DerekL1963

What makes you think he's running it now? Yeah, I was going to say "Gwenne Shotwell, just like now". That's what my sources tell me - though Elon Musk is the money man, and the idea man, and the very public face of SpaceX... It's Gwynne Shotwell that's actually doing virtually all the heavy lifting.

What makes you think he's running it now?

Large flat barges are *VERY* hard to capsize - especially with something as trivial (compared to the barge's displacement) as an F9 stage hitting it at fairly modest velocity.

There are various options; the only necessary things are the addition of an auxiliary tank and the installation of nozzle extensions. It doesn't matter if there are five options or fifteen, or whether they're optional or necessary - none of them are minor. None, zero, zip, nada. They're significant alterations to the form, fit, and function of major components of the vehicle.

Because the alterations you're proposing aren't even "relatively" minor. They're significant alterations to major components of the vehicle.

The big problem with those Saturn V upgrades is the crawler and the MLP... Some of the configurations with strap-ons exceed the weight the crawler can support and those strap-ons have to be brought to the pad separately. Almost all of them require extensive modification to the MLP that subsequently renders them useless for other configurations. The LUT faces the same problem.

Because power points and press releases are cheap. And that's all you're going to see from this program.

For my part, probably 75% of my use of Tweak Scale is to turn the Skipper into a 3.75 meter engine... It makes a dang fine insertion engine.

Compared to designing a direct ascent lander capable of Earth re-entry without staging? Yeah, I'd call designing, building, and installing a couple of tanks (each less than 2 m across) is minimal. 0.o Yeah, silly apples to the thing least like apples you can imagine comparisons are so useful. Seriously, the effort required to design a ludicrously specified vehicle is completely and totally irrelevant to the question at hand - the difficulties involved in converting a capsule as specified. Just because x is simpler than y does *not* means that x is in and of itself simple.

In the lab - which is a very long way from reliable, flyable hardware.

You're planning on adding a nearly seven ton tank - and you think the modifications to the inside would be minimal?

Nevertheless, it was actually only possible because the sats were designed with attachment points that were compatible with the Shuttle, and because NASA had full details of the dimensions and weight distribution of those sats. That's my point Nibb - they didn't have any 'specialized attachment points'. What attachment points they did have were jettisoned along with the kick motor. As recovered, they had no attachment points at all. None. Zip. Nada. That's why they had to design grappling fixtures that the astronauts attached while spacewalking. And if the insurance company (who paid for the recovery) wanted NASA to have the relevant specs, you can bet the builder would pony them up.

Those birds were released from cradles (not grappled), and the launch cradles were quite different from those they were brought back on (since the launch cradles were attached to the jettisioned kick motors).

It's probably to avoid immediate bad press. That and the manned boat is a good long way clear of the barge for safety reasons.

Have these been brought up to date for 1.0.5?

Can I just not install the directories marked 'deprecated' since I'm installing for the first time?

That's like saying space launches are easy as long as you are willing to spend lots of money. Yes, we can make synthetic oil, but why burn real oil and then spend way more energy making synthetic oil? No, it's nothing like saying space launches are easy as long as you are willing to spend a lot of money. It's everything like saying renewable and/or non fossil energy sources can provide even in the complete absence of any input fossil hydrocarbons. The original question was "is there anything we get from oil that we can't get elsewhere?", and the answer to that is a resounding NO. Yep. And natural gas and coal tars can also provide a source of input hydrocarbons. So can methane extracted from fermentation processes. So can various plant and animal derivatives. There's also work afoot on various methods of breaking down plastics into their source hydrocarbons. And that's setting aside that we can start with constituents in their elemental forms.

Yes. Oil itself. It's a tremendously useful complex chemical, one that we totally waste when we just burn it up. Oil is nothing by hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and a few trace contaminants - and we know how to synthesize it's derivatives from nothing but those raw materials. The problem, and the reason oil itself is so useful, is that the synthesis process is very energy intensive. But once you have spare energy, that's no longer a problem.

Barge landing are going to be important for recovering the core of F9H.

This fixed 90% of my flippy/tippy rocket problems.

Something which can be seen by all the precision guided long range conventional missiles deployed... or not, since pretty much only one was ever deployed (Pershing II) and it's precision came from radar rather than inertial guidance. In fact, that's true of all 'precision' guided conventional weapons - the precision comes not from inertial guidance, but from terminal guidance using either external sources (GPS, ARMs), or non-inertial sensors (lasers, TV cameras, radar). The inertial system is only present to stabilize the weapon and to steer it into the 'basket' where the non inertial system takes over for the terminal phase. Inertial guidance, even the most expensive and sensitive and modern systems, simply isn't accurate enough for conventional explosives. And you can get a man into orbit with a system good to only a few inches per second - which is hopelessly inaccurate for all but a fair sized nuke. Precision artillery fire today depends on technology that isn't required for putting a man into orbit. While there are some technologies that would change the conduct of warfare, none of them will do to any huge degree - the modern battlefield is a child of the microprocessor revolution, not the space program.

Quite likely that has much to do with SpaceX advance publicity on the (optional) landing attempt vice the success of delivering the payload. Or it might have something to do with the vast imbalance in public interest between the (optional) landing attempt vice the success of delivering the payload. Etc... etc... The press aren't idiots - they know dang well that sex sells. Just look at the thread here, how many posts did the fanboys make asking if the payload made it vice how many were looking for information on the (optional) landing? Note that Musk's tweet on the payload wasn't repeated, but his tweet on the (optional) landing attempt was.

Von Braun's plans can be thoroughly understood with little more than casual exposure, which shouldn't come as much surprise because there's not really much there. They weren't formal engineering plans or studies of the types we're used to seeing from NASA, they're essentially 'hard SF' intended to be used to gain publicity. And PB666 is correct, they're not really valid because they used approaches we know won't work today or are far too expensive* and they're filled with engineering details** that we now know are incorrect or unworkable. (Though to be fair, nobody else knew any better then either.) * Such as assembling the spacecraft from girder and plate stock on orbit. ** Such as bubble canopies.

Musk's ego would take a hit.

The Cylon victories against the colonies were mostly successful because the plot required it. Too successful, and there'd be no hope and no show. Not successful enough, and there wouldn't anything worthy of a show for different reasons. They had to be just successful enough for the desired plot to arise.