Would you say SpaceX is doing better than NASA?

[Nibb31]

48 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Well we got a rocket over at the space center you can strap it onto if you can find a way. :^).

The VAB and the MLPs can no longer take the Saturn V. The launch pads have been modified too. The launch tower has been dismantled. None of the infrastructure exists any more. It's dead Jim.

48 minutes ago, PB666 said:

I understand most of the buran missions were unmanned anyway, lol.

It only flew once.

[PB666]

9 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

The VAB and the MLPs can no longer take the Saturn V. The launch pads have been modified too. The launch tower has been dismantled. None of the infrastructure exists any more. It's dead Jim.

It only flew once.

In space once several tests of landing. 

[RainDreamer]

There is one thing that SpaceX is better than NASA: their PR.

Edited June 10, 2016 by RainDreamer

[RenegadeRad]

Tl'dr

[Silavite]

21 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Hand building rocket engines with thousands of parts and tankage structures like they did in the 60's would be totally uneconomical.

Prime example being the RL10. Performance wise, it is a perfectly suitable engine; however, the cost is something like $38M due to the fact that the engine is an anachronism from the 1960s. For comparison, the cost per launch of a Falcon 9 Full Thrust is $62M (a la Wikipedia).

[PB666]

7 hours ago, Silavite said:

Prime example being the RL10. Performance wise, it is a perfectly suitable engine; however, the cost is something like $38M due to the fact that the engine is an anachronism from the 1960s. For comparison, the cost per launch of a Falcon 9 Full Thrust is $62M (a la Wikipedia).

RL10A-4-2   EV 4.42 km/s  T/W = 61:1     T=99.1k   M = 167kg        Drawbacks - liquid H2. (tanks are heavy)
RL10B-2      EV 4.58 km/s  T/W = 40:1     T=110k     M = 277kg       Drawbacks - liquid H2. (tanks are heavy)
Merlin 1Dv   EV 3.48 km/s   T/W = 190.1   T =934k    M ~ 500kg        Drawback - 3,2 times as heavy as 10A-4-2, B-2, respectively. But produces 10 time the thrust. ISP = 75% of B-2

 

 

[wumpus]

On 6/10/2016 at 3:37 AM, Nibb31 said:

16 hours ago, Silavite said:

Prime example being the RL10. Performance wise, it is a perfectly suitable engine; however, the cost is something like $38M due to the fact that the engine is an anachronism from the 1960s. For comparison, the cost per launch of a Falcon 9 Full Thrust is $62M (a la Wikipedia).

That's a very specific example that might apply to a handful of components. Maybe the technology for medium voltage motorstarters hasn't changed much since the seventies. But it certainly doesn't work for most of the mechanical engineering. Hand building rocket engines with thousands of parts and tankage structures like they did in the 60's would be totally uneconomical.

Except that NASA *has* rebuilt the F-1 engine.  Some parts were likely replaced with modern off-the-shelf-parts.  Parts that could be reasonably made were likely made from drawings (not sure).  Certainly there existed a nightmare of custom hand-made and welded parts that were simply scanned in 3d and then 3d printed out (there was simply no way to build the thing on a non-SLS NASA budget* the old fashioned way).

* I think it was under the SLS umbrella.  Just that it wasn't already penciled in as the "decided engine" it remained an R&D project that wasn't about maintaining the pork and had to contain costs.

On 6/10/2016 at 4:59 PM, RainDreamer said:

There is one thing that SpaceX is better than NASA: their PR.

To be honest, NASA PR hasn't been good since Walt Disney was personally handling it.  The media just gave them a ton of cover during the 1960s, and success certainly helped for a few years after that.  I'm not even sure that SpaceX actually works hard on the PR: If Elon Musk's various project keep hitting their goals (typically late, but they get there) his legend grows no matter what the PR flacks do.  And I doubt they could save a big failure, either.

But considering that NASA didn't plan on bringing a TV camera on Apollo 11 until the last minute (please convince me this is a myth, googling just hits hoaxes), I really don't expect much in the way of PR savy from them.

[Silavite]

14 minutes ago, wumpus said:

Except that NASA *has* rebuilt the F-1 engine.  Some parts were likely replaced with modern off-the-shelf-parts.  Parts that could be reasonably made were likely made from drawings (not sure).  Certainly there existed a nightmare of custom hand-made and welded parts that were simply scanned in 3d and then 3d printed out (there was simply no way to build the thing on a non-SLS NASA budget* the old fashioned way).

* I think it was under the SLS umbrella.  Just that it wasn't already penciled in as the "decided engine" it remained an R&D project that wasn't about maintaining the pork and had to contain costs.

Which is (considering the circumstances) the right way to go. The F-1B on the Pyrios booster is the result of the development and simplification of the original F-1 design, which was much heavier on the number of parts/welds. I think that Pratt & Whitney's RL60 would be to the RL10 as the F-1B is to the original F-1, but it seems like the RL60 project has ground to a halt.

I digress, but I can't help but be amazed that not a single installed F-1 failed in spite of the fact that they were basically handmade. I remember seeing the F-1 in person at the Johnson Space Center (both installed in the S-IC and the engine by itself) and although the first thing that struck me was the size, the amount of parts and craftsmanship made an impression on me as well. (I need to go back to JSC sometime this summer. I haven't been in over two years.)

[DDE]

Guys, I think we've forgotten one thing: SpaceX is still doing much better than MarsOne!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=701083119&tscn=1465813601

[todofwar]

On 6/8/2016 at 3:23 AM, Virtualgenius said:

SpaceX has focus and a goal and NASA doesn't, they need to be given a goal and a lasting budget like they did in the 60's otherwise they just meander around doing nothing. If they where given a goal to achieve they would probably achieve it trouble is NASA is dictated to by Government departments and we all know how useless they are with high levels of bureaucracy and focus changes.

Gonna jump in here because I'm so tired of hearing this argument. NASA has tons of projects going on at multiple research stations across the country. Thousands of scientists at JPL, Goddard, Ames, and others are working on solving real scientific problems. There seems to be this prevailing myth that NASA needs to be single mindedly focused on something, but in reality it's a very large funding agency devoted to all kinds of projects. Occasionally they have bigger plans that take a few mroe resources, but it's like saying the national science foundation has no focus because they're not building the US's version of the LHC. Or the national institutes of health have no focus because they're not doing the human genome project. Lack of a big all consuming project means NASA can try and tackle more at once. SpaceX is doing so much better because they don't have to worry about having parts built in fifty congressional districts or appealing to people who think we should have kept going to the moon, but in terms of scientific discovery it's not even close. Yes landing a man on Mars would be badass, but as was extensively argued in another thread you can get 100 missions to mars for the cost of one human mission. 

Sorry if this has already been said, I'll get around to finishing the thread soon.

[RenegadeRad]

SpaceX has a better name than NASA...

imo  

[lugge]

Well, now, to bring an end to this discussion:

The real badass space agency is SNASA. You ask why?

Spoiler

Well, they've been to the Smoon!

 

 

Edited June 14, 2016 by lugge

[Vaporized Steel]

Elon musk popularity credentials are his founding of paypal. Without popularity gained through his online marketing achievements he wouldn't be the head of SpaceX. To be more specific, without his paypal emporium I don't think he woud have gained the contacts to share his management skills and his enthusiasm for spaceflight. I've heard him say in a interview that he never had academic worthy knowledge about each and every piece of hardware he tries to manage. He said, I learned from my co-workers and each subsequent day brings me additional knowledge and arguably craftmanship.

In terms of his ideas he has about reusable rocketry he always seems very up in the clouds regarding his ideas. And the fact he could manage a company, sell his ideas, and seems wise and citrical enough to appoint the right kind of people had thus far led to a succesfull 1st stage Falcon 9 recovery. Even if the whole concept turns out to be impossible, we have learned from it and achieved something nonetheless.

In many other ways, like his management skills hes simply pretty darn down to earth.
People scholared in engineering and science academics know all proven data and work towards the prototypes of tommorow. Very down to earth kind of people.

Elon musk is both looking down and looking up. The reason we have so little advances and lack of new Einsteins is because academics does not allow scholarship in creativity, especially in science because it seems everybody is so afraid that creativity in science leads to failures.

Why there is lack of the valuable old proverb : Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

Academics is so absent in guiding students to both think logic and creative and has giant focus on the former. You can have studied for 30 years and have a similar intelligence quotient as Albert Einstein but without creativity that IQ will be used to patent the same old products every time.
I always hear the cliché "During the 50s, 60s and 70s we dreamt, and after that we stopped dreaming"
Which is true! And a very valid explanation to this is the lack of funding and loss of public interest.
Lack of interest and money after the early 70's is a valid explanation for the demise of the good ol space program.
But what is the core message here? It's not that we should be specifically talking about the reasons that once motivated the good old endeavours which is money and interest. It is the lack of a universal existence and stimulance of creative growth that should be part of academics or scholarship in general whenever and whomever does the teaching.

With that the lack of a program and the degredation of a old intuitive generation would never have been lost and copied over to the generations of the 80s, 90s up to the present.
In any case, I think sharing pessimism about the guy in question and his program is not going to help SpaceX, and it's definitely not going to be a contribution to the recovery of a creative atmosphere vital for these projects to see eventual success.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be critical about SpaceX. It's just that if I were to share the critique I would suggest appointing the right individuals into the SpaceX program to fill in the gaps that either Elon or his colleagues leave behind.
 

Edited June 14, 2016 by Vaporized Steel

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

SpaceX has a goal and is working towards it with amazing progress toward it. But NASA is building the SLS.spaceX is very innovative, but nasa has been too. NASA has landed people on the moon, and sent probes to every planet. I'd say that there about the same.  

[insert_name]

Regarding the poll made by the op, how is this even a question? SpaceX currently only provides cargo service to the iss and orbital launch vehicles. Nasa does the exploration.

[DDE]

On ‎29‎.‎07‎.‎2016 at 2:59 PM, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

I'd say that there about the same.  

On ‎30‎.‎07‎.‎2016 at 2:43 AM, insert_name said:

SpaceX currently only provides cargo service to the iss and orbital launch vehicles. Nasa does the exploration.

I believe the distortion is due to all the PR SpaceX is getting; NASA's in the long haul stage, with not nearly enough innovations to keep even moderately literate space fans interested for long; their probes cannot really compete with SpaceX's fancy propulsive landings and big plans.

And SpaceX is just the least overhyped of Musk's hobbies. Hyperloop is the new cold fusion, Tesla's probably failing...