceptions happen. --- End quote --- RD-180 first flight happened in 2000. It's based on earlier RD-170 which still is not nearly as old as RS-25. The main difference is that RS-25 is a very expensive reusable engine, but in SLS they become single use :palm:. Not to say SLS will be not only reusing old RS-25 engines in stock, their production is restarted basically from scratch while RD-180 had continuous production. Also RD-180 is 2x more powerful and about 7 times cheaper than newly built RS-25 and still much cheaper than modernized used engines. |
| wraper:
--- Quote from: tom66 on November 20, 2023, 04:31:07 pm ---Meanwhile SpaceX is reusing Falcon 9 at least 10 times over and trying to discover what the limit actually is. --- End quote --- So far one booster has flown 18 times, one 17 times, two 16 times, one 15 times, one 14 times and 3 other more than 10. Also there were launches for multiple customers on 10+ times flown boosters, not only their own Starlink as initially. So SpaceX should be quite confident about their reliability. |
| coppice:
--- Quote from: wraper on November 20, 2023, 05:02:13 pm ---RD-180 first flight happened in 2000. It's based on earlier RD-170 which still is not nearly as old as RS-25. --- End quote --- The RD-180 is just a stripped down RD-170, so in terms of technology its basically the same. The RS-25 is early 70s. The RD-170 is late 70s. Not a lot of difference. |
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